New Literacies, Technology, and Teacher Beliefs: Still More Work to Do

In our last column we asked the question “Are we finished yet?” and came to the conclusion that we are clearly not. Although preservice teachers come to our programs with larger skill sets in terms of operating digital technologies, they continue to have little experience and vision for how to use digital technologies in ways that develop the digital literacies their students need to fully participate in the public, private, and economic spheres that characterize contemporary society. Although there are many factors that contribute to the remarkable resistance to incorporate meaningful and situated uses of digital communication in schools, researchers working in the field of New Literacy Studies suggest one of these factors pertains to the need for educators to broaden their attitudes and beliefs about what counts as legitimate texts for learning in school (Burnett & Merchant, 2014).

There is strong evidence that K–12 teachers remain unconvinced that the technologies people use to communicate for work and social purposes outside of school have value for learning in school. For example, only 31% of Advanced Placement and National Writing Project teachers considered presenting oneself effectively online and only 23% considered working with audio and video graphic content as essential for their students' success in college and the world outside of school (Purcell, Heaps, Buchanan, & Friedrich, 2013). These same teachers perceived young people's use of social media, cell phone, and texting as contributing to decreased ability to develop, organize, and express complex thoughts. These perceptions endure despite research that shows that children with greater knowledge of textism tend to have better performance on measure of verbal reasoning (Kemp & Bushnell, 2011).

Additionally, a recent review of the literature focused on using mobile technologies in teacher education programs found that that there is wide variability in teacher attitudes toward the use of mobile devices for learning in school (Baran, 2014), including negative perceptions toward the usefulness of cell phones for learning in the classroom, among preservice teachers who are considered to be digital natives (Thomas & O'Bannon, 2013). Fortunately, teacher educators who integrate mobile technologies into their own teaching practices are changing these perceptions. Not surprisingly, teacher educators who integrate mobile technologies into their teacher education programs are beginning to see preservice teachers develop the new literacies: the technical skills but also the attitudes and beliefs needed to engage students in uses of technology that is commonplace in the world outside of school (Husbye & Elsener, 2013).

Research in our field has long been predicated on the idea that when teachers have positive attitudes and beliefs about the benefits of technology for learning, they will use technology more often and more effectively with their students (Ertmer, 1999; Vannatta & Fordham, 2004). Given these understandings about what is needed for effective technology integration, it is time that teacher educators more directly address preservice and in-service teachers' misconceptions about the wide range of literacy experiences and resources young people acquire as they communicate online and with mobile technologies in their lives outside of school.

Findings from the articles presented in this issue work together to expand our understanding of effective technology integration. In the article titled “Experiential Learning for Preservice Teachers: Digital Book Clubs With Third Graders,” Katie Stover and colleagues explore how preservice teachers' knowledge and pedagogy is enhanced through participation in online book clubs with third graders. The article “Comparison of Parent and Teacher Perceptions of Essential Website Features and Elementary Teacher Website Use: Implications for Teacher Communication Practice,” by Tiffany A. Roman and Anne T. Ottenbreit-Leftwich, provides four separate categories to assist elementary teachers in selecting appropriate communication channels for classroom websites. Albert D. Ritzhaupt and colleagues extend the TPACK measurement framework by providing a confirmatory factor analysis of the theoretical model proposed by Schmidt et al. (2009) in the article titled “Validation of the Survey of Pre-service Teachers' Knowledge of Teaching and Technology: A Multi-Institutional Sample.” And finally, in the article “Using Voice-Recorded Reflections to Increase Cognitive Presence in Hybrid Courses,” Laura McLaughlin Taddei and Stephanie Smith Budhai make suggestions for pedagogical practice and the use of reflection to develop the growing professional. We believe that these articles have potential to help teacher educators enhance present and future teachers' confidence and ability to create engaging technology-infused learning environments.