Source: Action in Teacher Education, Volume 37, Issue 2, 2015, pages 120-137.
This article explores a teacher educator's observations of preservice teachers’ technological literacy as it is often enacted across iterations of a writing methods course.
Using personal examples and classroom anecdotes, the author argues that the construct of digital native is flawed and, instead, the author positions preservice teachers as instructional-technology learners rather than instructional-technology experts.
Within the context of teacher education, she calls for explicit instruction in multimedia literacy and technology-mediated teaching with the goal that preservice teachers develop insider knowledge of multimedia literacy and the ways in which digital texts and devices work.
To this end, she positions technological-literacy learning as parallel to early language learning as well as second-language acquisition, suggesting that preservice teachers understand technology and digital products from behind the screen before they are expected to engage in instructional-technology strategies in front of the screen.