Reflecting on the development of a new school subject: the development of technology education in New Zealand.

The last 10 years have seen the production of curricula in Australia, the United Kingdom, USA, Canada, Hong Kong and New Zealand that emphasise the importance of students developing technological literacy. This paper traces the development of a new subject - technology education - in the New Zealand curriculum and explores the politics of development of a new subject as well as the theoretical stances and research that contributed to its development from 1992 until 2005. This paper outlines the various stages of development including curriculum development, teacher development, and the move to creating a classroom research agenda to enhance the teaching and learning in technology education. The paper reinforces the notion that significant gains can be made in curriculum, teaching, learning and assessment when research and development are conducted in an ongoing manner

Auditing the TPACK confidence of Australian pre-service teachers: the TPACK confidence survey (TCS)

This chapter describes the construction and validation of an instrument to measure teachers’ Technological Pedagogical Content Knowledge (TPACK). The TPACK Confidence Survey (TCS) contains scales that measure teachers’ attitudes toward using ICT; confidence to use ICT for teaching and learning tasks (TPACK); competency with ICT; Technology Knowledge (TK); and TPACK Vocational Self-efficacy. The scale measuring TPACK confidence uses the Learning With ICTs: Measuring ICT Use in the Curriculum instrument that has been evaluated and reported previously. This paper proposes that the TCS provides a valid and reliable instrument with which to audit teachers’ TPACK confidence

Teaching and learning in virtual worlds: is it worth the effort?

Educators have been quick to spot the enormous potential afforded by virtual worlds for situated and authentic learning, practising tasks with potentially serious consequences in the real world and for bringing geographically dispersed faculty and students together in the same space (Gee, 2007; Johnson and Levine, 2008). Though this potential has largely been realised, it generally isn’t without cost in terms of lack of institutional buy-in, steep learning curves for all participants, and lack of a sound theoretical framework to support learning activities (Campbell, 2009; Cheal, 2007; Kluge & Riley, 2008). This symposium will explore the affordances and issues associated with teaching and learning in virtual worlds, all the time considering the question: is it worth the effort

Transforming pre-service teacher curriculum: observation through a TPACK lens

This paper will discuss an international online collaborative learning experience through the lens of the Technological Pedagogical Content Knowledge (TPACK) framework. The teacher knowledge required to effectively provide transformative learning experiences for 21st century learners in a digital world is complex, situated and changing. The discussion looks beyond the opportunity for knowledge development of content, pedagogy and technology as components of TPACK towards the interaction between those three components. Implications for practice are also discussed. In today’s technology infused classrooms it is within the realms of teacher educators, practising teaching and pre-service teachers explore and address effective practices using technology to enhance learning

Semantic web learning technology design: addressing pedagogical challenges and precarious futures

Semantic web technologies have the potential to extend and transform teaching and learning, particularly in those educational settings in which learners are encouraged to engage with ‘authentic’ data from multiple sources. In the course of the ‘Ensemble’ project, teachers and learners in different disciplinary contexts in UK Higher Education worked with educational researchers and technologists to explore the potential of such technologies through participatory design and rapid prototyping. These activities exposed some of the barriers to the development and adoption of emergent learning technologies, but also highlighted the wide range of factors, not all of them technological or pedagogical, that might contribute to enthusiasm for and adoption of such technologies. This suggests that the scope and purpose of research and design activities may need to be broadened and the paper concludes with a discussion of how the tradition of operaismo or ‘workers’ enquiry’ may help to frame such activities. This is particularly relevant in a period when the both educational institutions and the working environments for which learners are being prepared are becoming increasingly fractured, and some measure of ‘precarity’ is increasingly the norm

EDUsummIT 2011 Report from TWG3: Teacher Professional Development

A summary of the discussion and recommendations from the International Summit on ICT in Education 2011 working group on professional development of teachers

Landscape Study in Wireless and Mobile Learning in the post-16 sector

In the post-16 sector (further and higher education, and adult and community learning) there is a need to understand how wireless and mobile technologies can contribute to improving the student experience of learning, and help institutions fulfil their missions in an age of incomparably fast technological change. In the context of this interest and growing need, a Landscape Study project was commissioned by JISC through the Innovation strand of the JISC e-Learning Programme in 2004-5. Our project aims were to take a birds-eye view of developments and practice in the UK and internationally, and to communicate our findings to a broad and varied audience. The Summary report is accompanied by 3 associated reports on 'Current Uses', 'Potential Uses' and 'Strategic Aspects'. (The four reports are available in one single document here.

Considering pedagogical content knowledge in the context of research on teaching: An example from technology.

When thinking about teaching, the pedagogical content knowledge of teachers cannot be ignored. We argue that pedagogical content knowledge is a major determiner of teaching practice and is central to teachers' curriculum decision-making at the classroom level. This paper takes a sociocultural perspective on the importance of developing teachers' pedagogical content knowledge. From our classroom-based research in technology education and the past research on pedagogical content knowledge we propose a model of pedagogical content knowledge with seven characteristics that we believe are important for effective teaching

Integrating ICT in Kenyan secondary schools: an exploratory case study of a professional development program

This study explores the introduction of Information and Communication Technology (ICT) in Kenyan secondary schools. Specifically, it is a case study of four schools with no previous access to ICT. The professional development program from which data for this study were drawn was designed to support teachers learning to integrate ICT in the curriculum. Using a mixed method research approach, we collected data from multiple sources and triangulated the views of various stakeholders: questionnaires with teachers, focus groups with teachers, school leaders and ICT coordinators, field observations and document analysis. While the broader program focused on the use of ICT, the results highlighted in this study focus on the development of the four schools with respect to 1) vision building, 2) leadership, 3) collaboration, 4) expertise, and 5) access to adequate resources. The discussion centers on the challenges and opportunities inherent in understanding how to prepare schools in developing countries to integrate ICT in education

Using design-based research to develop a Mobile Learning Framework for Assessment Feedback

Students’ lack of engagement with their assessment feedback and the lack of dialogue and communication for feedback are some of the issues that affect educational institutions. Despite the affordance that mobile technologies could bring in terms of assessment feedback, research in this area is scarce. The main obstacle for research on mobile learning assessment feedback is the lack of a cohesive and unified mobile learning framework. This paper thus presents a Mobile Learning Framework for Assessment Feedback (MLFAF), developed using a design-based research approach. The framework emerged from the observation of, and reflection upon, the different stages of a research project that investigated the use of a mobile web application for summative and formative assessment feedback. MLFAF can be used as a foundation to study the requirements when developing and implementing wide-scale mobile learning initiatives that underpin longitudinal practices, as opposed to short-term practices. The paper also provides design considerations and implementation guidelines for the use of mobile technology in assessment feedback to increase student engagement and foster dialogic feedback communication channels