The manuscript concludes with a description of an innovative field-based teacher preparation program that infuses the use of technology into its teacher preparation program. Thus, technology teacher educators tend to see teaching technology-related skills as the primary purpose for the introductory technology course. However, the preservice technology course has the potential to fill a more central role in a teacher education program. The technology course can provide an authentic context for future educators to examine instructional practices and reflect on their learning as they learn new skills and content. Course activities can be designed to help students develop technical competence as they explore educational issues in teaching, learning, and instructional reform.
Instructional practice is in a state of transition in American public schools.
Constructivists argue that education involves providing activities and an environment that supports student efforts to construct increasingly complex and sophisticated understandings. Most preservice teachers, however, have a vision of schooling that is grounded in didactic instructional methods. Technology provides a versatile instructional tool that can be used to support both pedagogical orientations. Thus, activities in the introductory technology course can be structured to help students compare and contrast these two viewpoints based on their own learning experiences. In the following sections we discuss issues associated with the instructional reform movement, describe factors associated with conceptual change, and present a series of course activities designed to help students explore learning, instruction and reform in our introductory technology course.