Reforming Teacher Education Programs

        As a new teacher, I can easily recall my bachelor’s degree in which technology played a small role.  The extent of technology was the use of computers to make PowerPoint presentations or e-mailing documents.  We were never instructed on how to use new media such as iPads /tablets within our lesson planning. In regards to digital literacy, we were asked to complete certain tasks that would demonstrate our ability to create word documents and tables, make a blog and use search engines.  Besides the fact that these were very basic digital literacy skills to have, as well as skills you would expect from a college student, they were set apart from our education classes.  I believe that teacher education programs should be revised to integrate technology so that it is a priority and not an afterthought.  Imagine the abilities a new teacher would have to not only use it in their methodology but also, to have students represent what they have learned through technology.  In addition, new teachers could be leaders in their school community, hosting professional development sessions for their peers.

        The purpose of my paper will be:
Education reform for teacher training programs will have a positive impact on the use of technology in the classroom, specifically co-planning with technology in mind and not as an after thought.  When utilized incorrectly it may either have no impact or a negative impact since technology can at times be a distraction.  I believe that there are many improvements to be made in teacher education to change the impact of technology in the classroom.
 

Here is a list of sources that I will use:

Annotated Bibliography

Alker, Z. (2015). The Digital Classroom: New Social Media and Teaching Victorian Crime. Law,   Crime and History , 1, 77-92.

            Alker describes a unit, which includes student blogging and highlights the challenges faced in        teaching students to be digitally literate.  In addition, she states the benefit to the community as a whole. I believe this article will be helpful because it provides a very specific example of how new media can be used in the classroom.

Liu, S.-H., Tsai, H.-C., & Huang, Y.-T. (2015). Collaborative Professional Development of Mentor Teachers and Pre-Service Teachers in Relation to Technology Integration. Educational Technology & Society , 18 (3), 161-172.

            This article discusses how teachers are using technology for non-instructional tasks even though there are many benefits of integrating technology into the classroom.  They state that pre-service teachers lack opportunities to apply knowledge of new media similar to what I propose in my essay. This article will be useful for finding strategies to reform teacher education programs since it discusses how to design new courses.

Muilenburg, L. Y., & Berge, Z. L. (2015). Revisiting Teacher Preparation: Responding to Technology Transience in the Educational Setting. The Quarterly Review of Distance Education , 16 (2), 93-105.

            The article recognizes the increasing importance of technology skills in education and how rapidly technology advances.  Like the previous articles, it mentions the lack of hands on training with the integration of technology in ways that are truly transformational.  They also discuss the “Technology Integration Matrix” which as five levels of technology integration.  This is very helpful in deciding how much of an impact technology is having in the classroom.

Rawlins, P., & Kehrwald, B. (2014). Integrating educational technologies into teacher education: a case study. Innovations in Education and Teaching International , 51(2), 207-217.

            This case study examines the integration of technology in an actual teacher education program and the results obtained.  The program looked to facilitate an environment of collaboration among the students.  I think this article will be helpful because it contains feedback from actual teacher and students in the form of quotations.

Vu, P., & Fadde, P. (2014). A Snapshot of Technology Integration Training in Teacher Education Programs. International Journal of Psychology: A Biopsychosocial Approach , 14, 139-150.

            This articles looks at many teacher education programs in order to see if there is a standard for the inclusion of technology.  It includes interesting statistics that other articles do not.  Furthermore, it questions how technology should be incorporated, whether as a standalone course or embedded in each course.  This is directly related to my topic of interest since I want to know how programs should be improved or changed.