Section archive - ICT & Teaching

This article describes a project designed to improve the practicum in rural areas. The researchers placed pre-service teachers (PSTs) in two different moderated online discussion forums: an unstructured personal blog space and a structured threaded discussion forum where discussion topics guided them to reflect on their practicum experiences in relation to theoretical components of their studies. The findings indicated a marked difference in the contributions made to each form of online discussion with significantly greater participation in the unstructured blog format.

This study was designed to examine whether the integration of digital learning technologies in teacher education programs enhances a larger educational mission to foster preservice teachers’ understanding of music and digital literacy. The findings reveal that the majority of participating preservice teachers subscribed to an understanding of music literacy based upon traditional values of developing students’ notation skills. Although a framework for learning was in place, the process was designed as organic, developing with each exchange of musical selections and accompanying reviews and responses. For those accustomed to teacher-centered instruction, this created a measure of initial anxiety.

This article is based on the experience gained with an online learning community developed as part of a pilot project that followed a national research study of in-service career and technical education (CTE) administrators and teachers. The authors summarize the most salient points when designing a learning community website, the following features need to be in place to promote interaction: clarify the goals of the website, its function and limitations; ensure privacy from the outside and a psychologically safe environment; ensure that community members understand the features of the website; structure authentic learning tasks, dialog, and posting activity to match the goals of the course; a facilitator or moderator should encourage and reinforce the initial postings, especially from novices; encourage threaded discussion groups to form according to problem topic or academic area; and activities will need to have time limits.

Based on a cross-contextual research paradigm, this study compares the combinations of content and process concepts identified as important in the context of professors with those considered relevant in the context of teachers. The authors found significant differences between computer science professors and teachers. The greatest differences were found in their evaluations of the content concepts algorithm and structure: professors and teachers differed significantly in their evaluations of these concepts’ relationships with five and four process concepts, respectively.