Sarah Jane Prestridge

A focus on students’ use of Twitter – their interactions with each other, content and interface

In their advertising campaigns, universities depict students using computers, laptops, mobile phones, iPads and tablets as learning devices. Regardless of the marketing used, there is value in enlisting the advantages of any medium that can aid deep thinking and increase student engagement. This study offers new knowledge about conceptualising Twitter as a knowledge construction tool leveraged through mobile devices. A qualitative approach was conducted to investigate the learning outcomes of students’ use of Twitter when it was implemented as a learning device. The use of Twitter was investigated to provide insight into the ways students and instructors interacted in this environment, how the content was made active and how the functionality of the tool and its conceptualisation impedes and/or supports the learning process. The results indicate that student-initiated interaction supported by instructor use of participatory pedagogies enables substantive dialogue through Twitter and that paraphrasing was the most common way students made learning active.

Teachers’ talk in professional development activity that supports change in their ICT pedagogical beliefs and practices

Enabling teachers to talk about their professional practice is an essential element of professional development; however, the types of conversations required for transformative outcomes are not clearly defined. Teachers from eight Australian primary schools (grades 1–7) participated in a collaboratively designed information and communication technologies (ICT) professional development program over a period of 12 months. Teachers conversed through an online threaded discussion forum as well as within small and large group face‐to‐face meetings as part of their ICT professional development activities. The findings suggest evidence of two types of talk that have a concomitant relationship in the development of transformative practice within ICT professional development: collegial and critical discussion. Collegial discussion is found to be important in developing community and common understandings while critical discussion is vital for its role in transforming teachers’ beliefs. The environment in which conversations take place plays a major role in the type of talk in which teachers will engage. The findings of this research inform both ICT professional development for practicing teachers and the functioning and productivity of professional learning in online learning communities.

Preparing beginning teachers for technology integration in education: ready for take-off?

The overall aims of this study are to explore (1) how beginning teachers integrate technology in their practice and (2) the connections between teachers’ technology uses and their pre-service education programmes. Data of this follow-up study were collected through in-depth interviews with beginning teachers. The results reveal that all beginning teachers used a wide range of technological applications, mainly for structured learning approaches, while few created opportunities for student-centred technology use. Further, pre-service learning experiences that impact graduate teachers’ technology use are identified. While teacher educators modelling technology use are an important motivator for beginning teachers to use technology in their own teaching, field experiences seem to be the most critical factor influencing their current practice. Based on the results of this study, recommendations about how to prepare and support pre-service and beginning teachers for technology integration are discussed.

Conceptualising self-generating online teacher professional development

In 2012, a research project was implemented to investigate the possibility and effectiveness of instituting a personalised and virtually networked mode of professional development to promote teacher confidence and competence with information and communications technology and its use as a key component of teachers’ pedagogy. The aim of the project was to examine an online mode of professional development where a network of teachers was built without any face-to-face contact and where the approach for professional development was personalised and self-directed. Six geographically dispersed schools in Queensland were involved, with 12 teachers participating over the school year supported by a mentor. Findings reveal that teachers operated in an independent manner, acknowledging community but taking from rather than contributing to the generation of co-created knowledge. Implications drawn from the case studies suggest that greater milestone-setting, multiple levels of leadership and special interest groups are required to support interaction between users and content while still maintaining an agile approach.

Examining the shaping of teachers’ pedagogical orientation for the use of technology

Abstract Teachers’ current uses of technologies still tend to replicate traditional and/ or administrative practices, with research indicating that the pedagogies required for the effective integration of educational technologies are not yet in evidence amongst the majority of teachers. In order to conceptualise what could be considered effective pedagogies for the use of technology, greater understanding of what informs teachers’ particular approaches and how teachers come to change their approaches over time is required. Succinctly, what is needed is a deep understanding of a teacher’s developmental process for their conceptualisation of the relationship between technology and pedagogy. Through an in-depth, two-year case study methodology, three teachers’ journey to use game-based technologies in their classrooms was examined. The results provide valuable insights into the relationship between teachers’ pedagogical beliefs and practices about the use of technologies; trigger points in teachers’ journeys that influence change in their pedagogical orientation for the use of technology; and rich stories of innovation in teaching. This study has implications for teacher professional development and supporting effective technology integration.

A Classification Framework for Exploring Technology-Enabled Practice–FrameTEP

This article theorizes the construction of a classification framework to explore teachers’ beliefs and pedagogical practices for the use of digital technologies in the classroom. There are currently many individual schemas and models that represent both developmental and divergent concepts associated with technology-enabled practice. This article draws from a depth of literature in this field to synthesize a classification framework used as an analytic tool to interpret technology-enabled practice. The framework was drawn from literature covering teachers’ epistemic beliefs, pedagogical beliefs, pedagogical approaches, technological competency, and perceived levels of learning. It emerged as a result of the need to analysis case study data from a large-scale research project into the effective use of digital games in the classroom: Serious Play: Digital Games, Learning and Literacy for Twenty First Century Schooling. Yin suggests the use of a uniform framework to enable cross-case synthesis. The framework provides an analytical tool to help interpret why and how teachers are using, in this case, digital games in their classrooms. It also provides a significant contribution to the variances in technology-enabled practice along the traditional-constructivist continuum as well as to the relationship in how teacher beliefs direct pedagogical practice and choice of technologies used for learning.