The impact of digital technologies on teachers working in flexible learning environments

This study was conducted in late 2010 and early 2011, a time during which the language of learning "at any time, at any place and at any pace" had already entered into Alberta Education's 2010-13 business plan. The importance of making access to learning more flexible was also beginning to dominate system-level discussions about the informed transformation of the education system. Policies concerning digital technologies for learning have, in some cases, been hastily developed in the absence of research-based evidence from the Alberta context about the impact of these technologies on teaching and learning. A thorough exploration of the impact of flexible and digitally mediated learning environments on the work life of teachers is, therefore, needed. This study is currently the largest of its kind on this topic in Alberta and, indeed, of any population of teachers in Canada.