Confidence and Willingness among Preservice Teachers to Use Technology to Support Learner-Centered Strategies that Address the Diverse Needs of Students: A Multimedia Experience
The purpose of this study was to examine the change in preservice teachers\u27 attitudes towards using technology to meet the needs of diverse students as noted by the National Educational Technology Standards for Teachers (NETS*S) III. B. This research included two interventions: a research paper assignment and a hands-on practice using technology to assist students with special needs. The study took place within the coursework in an instructional technology class offered for preservice teachers. After the pre-intervention survey was collected on the 10th week of the semester, the instructor explained the research paper assignment for assisting students with special needs with technology. The research question each student formulated was How can I meet the needs of ____ with technology? Each student selected his or her target group by filling in the blank. The second set of data was collected immediately after the paper was due. During the 13th week of the semester, there was a collaborative lecture delivered by the course instructor and a special education faculty member about readers\u27 theater multimedia. The lecture suggested readers\u27 theater as a way of including weak readers in a general classroom. Following the lecture, the class had a discussion to connect the knowledge that they gained from the research paper and an example of mainstreaming provided by the faculty members. During the 14th and 15th weeks, preservice teachers got into groups to create readers\u27 theater multimedia productions using PowerPoint. The third survey was filled in at the end of the readers\u27 theater multimedia production. The data analysis indicated that the research participants generally had positive attitudes about assistive technology prior to the interventions. Therefore, a significant change of attitude for positive direction occurred in limited items. The results of this study indicated that preservice teachers may have positive attitudes about special education-general education collaboration prior to their field practicum or student teaching and increased knowledge about assistive technology may affirm this positive attitude
