Beyond Infusion: Preservice Students’ Understandings About Educational Technologies for Teaching and Learning
Authors: Laurie Mullen
Published in: The Journal of Technology and Teacher Education (2001-09-22)

As a result of the incorporation of computer technologies into teacher education programs, the fields of educational technology and teacher education have produced a substantial base of scholarship in recent years. The Preparing Tomorrow's Teachers for Technology (PT3) grant competitions sponsored by the Department of Education have resulted in a nationwide technology focus in teacher preparation institutions. Institutions submitting grants are encouraged to think beyond technology courses to systemic program improvements that transform teacher preparation by infusing technology throughout the educational experience of all future teachers. This most recent demand for innovation in teacher education however, has been implemented and studied as a neutral, if not universally beneficial addition to teaching and learning. In a time when teacher educators view learning to teach as a deeply complex, social, and political process, we have yet to fully understand the interactive effects of learning about computer t echnologies on learning to teach. Uncovering a broader understanding of the interrelationships between these two fields requires fore grounding what we know about the learning to teach process to better see the ways in which it is influenced by computer technologies for teaching and learning. The following selections by Loader and Loveless exemplify the importance of studying this phenomena by highlighting the very complex, nonlinear, socially embedded, and ultimately human endeavor of learning to teach. David Loader writes: ...this is not about training teachers to use computers in specific ways so they can train their students to do likewise. It is much more fundamental and far-reaching: it will change the world-view of teachers; alter some of the belief systems and values that constitute their humanness; and place them in a different cultural milieu which is like migration to another country. It will change their relationship to students, subjects, and teaching. (cited in Spender, 1995, p. 116) Avril Loveless (1998) adds: ...the development of pedagogy is not one of the teacher located at the center of a number of outside influences, calmly reflecting upon the way forward for effective action. It resembles more the of tectonic plates, jarring and grinding against each other, creating mountain ranges and sliding faults. (p. 1271) This study documents this meeting of tectonic plates; that of the preservice student teachers' constructions of educational technology and their beliefs and images of teaching and learning. LITERATURE REVIEW Educational researchers are just beginning to explore the unique ways that students and teachers use the Internet and other computer technologies and for what purposes. Too few, however, focus on the influence of computer technologies on preservice students' development as novice teachers and the various ways that preservice students understand the pedagogical uses of these technologies in the classroom. Some notable exceptions include Barnes' (1995) study with preservice teachers' activities using the Internet. She explored how technology influences students' ideas, activities, and images of themselves as teachers and learners along with how the students envisioned their teaching differently with this technology. In her yearlong study of elementary preservice teachers, Larson (1998) documented the need for a critical understanding where preservice teachers think about how new technologies can become part of a complex, technology rich, multimedia learning environment and what the relationship of computer tec hnologies to schools and society should be. Ferdig (1998) used a narrative approach to understanding the ways that teachers create their own stories with technology. He emphasized that preservice teacher education programs should allow opportunities for dialogue and dialogic interactions so that students can create their personal stories of technology in the classroom. …