Theorising Teacher Practice with Technology: Implications for Teacher Education Research

Abstract

‘New technology’ is not new. Over the last six or more decades (arguably since the establishment of formal schooling much earlier than that), wave after wave of ‘new technology’ have emerged: television, video cassettes, microcomputers, laptops, the internet and, most recently, portable, mobile (and even wearable) devices. In this chapter, I provide a critique of dominant views of teachers’ technology work with reference to the assumptions underpinning much policy on and research into educational technology. First, I characterise approaches to understanding teachers’ technology practices found in public policy and mainstream educational technology research. I then argue that sociomaterial understandings of practice offer alternative conceptual tools that are more likely to support and promote teacher innovation with technology. To do this, I draw upon a selection of concepts and analyses that have influenced my practice as a teacher educator and educational technology researcher and which inform a discussion of the practice of teacher education and implications for teacher education research.