ePortfolios in craft education at the primary level: Teachers’ experiences on ICT integration

Abstract

The Finnish National Core Curriculum (NCC), which took effect at the primary school level in autumn 2016, includes ICT competence for all school grades, and encourages pupils to document their working processes in crafts. However, the literature provides evidence of
the barriers faced by teachers in integrating information and communication technologies (ICT) into teaching. This paper is shaped as an autoethnography, and its purpose is to share the challenging experiences of primary school teachers involved in the integration
of technology in an electronic portfolio (ePortfolio) project in craft education with 43 third-grade pupils in a Finnish primary school context. Research data – field journal notes, video recordings and interviews – were analysed qualitatively, relying on Ertmer’s
conceptual framework on ICT barriers (1999) and five main categories were reported, which are ‘Inadequate software/hardware’, ‘Learner group attributes’, ‘Allocation of responsibility’, ‘Lack of resources’ and ‘Teacher attributes’. Based on the results, the study discusses the challenges of integrating ICT into craft education in primary level.