Connecting Technology, Literacy, and Self-Study in English Language Arts Teacher Education

Abstract

This chapter shares two English teacher educators’ use of self-study to examine the integration of technology and literacy in two English Language Arts methods courses. The purpose of this self-study was twofold: (1) to examine how technology was specifically used in two methods courses and (2) to consider how that usage informed preservice teachers’ teaching and learning of literacy. Through self-study, the teacher educators were able to develop their own – and, by extension, their preservice teachers’ – understandings of the connections between literacy and technology. Specifically, they were encouraged to revise curriculum in order to integrate technology more authentically into the methods courses and revisit their own understandings of technology in order to reconcile previously unrecognized discrepancies in their pedagogy. By engaging in self-study, the teacher educators confronted tensions in their own practice, better understood their own beliefs about literacy and technology, and better articulated their reasoning for integrating technology into literacy teaching and learning.