There is an educational need to understand what impact laptops and instructional technologies have on teaching practice and active student learning. This paper presents examples of teacher and learner narrative, as they describe their use of laptops and instructional technologies in day to day activities in The Quinn School of Business (QSB). Two broad levels of inquiry are explored in this paper: firstly discussion and analysis centres around the active use of laptops, by staff, within teaching communities of practice in the QSB, secondly discussion and analysis centres on the active use of laptops, by students, within learning communities of practice in the QSB. This paper provides insight (from an observer-researcher-practitioner perspective) into patterns of laptop use, as described and experienced by teachers and learners in the QSB. Primary empirical data for this study was obtained from exploratory, unstructured in-depth, one-to-one recorded interviews (Guba & Lincoln, 1994, p652) with five staff respondents and two student respondents, in Semester 1 of the 2004/2005 academic year. Access and selection of respondents was authorised and provided by two "Gatekeepers" (Hammersley & Atkinson, 1995). They identified key staff and student "Informants" (Van Maaen, 1998, Geertz, 1973) who would provide in-depth insights and different social and cultural perspectives of laptop use in teaching and learning practice in the QSB. To manage ethnical and rigor issues associated with recruitment and interview processes, all respondents were provided with a copy of the research study aims, objectives and consent documents on initial contact and before interview. After interview, transcripts were emailed to all respondents for checking, clarification and permissions were obtained to published transcribed content. Further primary contextual data was obtained by interacting with teaching staff and students on a daily and informal basis. Secondary data was obtained from curricula planning meetings, departmental meetings, while online course content and administrative documentation was made available for viewing and analysis. Primary and secondary data are combined in this paper to provide "think description" (Geertz, 1973) to aid understanding and interpretation of the socio-cultural environment of the QSB, and provide the reader with a richer picture of teaching and learning practices as situated activity (Engestrom, 1999, Lave and Wenger, 1991) in the QSB. The work of Denzin (1997) prompts the use of interpretive ethnography to understand complex relationships between the ethnographer and the surrounding socially constructed world, and we take Denzin's guidance that "a text should show, not tell" (p40, 1997) as the basis for presenting textual narrative examples of laptop and instructional technology use by teachers and learners in action. Further research is planned in 2005 to explore further aspects of teaching and learning practices over time, and we hope that this research may be of benefit to other practitioners interested in the pedagogical merits of instructional technologies. By engaging with communities of teaching and learning practitioners in the QSB, we strive to obtain a better understanding of current issues facing staff and students in their daily use of laptops and instructional technologies. As observers and researcher- practitioners in the QSB we feel privileged that access has been granted for us to engage with staff and students in ethnographic research, as they incorporate laptops and instructional technologies into their daily teaching and learning lives. We hope this paper will show some insight into the current impacts of laptops and instructional technologies on staff and student, teaching and learning practices. The authors intend this research paper to be of interest to teaching practitioners, policy makers, instructional designers and researchers of teaching and learning theories and practice.