Help me reach preservice teachers effectively!

[Jennifer Lubke]

Hello, PD 2.0 community. I am a sometimes lurker and linker and a frequent learner here. I am about to embark on my first stint/teaching engagement in the field of instructional technology and was hoping to draw from the collective wisdom in this and other online communities about the strategies to engage and inspire my students.

I have been warned by experienced instructors at my institution to expect a significant "disconnect" -- a yawning gap between theory and practice that will prevent students from experiencing full engagement. I am reasonably confident as a classroom teacher with more than 10 years experience, but, still, this is new territory for me.

Any advice?? Words of wisdom?

A little background: I will be teaching a summer session broadly titled "Intro to Instructional Computing." My roll of about 18 students is cross-disciplinary, mostly young master's students with a few alternative certification students thrown in. Most will enter the classroom in fall 2009 for a one-year internship.

[Sharon Betts]

This sounds like a fabulous group to work with! They should be very interested in moving into a technology supportive domain. Depending on their 'majors', I would look at as many examples of technology in today's classrooms as you can find. Help them to undersatnd how theiy can jump into service with a classroom for the students of today.
What are your curriculum - goal - vision?
Sharon

[Jennifer Lubke]

Well, the course curriculum is designed around the text Preparing to Use Technology, which is co-authored by Dr. Blanche O'Bannon. She is the instructional leader on this, and I am part of her team of instructors at UT-Knoxville. We all acknowledge that the 2007 edition of the text is already understandably outdated, and we are striving to create a living, breathing curriculum that is refined every semester. Dr. O'Bannon tries to showcase new tools and innovations, particularly the explosion of interactive, web-based ICTs.

So, the course goal is basically to prepare pre-service teachers to survey, sample, and think about applications for technology in their specific content areas and grade levels. But I think, based on my conversations with other instructors in the program, that there is also an unstated goal to take these college students where they are and move them to the next level. This means acknowledging that for the most part, these preservice teachers demonstrate facility with technology but not necessarily the desire or even the ability to think critically about their power, potential, and merit to transform thinking and learning.

I am borrowing liberally here from real-life conversations as well as virtual ones, but the prevailing attitude among teacher-educators seems to be something like this: Students today mainly use technology for entertainment and some social networking and have not so much in an academic setting. We are in a role to teach them how to engage in collaborative, online technologies in productive, academic ways.

So, on the eve of my ascent (or "descent," as it were) into higher ed, I was just poking around looking for words of wisdom about how I might inspire and engage these future teachers.

[Sharon Betts]

Real life examples?
What if you looked at examples of transforming education through technology as "case studies"?
iEarn, Flat Classroom, 1001tales as collaborative projects -
setup their own PLNs - blogs from Sager, Richardson, Warlick etc
--- videos including TedTalks, student made testimonials
Perhaps you could have these "real transformations" become part of the curriculums - show not just tell?
Sharon