Ekaterina Tour

Teachers’ self-initiated professional learning through Personal Learning Networks

It is widely acknowledged that to be able to teach language and literacy with digital technologies, teachers need to engage in relevant professional learning. Existing formal models of professional learning are often criticised for being ineffective. In contrast, informal and self-initiated forms of learning have been recently recognised as meaningful and relevant but little is known about these authentic learning experiences for professional purposes. This article investigates three teachers’ self-initiated professional learning about digital technologies through their Personal Learning Networks. The analysis identified that the participants’ everyday digital literacy practices provided opportunities for a range of professional practices that supported learning about digital technologies: information retrieval and resources aggregation, cooperation, collaboration, reflections and socialising. It also revealed that the teachers considered this form of learning as valuable. The article concludes by discussing how knowledge about self-initiated professional learning might be used to draw out some implications for teachers’ professional development.

Understanding Digital Literacy Practices: What Can Be Learnt with Visual Methods?.

Abstract Digital technologies are increasingly used by children and adults in their everyday lives and these practices have attracted researchers’ and practitioners’ attention. However, everyday digital literacy practices are difficult to examine. They require appropriate research methods and visual methods have potential here. Although some visual methods are actively used in the field of Literacy Studies, participant-generated digital photography and photo-elicitation remain under-employed in the research of digital literacy practices. Drawing on a qualitative study, this article argues that these methods allow in-depth insights into digital literacy practices to be gained. They offer comprehensive understanding of practices by illuminating what is involved in practices, how practices happen and why people engage in them in particular ways. However, the use of these methods is also associated with a number of challenges. The article concludes with the discussion of the implications for researchers and teacher-researchers who wish to use visual methods to examine digital literacy practices in different contexts.