Articles and Journal Papers by ITTE Members
Abbott C., Brown D., Evett L. & Standen P. 2013. Emerging issues and current trends in assistive technology use 2007-2010 : practising, assisting and enabling learning for all. Disability and Rehabilitation Assistive Technology.
Available at http://informahealthcare.com/doi/abs/10.3109/17483107.2013.840862. [Accessed 21 March 2013]
Following an earlier review in 2007, a further review of the academic literature relating to the uses of assistive technology (AT) by children and young people was completed, covering the period 2007–2011. As in the earlier review, a tripartite taxonomy: technology uses to train or practise, technology uses to assist learning and technology uses to enable learning, was used in order to structure the findings. The key markers for research in this field and during these three years were user involvement, AT on mobile mainstream devices, the visibility of AT, technology for interaction and collaboration, new and developing interfaces and inclusive design principles. The paper concludes by locating these developments within the broader framework of the Digital Divide.
Boulton, H., 2013. Developing Trainee Teachers As Practitioner Researchers. Advancing Education, (Spring).
Available at: http://www.naace.co.uk/2175 [Accessed January 28, 2014].
This paper reports findings from a Teaching Agency funded project investigating if new technologies can help to develop literacy skills for SEN learners and engage disaffected learners through using Web 2.0 technologies to encourage pupils to be explorers, communicators and producers of knowledge. The project, led by Nottingham Trent University (NTU), involved NTU trainee teachers specialising in teaching Information Communication Technology. They were paired with expert teachers in core subjects (English, maths and science) from five secondary schools across the East Midlands. The project took place January 2012 to January 2013 with the classroom focussed aspect of the project taking place during April and May 2012.
Boulton, H. & Hramiak, A., 2012. E-flection: the development of reflective communities of learning for trainee teachers through the use of shared online web logs. Reflective Practice, 13(4), pp.503–515.
Available at: http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/14623943.2012.670619 [Accessed January 25, 2014].
This paper reports on research with trainee teachers using web blogs for reflective practice at Sheffield Hallam University and Nottingham Trent University, in the UK. It identifies how reflective blogs provided trainee teachers with an opportunity to develop as reflective practitioners in a more evolutionary way, something we might term ‘e-flection’ encompassing as it does reflections that are both evolutionary and online. The research also explores how reflecting as part of a community can benefit students in developing the reflective aspect of their professional identity.
Bradshaw, P., Younie, S. & Jones, S., 2013. Open education resources and higher education academic practice. Campus-Wide Information Systems, 30(3), pp.186–193.
Available at: http://www.emeraldinsight.com [Accessed March 20, 2014].
This paper reports on an externally-funded project to design and produce a course of postgraduate education (implementation is not reported because it has not yet taken place). The objectives are aligned with the Professional Standards Framework of the HEA, it aims to be used in postgraduate programmes of Academic Practice in England and makes use of resources developed by the IT in Teacher Education Association. The result is a nine-unit 3o credit course (English HE level 7). The course was designed within a community of practitioners supported by an online space for discussion and development. This design process is considered to be original. The paper is of value to all those working in higher education, those working on programmes of academic practice and those interested in the use of Open Educational Resources (OERs) in such contexts.
Bradshaw, P., Twining, P. & Walsh, C., 2012. The vital program: transforming ICT professional development. American Journal of Distance Education, 26(2), pp.74–85.
Available at: http://www.tandfonline.com [Accessed March 20, 2014].
Developing a model for effective large-scale continuous professional development (CPD) for teachers remains a significant obstacle for many governments worldwide. This paper describes the development and evolution of Vital—a CPD program designed to enhance the teaching of information communication technology (ICT) in state-funded primary and secondary schools in England. The paper concludes that the success of the program comes from its innovative ‘bottom up’ response to reconceptualize CPD as being more than just externally designed courses. The program encourages and responds to teachers’ reflective practice matching the teaching and learning demands of the 21st century.
Bradshaw, P. & Younie, S., 2011. Trainee teachers’ engagement in a cross-curricular news project: impact on professional identity. Advancing Education, (Autumn).
Available at: http://oro.open.ac.uk/30120/1/BradshawYounieAdvancingEducationNov11.pdf [Accessed March 20, 2014].
This TDA funded project looking at the impact of the BBC News School Report project on trainee teachers found that the professional identity of trainee teachers, is, in part, defined by their relationship to those who mentor and tutor them. As teachers in training they are in a role with less power than those who are responsible for their training, support and development. This was examined through the roles taken by trainee teachers in the project while on placement in schools, the activities they were consequently engaged in and the types of evidence generated for their assessment against the Standards for Qualified Teachers in England. The paper, presented at BERA, focused on one of the themes and showed that their professional identity is enhanced through their being in a leading role in respect of curriculum and working with other staff. Their self perception of role was modified to one in which they saw themselves, and were seen, as equals to qualified staff rather than subservient or dependent on them. Furthermore, engagement in such projects led them to collecting richer, more holistic evidence for meeting the Standards as they took greater ownership for this process, situating it in their leading role in the project. Their identity became defined less by the articulation of Standards and by their relationship to others and more by their own notions of professionalism. A new more equal power relationship developed as they took on responsibility for the project.
Burden, K., Younie, S. & Leask, M., 2013. Translational research principles applied to education: the mapping educational specialist knowhow (MESH) initiative. Journal of Education for Teaching: International research and pedagogy, 39(4), pp.459–463.
Available at: http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/02607476.2013.801216 [Accessed March 20, 2014].
Fisher, T. et al., 2012. Teachers’ knowing how to use technology: exploring a conceptual framework for purposeful learning activity. Curriculum Journal, 23(3), pp.307–325.
Available at: http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/09585176.2012.703492 [Accessed March 29, 2014].
This article describes a project to apply and validate a conceptual framework of clusters of purposeful learning activity involving ICT tools. The framework, which is based in a socio-cultural perspective, is described as ?DECK?, and comprises the following major categories of the use of digital technologies to support learning: distributed thinking and knowing; engagement; community and communication; and knowledge building. Small-scale research to test the framework was carried out with 12 teachers in English primary and secondary schools. The methods involved mind mapping, ‘think aloud’ procedures and interviews. The framework was modified in the light of teachers’ responses and offers a way of describing and thinking about the diverse uses of digital technologies to support learning in various contexts.
Green, K. and Longman, D. 2012. Polling learning: Modelling the use of technology in classroom questioning. Teacher Advancement Network Journal, 4(3).
Available here: http://194.81.189.19/ojs/index.php/TEAN/article/viewFile/132/244 [Accessed 24 March 2014]
This project used an audience response system to explore its value for providing structured in-class feedback to tutors and learners, with a particular emphasis on supporting a tutor’s use of questioning techniques. The research was conducted within a BSc Mathematics programme forming part of an undergraduate initial teacher training course. A key strategic aim for learning and teaching development at the University of Wales Newport is to embed feedback as part of the learning experience. This was achieved with the use of ‘clickers’, a valuable tool that tutors can use occasionally, or frequently to support more effective and satisfying feedback through question and discussion techniques. An additional element of this project was to model the use of clickers for student teachers in order to encourage their adoption of similar techniques in their own classroom teaching. The findings illustrate the impact on teaching in both diagnostic aspects and in social, classroom aspects.
Longman, D. & Green, K. 2013. Technology-supported literacy and numeracy enhancement workshops for trainee teachers. Teacher Education Advancement Network Journal, 5, 3, (2013), 27-38
Available at: http://www.cumbria.ac.uk/Courses/SubjectAreas/Education/Research/TEAN/TEANJournal.aspx [Accessed March 24, 2014].
This paper presents a group-based approach to literacy and numeracy support for trainee teachers who are at risk of not meeting prescribed literacy or numeracy targets. The aim is to develop a pedagogically efficient approach to maintaining and, where appropriate, raising the standard of literacy and numeracy. An audience response system (‘clickers’) is used to create a pedagogically productive and time-efficient activity workshop. This builds on an earlier project where we developed the respond-discuss-reveal (RDR) technique for increasing engagement in degree level mathematics classes. In this current project the technique is applied to the problem of enhancing literacy and numeracy. The project produces some important results for our approach and leads us to identify a new teaching method named Dialogical Assessment. The project is relevant to the renewed emphasis on literacy and numeracy in Welsh initial teacher training and which has created new statutory duties for teacher training providers.
Longman, D. & Green, K. (2011) Digital Enlightenment: The Myth of the Disappearing Teacher. STLHE Collected Essays on Learning and Teaching, vol 4, 2011, 121-126
Available at: http://celt.uwindsor.ca/ojs/leddy/index.php/CELT/article/view/3283/2661 [Accessed March 24, 2014].
This paper argues that the emerging post-print digital culture of knowledge creation and dissemination in higher education is even more demanding of effective and committed teaching than hitherto. This may run counter to a widespread view that the digital environment reduces the need for a strong culture of teaching, to be replaced by an educational culture of independent, self-sufficient learners. However, evidence for the precariousness of this outlook is provided by many recent reports in the United Kingdom that have illustrated how the assumptions of a ‘digital natives’ perspective on students and academics are largely inaccurate. While acknowledging the phenomenal expansion of the cultural horizon that has been afforded to students and academics in the post-print digital environment of university learning, the crucial role of the academic in the creative use of digital technology in teaching should not be underestimated, or higher education may be rendered incapable of supporting effective learning. To substantiate this viewpoint the paper presents preliminary data from a small-scale pilot survey of the take-up of information and communication technology (ICT) for teaching in our own School of Education.
Loveless, A., 2011. Technology, pedagogy and education: reflections on the accomplishment of what teachers know, do and believe in a digital age. Technology, Pedagogy and Education, 20(3), pp.301–316.
Available at: http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/1475939X.2011.610931 [Accessed March 29, 2014].
In 2004 Technology, Pedagogy and Education published a review of literature which framed current understandings of pedagogy and the implications for the use of ICT in learning and teaching in formal educational settings. This article revisits the topic in the light of more recent developments in understandings of pedagogy. It offers three theoretical frameworks for understanding what teachers know, do and believe when using digital media in their practice: pedagogy and design; pedagogy and ‘Person-Plus’; and pedagogical reasoning and ICT. Examples of pedagogy and ICT are then illustrated by selected examples of research and related to a model of teacher knowledge which acknowledges the interaction between context, tools for learning and teaching, and content. The conclusions draw attention to how an approach to pedagogy which is constructive, interactive and complex is accomplished through praxis, the core of teacher education.
Turvey, K., 2012a. Constructing Narrative Ecologies as a Site for Teachers’ Professional Learning with New Technologies and Media in Primary Education. E-Learning and Digital Media, 9(1), pp.113–126.
Available at: http://dx.doi.org/10.2304/elea.2012.9.1.113 [Accessed March 31, 2014].
This article argues that to understand how new technologies and media can become co-agents in the process of pedagogical change, we first need to understand teachers’ complex relationship with new technologies and media in both their personal and their professional lives. A conceptual framework is delineated for constructing a complex narrative ecology around teachers’ professional and personal relationship with new technologies and media. The narrative ecology model, it is proposed, can be used to story the otherwise isolated but constituent aspects of teachers’ experiences of technology. It is an approach predicated on a view of professional learning as a narrative process. The model is applied and evaluated in a fine-grained narrative case study of one student teacher’s approach to the use of a virtual learning environment (VLE) in an intervention within a primary school in the United Kingdom. The findings suggest that using the narrative ecology model to story teachers’ personal and professional experiences with technology brings meaning and new insights to teachers’ nuanced relationships with technology, creating a site for further professional development and learning.
Turvey, K., 2012b. Questioning the character and significance of convergence between social network and professional practices in teacher education. British Journal of Educational Technology, 43(5), pp.739–753.
Available at: http://doi.wiley.com/10.1111/j.1467-8535.2012.01358.x [Accessed March 30, 2014].
This paper describes the interplay between a group of student teachers’ narratives of social network practice and their emergent professional practice with technologies. Teachers on an Initial Teacher Education programme in the UK spent a semester studying a module that synthesised university-based lectures with a professional intervention using online communications technologies in a local primary school involving a class of 30 children (8–10 years). A narrative methodology was developed to capture and conceptualise the teachers’ perceptions of the experience. Teachers’ dispositions towards the appropriation of technologies were found to be as ubiquitous across social network and professional contexts as the technological tools themselves. However, the distinctly nuanced ways in which the teachers experienced the process of convergence raises questions with regard to the significance of such convergence and how we both capture and characterise convergence as a technological, cultural or agent-centred process. The findings support the need for an agent-centred view of convergence embedded within the wider socio-cultural ecology that incorporates individuals’ engagement with media and social network practices.
Twining, P. and Henry, F. 2014. Enhancing ‘ICT Teaching’ in English Schools: Vital Lessons. World Journal of Education. 4, 2, 2014.
Available at: http://www.sciedu.ca/journal/index.php/wje/article/view/4092/2502 [Accessed April 17, 2014]
Despite substantial investments in digital technology in schools the impact has been less than advocates anticipated. This raises issues about the effectiveness of past approaches to the continuing professional development (CPD) of teachers. Vital was a £9.4million programme, funded by English governments between 2009 and 2013, to enhance the use of digital technology and the teaching of computing in schools. Vital, which was provided by the Open University (UK), developed an evolving range of professional development, informed by a review of the literature and extensive experience of supported open learning and developing online communities. Based on Vital’s experiences some suggestions are made about what constitutes effective CPD.
Twining, P. et al., 2013. Moving education into the digital age: the contribution of teachers’ professional development. Journal of Computer Assisted Learning, 29(5), pp.426–437.
Available at: http://doi.wiley.com/10.1111/jcal.12031 [Accessed March 20, 2014].
This article introduces the main outcomes of discussions at EDUsummIT 2011 by the specific Technical Working Group on Teacher Professional Development (TWG3). The focus was to explore how professional development of teachers may ensure that teachers are better prepared to use information and communication technology (ICT) to promote 21st century learning. The article is organized into three main sections: a review of key literature on professional development of teachers (TPD), in general and with specific reference to ICT; a summary of the key points emerging from TWG3’s discussions; and recommendations for action. On the basis of discussions held within the TWG3, the authors concluded that effective TPD requires changes at several levels of educational systems (political, institutional and individual), and that ICTs should be seen as an opportunity for introducing new goals, structures and roles that support these changes. It is significant that while many of the issues highlighted by the group are well established, addressing them continues to be problematic globally.
Wan, J., Reddy, M. & Longman, D., 2011. Understanding student engagement in 3D virtual learning environments. International Journal of Technology Enhanced Learning, 3(5), pp.468–481.
Available at: http://inderscience.metapress.com/content/w374132660426176 [Accessed March 24, 2014].
With the growing movement to deliver learning at a distance, one particular technology, 3D virtual learning environments (VLEs) is being investigated as a means to supplement campus-based learning. 3D VLEs may enable greater social engagement than other Web 2.0 technologies. In order to explore the opportunities for student engagement in 3D VLEs, this paper will investigate virtual learning communities through the exploration of the idea of narrative and avatars: narrative is an imaginative and creative process; avatars are the animated agents that represent the individual participants and connect sociability and interactivity. Case studies of learning environments within Second Life are presented in order to illustrate the use of constructed narratives by which varying types of student engagement are supported. This paper concludes that narrative is a mechanism that can bind communities of practice together and avatars are the device through which a personal narrative is implemented and which enables participation.
Younie, S. & Leask, M., 2013. Implementing learning platforms in schools and universities: lessons from England and Wales. Technology, Pedagogy and Education, 22(2), pp.247–266.
Available at: http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/1475939X.2013.802118 [Accessed March 21, 2014].
This article is based on research funded by the British Educational Communications and Technology Agency in 2009, to examine how new knowledge regarding the pedagogic uses of learning platforms has been developed by practitioners in universities and schools. The research found major differences in the levels of learning platform use between schools and universities, with practice more embedded in universities, because university staff have access to just-in-time support and training, enabling the rapid building of a critical mass of staff users. Major findings were that teachers want and need continuing professional development (CPD) in relation to their knowledge of learning platform uses both technically and pedagogically, but this support and training is patchy and not always available at the time of need, in contrast to provision in universities. Inter-operability problems between commonly used management information systems and the learning platforms were reported as hindering development of practice and in university/school partnerships access rights to university platforms by school partners and to school learning platforms by university partners are limited.