Voices in Videoconferencing: Technology Integration in Teacher Education Courses
Source: Journal of Computing in Teacher Education, vol. 23, no.2, Winter 2007.
Publisher: Department of curriculum and Instruction Center for Technology in Learning and Teaching
This manuscript describes the efforts of several instructors who incorporated videoconferencing in their teacher education courses at two large universities in the southeastern United States. Professors preparing teachers to teach elementary and middle school examined their interactive videoconference experiences linking preservice teachers with students in real classroom settings.
Three projects are described. The first project involved “teleobservation” whereby professors co-taught with K–6 classroom teachers while preservice teachers observed. The second project focused on a middle-grades English Language Arts professor whose preservice teachers observed middle school students in real time. In the third project, a university professor served as a live audience for an elementary Reader’s Theatre performance. The lessons learned through the evaluation of these three projects are discussed.