Learning to teach with technology: authoring practised identities

Abstract

Over the years there has been a strong urge to incorporate information and communications technology (ICT) in teaching practices; however, the pace of integration has been characterised as disappointing. Teachers’ lack of competence, their resistance and lack of availability and stability of computers and infrastructure have been offered as explanations. The paper advocates sociocultural theory as a fruitful approach in the research on developing teaching practices with ICT. Empirical evidence from the discourses of student teachers and mentors during internship is used to illustrate how practised identities for teaching with ICTs emerge in action through processes of positioning and authoring. An enhanced understanding of the situated interplay of personal and institutional horizons for meaning making could be crucial for the development of programmes for learning to teach with ICT.

Acknowledgements

I would like to thank the Department of Teacher Education and School Development at the University of Oslo for financial support of this project. This research is also supported by the strategic research effort ‘Competence and Media Convergence (CMC)’ at the University of Oslo. For additional information about CMC, see http://cmc.uio.no/.

I also want to thank colleagues at the Department of Teacher Education and School Development, Professor Sten Ludvigsen at Intermedia, the University of Oslo, and the anonymous reviewers for challenges, advice and support.

Notes

1. The outline of this plan is developed at the university, and it has a didactic profile. The students (or teachers) are expected to state goals for student learning, account for the content of the lesson (themes, tasks, educational resources), the methods (what pupils are expected to do, what the students as teachers are expected to do and the amount of time allocated to each task) and theevaluation (what the student as teacher would focus on in evaluating the pupils’ work, and how he/she would give feedback to pupils).