Notes from “Pre-Service English Teachers and Web 2.0” from SITE 2010

Notes from “Pre-Service English Teachers and Web 2.0: Teaching and Learning Literacy with Digital Applications”

Luke Rodesiler and Lauren Tripp, University of Florida

  • Helping pre-service teachers re-imagine what it means to be literate
    • Tools including VoiceThread, PBWorks, and Xtranormal
    • Theoretical framework including social constructionism, interactional elements of effective literacy instruction and how texts are constructed
  • Primary research questions:
    • What understandings of technology do prospective English teachers receal when they are describing their technology use in public school classrooms?
    • How do prospective English teachers understandings of technology change as they become familiar with Web 2.0 applications?
    • How do prospective English teachers understand the role of Web 2.0 applications in teaching?
  • Data sources:
    • Surveys with open and closed ended questions to gain understandings of their technology use in the classroom
    • Classroom observations of student teachers in context
    • Artifacts of student work, including assignments and reflections
    • Focus group interviews at the end of the semester
  • Data analysis
    • Quantitative analysis of survey data
    • Qualitative analysis of classroom observations, student work, and focus group interviews
  • Findings
    • Student teachers were using technology in narrowly conceived ways
      • Accessing web content to search for and/or enhance lessons
      • Using Power Point to present information
      • “When I was in my internship, YouTube and Google was all I thought of using…”
    • Understanding how Web 2.0 technologies could foster collaboration and support teaching and learning where enhanced
      • Recognized collaborative tools
      • Their own facility with technology
      • Own discourse about teaching
      • Future organization and distribution of student work
    • Collaborative effort — how this experience could work as a method for professional learning
    • Made connections between the affordances of Web 2.0 applications and literacy practices valued in English language arts
      • Potential for student collaboration, revision of student writing, engaging students
  • Conclusions
    • Many students were unaware, yet were nudged toward more nuanced views of technology, texts, and literacy practices
    • We saw a shift in perception from “web-for-consumption” to “web-for-production” (using wikis, for instance)
  • Concerns
    • Lack of computer and internet access in schools
    • Expanding definitions of literacy
    • Personal use of technologies vs. professional use
  • Further questions
    • How can we support pre-service teachers in recognizing the availability of the tools
    • How can we expand their notions of literacy outside of technology
    • How can we help them build their personal learning network


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One thought on “Notes from “Pre-Service English Teachers and Web 2.0” from SITE 2010”

  1. Hi, Troy,
    Enjoyed looking at your notes. Did you do this study? I was wondering what kinds of tools and access to technology these students had? Your students? How were they able to work with cooperating teachers who used nothing at all

    Wait–this was in a methods class–not student teaching, right? Where do you go from here?

    Keri

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