Integrating technology into teacher education: A critical framework for implementing reform

Abstract

Teacher education programs around the nation continue to be challenged to prepare prospective teachers to use technology "meaningfully" in their instruction. This implies that university faculty in teacher education programs must become proficient at technology use and must come to understand content-specific, pedagogical uses of technology for their own instruction. In this article, the authors present a model for technological change driven by the notion of situated practice and communities of discourse in their school of education. They also describe a critical framework for facilitating discourse among teacher education faculty from which understandings of why, when, and how to use technology emerged. Several cases of situated practice are discussed with particular attention to how an understanding of meaningful technology use was negotiated through interactions between faculty and graduate students. Implicit in this model for technological change is a strategy for sustainability. This is elaborated as the authors discuss their results.