ETaP – Where did it originate?

The Evolution of Thought and Practice (ETap), sometimes used by Apple to describe the stages of technology adoption in educational institutions has always resonated with me.  Giving some process or structure to the journey that most teachers take when engaging in educational technology is helpful in order to identify yourself and skill.  I have, however, often wondered where this model originated.  I first learned about it from Kathleen Ferenz and Apple education employees.  Recently I found an article in Contemporary Issues in Technology and Teacher Education where a number of different adoption models were compared.  The article, “A Five-Stage Model of Computer Technology Integration Into Teacher Education Curriculum” by Cheri Toledo at Illinois State University attributes the ETaP stages to Marsha Gladhart and states that she “developed a Levels of Adoptio n model by adapting the Apple Classrooms of Tomorrow (ACOT) study by Dwyer, Ringstaff, and Sandholtz (1992).”

 

The next step… contacting Marsha Gladhart and finding out how she came about creating these ETaP stages.

In the mean time, I found it very helpful and interesting to compare the other models listed in Cheri Toledo’s work.  A graphic: