The top level, Figure 1, describes the attributes, the more stable aspects of their personality, which enable lecturers to make use of their skills and practices to design and deliver learning activities which make use of technology. It appeared that lecturers felt connected and committed to ways of working using digital tools. They gravitated to these ways of working and they are the ‘norms’ of their practice:

It [teaching with Web 2.0 tools] just feels normal. I don't think I could teach if I went to another institution somewhere else where everything was chalk and talk. I think I'd die a death now because I'm so ingrained with it. [James]

Other lecturers also illustrated how new ways of working are assimilated into their beliefs and ways of operating. Sue said ‘I didn't think of not doing’ when asked why she had decided to adopt an online tool because she saw it as the normal thing to do. In this way digital practices become normal, rather than exceptional, once they are part of the practitioner's repertoire. This assimilation of practices into a sense of being resonates with Ecclesfield, Rebbeck, and Garnett's (2012) ideas of normalising of digital practices and White and Le Cornu's (2011) notions of Post Digital in that once they become learnt they are part of one's repertoire. Thus, this finding suggests that for many of these early adopters, the assimilation of a practice into one's belief system appears to reflect an orientation towards technology which is notable and different from merely identifying a ‘skill set’ in that it is embedded into the lecturers’ values and beliefs.

Lecturers in this study reported a wealth of expertise in the complexity of online learning and of their role as designers and facilitators of that learning. This included an understanding of how to design online learning activities, management of the learning process for both individuals and with groups. But they did so thoughtfully in order to address a pedagogical need rather than focussing on the technology for its own sake:

One thing I am very conscious of is that I don't want to use technology for the sake of what it looks like … I only use it when I think it benefits them … I think that is the key to any of this technology is that you should only use it if you can see a clear benefit to the students … If you put technology in for technology's sake they don't like doing it, but they do like doing it if it serves a purpose. [Rachel]

For Sue and Richard their knowledge of the tools is entwined with what they want to achieve to support students’ learning:

They could submit their portfolio via the blog tool. But that seemed quite complicated to get them to do … the more that you give them [to do] the more complex it gets. [Sue]

I think possibly one of the areas that we haven't focussed so much of is the ability to provide comments on wiki pages which I think is the next level of development where … there would be an opportunity to challenge misinformation, or not even that, but address things that may need further clarification that students haven't already pulled out. So I'm aware that wikis allow that to happen. [Richard]

The most experienced lecturers appeared to understand the tools and how they could be used within a learning activity. When they discussed designing for learning sometimes it appeared to be a ‘dance’ whereby the technology's features afforded particular ways of being used which needed to be thoughtful applied to enable them to support learning. Sue discusses the value of portfolios as a learning strategy and the way that a blog can facilitate this balanced against the complexity for her students whilst Richard debates using comments within a wiki to develop his students’ critical engagement. Similarly Mishra and Koehler (2006) argue that it is inappropriate to separate technological skills from the way that they impact on both the content knowledge (what is going to be taught) and the pedagogical knowledge (how it is going to be taught).

The ‘skills level’ in Sharpe and Beetham's (2010) framework focusses on how students develop their technical, information, communication and learning skills. For tutors, the skills they reported were a detailed understanding of how the tools operated, for example, their features, permanence, their stability, knowledge of how simple they were to use and to learn, how robust and reliable one tool was over another, types of video formats and the impact of different formats on delivery times. The quotes from Sue and Richard, in relation to the Practice level, illustrate these skills (alongside how they apply in practice).

Whilst many lecturers in the study demonstrated that they felt adequately technically skilled for their role, it was also evident that, some felt that their skills were not as good as their students, and notably this was not something of concern:

My technological skills [are not as good as my students] yes definitely … I don't think it matters as long as you build up some collaborative trusting relationship with them. [Catherine]

Many discussed a variety of techniques for managing limitations in their skills including being open and honest about their role as teachers, developing their skills through exploration and seeking out guidance and through developing their esteem with their students in terms of other aspects of their role:

I think it is important that we have to make our positions clear, that we are not practising designers and technologists on a regular basis. [Adrian]

One colleague was aware of her limited technical skill and found it worrying, not in terms of her self-esteem, but in relation to being able to support her students in handling the technology. In addition, this colleague expressed anxiety related to having, what she feels to be, an incomplete understanding of the technological tool:

I've only got a very superficial surface learning of how this thing works and as an academic you don't feel confident with that superficial learning and I want a deeper learning of how it all works. [Emily]

To summarise, given the sample of early adopters, it is not surprising to find that technical skills were not evident as a consistent concern; however, Emily's view suggests that skills may be an anxiety for those beyond the early adopter group.

The focus in this section has been on technical skills, but lecturers also discussed their online information literacy skills and universally they were happy with their own online information literacy skills.

In Sharpe and Beetham's (2010) learner-focussed framework, the access level incorporates students’ access to devices, technologies, resources and services. It includes aspects of ownership of devices, the accessibility of the tools, learning and issues related to time and time management. The data from this study showed that lecturers’ access to devices and to the online world did not appear to concern them. There was an assumption that access to devices connected to the Internet was there when they needed it. No one commented on the cost of purchasing equipment or of maintaining their Internet connection and one might infer that they did not resent the costs associated with access. However, the issues of time management and the management of the boundary between lecturers’ personal and professional lives appeared to be a concern for some tutors. This issue has two aspects: firstly in terms of the amount of time to learn the new tools, and secondly the way that lecturers’ personal and professional boundaries could be challenged when using Web 2.0 tools which are ‘always on’.

It was common for learning new skills to be described by lecturers as an investment. They spoke about recognising that there was an investment needed which pays off, either in terms of saving time later, or in terms of improved teaching and learning opportunities for their students. James sums up both succinctly:

I actually use them because one, I think they work, but two, in a lot of ways they save my time. [James]

It was also common that lecturers actively welcomed new ways of working that web tools enable or they accepted them as a necessary aspect of their working lives:

I think it [the use of Web 2 tools] will lead to [blurring of boundaries of home and work] but I've accepted that. [Jennifer]

So there is a bit of boundary erosion due to technology but I find it helps because I can quickly reply … I can just keep an eye on what's going on. I don't spend too much time [working at home]. I just take a quick look and reply to a student. [Abigail]

Others identified particular strategies that they used to manage those boundaries and the expectations of their students. These included not accepting students as friends in social media and giving students clear guidance in terms of when and what they can expect of them online:

I'm quite boundaried in my use of Web 2 technologies … You have to set up the expectation around engaging with this technology with the clear message that you as a tutor will be investing this much time in engaging with students’ work. [Richard]

Others had developed practical ways of demarking their lives:

I don't use my laptop at home. I do use my iPad but I choose which bits I want to do. I don't let my work life dictate to me at home … [Catherine]

However, amongst this overwhelming positive picture of staff investing and managing their time, there were other examples of colleagues who experienced this investment as a challenge in their working lives:

The main obstacle to that is volume of work … I feel like I haven't got the space to take time out to learn a new skill properly and that is a real, a significant and real hindrance. [Emily]

Thus, the picture is mixed, with some lecturers feeling in control of their lives through their use of technology, and some feeling under some additional pressures. Overall, those who had effective time management strategies were dominant, reflecting perhaps an aspect of the early adopters’ attitudes, practices and skills and something different to the experience reported by those who come later and more reluctantly to adoption of online teaching practices (Folley 2013).

The data from this small-scale study has illustrated that Beetham and Sharpe's framework can be applied to the data from some early adopters of online teaching practices. Figure 2 provides a revised framework with descriptors which I have called The Digital Practitioner Framework (DPF). It is proposed as a way of modelling the characteristics that are likely to be found in lecturers who adopt technology in their teaching and learning practices. The framework represents the attributes, practices and skills and access of Ecclesfield, Rebbeck, and Garnett's (2012) notion of a ‘digital practitioner’:

the “digital practitioner” is, in part, the “communicative practitioner” whose focus has become the initiation, support and facilitation of learning and whose expertise resides in both their subject knowledge and their ability to use technology and develop technology use in their students that opens out “ecology of knowledge and learning” and creates contexts to generate “obuchenie” where learning and teaching can become fused in collaboration. (p. 53)

The descriptors represent characteristics which were evident in many of the participants in my study. These descriptors are suggested to illuminate the attitudes, practices, skills and access features of those lecturers who are willingly trying out and experimenting with use of TEL in their pedagogic practice. They are proposed to stimulate further debate about lecturers’ dispositions in relation to TEL practices.

Sharpe and Beetham (2010) suggest that learners’ attributes, their sense of identity with and as a digital scholar, motivate them to acquire new practices, to learn new skills and to improve access. Lecturers’ identity did affect motivation in some cases. For instance Claudia, expressed her motivation to spend time learning a new tool very directly. Her simple clarity around her motivations gives weight to the notion that one's identity as a confident digital practitioner is a significant motivator for learning new skills and practices:

It [investing time] doesn't worry me much; I'm quite motivated to do it. [Claudia]

However, the overriding driver for uptake of TEL practices appeared to be the desire to improve to deliver high quality learning for their students:

It [learning to use video] was more through necessity as I recognised that it would be a really good way of doing things. [James]

I just thought this looks really interesting. I didn't think, ‘oh, it's going to take [time]’. [I think] I'm going to make time for it. Like any other thing that I'm impressed with that is going to be good for the students. [Abigail]

Lecturers’ attributes included not just confidence or sense of self-efficacy in relation to use of technology, but also, critically, a belief in its value. Whilst these appeared to affect lecturers’ desire to try out new practices, it appeared that the overriding driver was a commitment to serve their students. It has been noted by Masterman and Manton (2011) that beliefs give rise to motivation which is critical to TEL adoption. Likewise, Ertmer and Ottenbreit-Leftwich (2010) argue that self-efficacy and a belief in the value of technology are critical factors to the uptake of TEL practices. It appears that lecturers place great emphasis on meeting the needs and interests of their students, which Jephcote and Salsibury (2009) call the ‘principled ethics of care’ (p. 971). Similarly Cuban (1998, p. 71) found that teachers used technology when it supported reaching predetermined pedagogical goals and resisted changes that they believed to be irrelevant to their practice.

Hence a key finding of this study is that rather than notions of identity driving uptake instead these lecturers were motivated by their belief in the value of TEL to support improved student learning. This is a point of departure from Sharpe and Beetham's (2010) model in that the emphasis for lecturers is on serving their pedagogic goals rather than self-actualising as digital pedagogues.

This is illustrated in Figure 2, the DPF, by the downward arrow annotated with belief in the pedagogic value of TEL. The arrow covers all four levels to suggest that belief in TEL's pedagogic value drives these lecturers to adopt TEL in their practice, develop skills and to get access.

Lecturers in general did not appear to be particularly interested in the technology for its own sake. In many cases they only wanted to use tools when they have a role in supporting their teaching and learning practices. However, they recognised that they need to invest time in order to understand the tools and to assess their potential. They were also aware of the time consuming nature of learning to use new tools and that these skills were not stable and thus subject to frequent updating. This led to diffidence in their approach to developing skills. It was common for lecturers to show a lack of interest in the technology:

But there was nothing that drew me in those early stages that made me think I'm going to gain something through going through this learning curve. [Richard]

What appeared too was that although lecturers were not particularly interested in the technical skills per se, they often needed to understand the tools in quite a detailed way in order to make appropriate use of them in teaching practices:

We tried to use the Blackboard one [wiki] for art and design students particularly … [but] it was very hard to make it visually strong. They didn't like the fact that it loaded in alphabetical, rather than chronological, order. [Jennifer]

They've got a new version [of a wiki tool] now. It looks very nice but it is a bit more complicated to set up in terms of access for the students, because what I had previously was each team had one user name and password so that was quite easy to organise. [Abigail]

Hence the pattern of skills and experience driving appropriation did not, generally, appear to be evident in the data. Lecturers did not talk about the tools with particular interest or concern, instead they focussed on their potential to support teaching and learning. It has been suggested that it is lecturers’ skills that are a significant barrier to uptake of TEL practices (Cooke 2008; Browne et al. 2010). However, the findings from this study illustrate something different, in that skills are not the main barrier to adoption of TEL.

There was evidence of lecturers experimenting and trying out tools in their practice to see how they worked:

Alison suggested that we used that because she'd evaluated it. I was happy to go ahead with that and to take her advice. And that's proved to be true really … I couldn't be more delighted with what they'd achieved. [Jennifer]

It all started because I went to a lunch time taster session one that John [the Learning Technology Advisor] did that was on wikis. He said at that stage a blog would be better than a wiki. So that was the process of making it a blog. [And it was] successful on lots of levels. [Emily]

In these examples, the lecturers’ successful experimentation with TEL practices led to developing their confidence and thus their identity as a digital practitioner growing, that is where movement up the pyramid was evident. This is shown by the shorter upwards arrow which starts at the practice level to show that successful adoption of TEL appears to change a lecturer's belief about its value. It was rare that increased access or skills drove adoption of teaching and learning practices and hence the arrow does not begin with at the bottom of the pyramid. This contrasts with the student model (which has its upward arrow starting at the bottom level).

Thus, whilst this study has argued that uptake of TEL practices is driven by a lecturers’ belief in the value of technology to enhance learning, there are occasions when trying out a TEL practice as an experiment rather than committed to its value has resulted in lecturers developing as digital practitioners. If their experimental use of TEL was successful then this changed their belief in its value: they became more fully a digital practitioner (Ecclesfield, Rebbeck, and Garnett 2012).