Abstract
Traditional school subjects are being challenged by the accelerating production and development of knowledge in all domains. This creates a need to educate student teachers not only to appropriate existing practices but to be prepared to take the initiative in designing and developing new ones. This paper examines the challenges that confront teacher education when both the amount of information and its complexity are increasing due to the growing use of technology. We argue first that we need a richer view of technology than is often found in decision documents and in some of the didactics literature. We then introduce the concept of design as both an analytical and a didactic concept that links technology-rich environments and learning trajectories to knowledge development. From an activity-theoretical perspective, we approach the notion of design as a key component in teacher education and consider how it materializes through the use of a wiki, and in a new type of exam. The aim is to contribute to enhancing the quality of teacher education by making visible some of the more underlying qualities of what professional ICT competence can entail.
Highlights
Teachers’ professional development in the knowledge society is inextricably linked to what is perceived as valid knowledge at any given time (Kelly, Luke, & Green, 2008)
We argue first that we need a richer view of technology than is often found in decision documents and in some of the didactics literature
We introduce the concept of design as a key component of teacher education, as a means of preparing student teachers for the uncertainty, high complexity and multiple affordances of the networked society, and to make student teachers capable of developing new practices, in addition to mastering those that already exist
Summary
Teachers’ professional development in the knowledge society is inextricably linked to what is perceived as valid knowledge at any given time (Kelly, Luke, & Green, 2008). As has been shown, for instance, by Edwards, Gilroy and Hartley (2002), traditional school subjects are being challenged by the accelerating production and development of knowledge in all domains. This creates a need to educate teachers who are socialized into existing practices but who are themselves prepared to take the initiative in developing new ones. We attempt to relate both this view of technology and this concept of design to development projects taking place at ProTed (the Centre for Professional Learning in Teacher Education), a Centre of Excellence at the Department of Teacher Education and School Research at the University of Oslo. We argue that this approach constitutes a basis for a principled approach to professional digital competence for teachers
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