Easing Into the Academy: Using Technology to Foster Cross-Institutional Critical Friendships

Abstract

This article addresses the ways in which early career teacher educators can support each other as they enter the academic community. By utilizing technology as an instrument to engage in a cross-country critical friendship, the authors were able to engage in a dialogue that grew out of mutual interests and concerns. Through critical reflection, they were able to address the question: How can we, two early-career teacher educators, push ourselves and one another to more critically examine our teaching practices? In doing so, each “new educator” grew more confident in claiming one's voice as a sustainable critical friendship emerged.

Notes

¹See Anderson, Herr, and Nihlen (2007), Cochran-Smith and Donnell (2006), and Zeichner and Noffke (2001) for further elaboration of the various conceptions of practitioner inquiry.

²See Schuck and Segal (2002) for an interesting account of “hurt” in self-study research.