In schools, some teachers’ digital practice development does not happen in formal workshops. It happens in corridors, staffrooms and quick messages between offices. A teacher leans over to show a faster way to use the LMS. Someone forwards a template that makes reporting easier. A panicked “how do I fix this” message in a chat thread turns into a mini lesson for half the team.
In my research, I treat these moments as informal exchange of digital practices. They are not side extras, they are one of the main ways teachers actually develop and adapt their digital work. The study follows how these small conversations and shared resources keep digital systems running in practice, long after the official training session has finished.
What informal exchange looks like
Informal exchange covers a wide range of everyday moves, for example:
• showing someone a workaround at their desk
• sharing a screenshot walkthrough in a subject chat
• copying a colleague’s structure for an online lesson or assessment
• quietly troubleshooting a platform during a lesson to save a class
• sounding out a colleague about how to handle AI use in a tricky situation
Often this help is fast, specific and tailored to a particular class or context. It is usually undocumented. It travels through trust and relationships rather than through policy or manuals.
These exchanges are positive in many ways. They build collegiality, spread practical knowledge and can make a hard day survivable. At the same time, the research shows that they can concentrate pressure on a few “go to” people, create hidden expectations around availability, and mask the extent of digital workload from leaders who only see the official systems.
Why it matters
Informal exchange matters because it carries real labour and risk. When schools talk about “peer collaboration” or “sharing good practice”, this work is often what they mean, but it is rarely named or resourced. Teachers do it on top of already full loads, using their own time, patience and social capital.
Understanding informal exchange helps to answer questions such as:
• Who gets timely digital help, and who does not feel safe asking for it
• How quickly new platforms or AI tools spread through a school, and why
• Where informal support is masking bigger structural problems in systems or workload
• How much of a school’s digital capacity is resting on a small number of generous colleagues
For teachers, naming this work can validate the quiet coaching and troubleshooting you already do for one another. For leaders, it is a reminder that any digital strategy is sitting on top of an informal support network that can be stretched thin. For researchers, it opens up informal peer learning as a distinct form of labour, not just a warm idea about “collaboration”.
How this pillar links to the rest of the site
Informal exchange of digital practices sits alongside the other pillars:
• Digitally Mediated Work of Teachers describes the full digital workload.
• Informal exchange shows how teachers help each other manage and improve that work.
• Organisational and industrial conditions shape where informal help is possible, and where it is blocked or overused.
Taken together, they show that digital practice in schools is not just about individual skill or a single tool. It is about relationships, workload and the conditions under which people are trying to support one another.
Explore informal exchange
If you would like to go further into this pillar, you might start with:
• Five Ways Teachers Quietly Learn Digital Tricks From Each Other
• Corridor Coaching, How Micro Conversations Change Practice
• The Hidden Cost of Being the “Go To” Tech Teacher
• When Informal Sharing Masks Digital Workload Problems
Read all blog posts →
Dominic Brash 