Educating Pre-Service and Novice Teachers on the Best Practices for Curriculum Integration of Web 2.0 Tools and Instructional Technology

Introduction

Teacher educators are experiencing a transition period within teacher preparation programs with students being connected even more to a global community through their smart phones and computers (English & Kitsantas, 2013). Internet access and control continues to be discussed by World Leaders. In December 2003 at Geneva, 175 countries gathered to discuss how to make sure that Africa, Asia, and Latin America do not lose the opportunity of being part of the internet age. The session created a Declaration of Principles has helped to shepherd the world in navigating this internet age.

Despite the focus on the developing nations of the World with the assumption that developed nations are already set to be fully incorporated, beginning teachers will enter sites that struggle with budgets and the ability to transform from a 20^th century model of learning to a 21^st century curriculum. Other pre-service and novice teachers may be lucky enough to enter educational sites that are fully functional 21^st century institutions of learning. The classrooms of the last century were ones that focused on teacher-centered methods and fragmented curriculum (Kellner, 2001). With the arrangement of the classroom into neat rows of student desks and the teacher upfront leading the class. The 21^st century curriculum should be one that is interdisciplinary, project-based, and research-based (English & Kitsantas, 2013) Research has demonstrated that project-based learning (PBL) helps with knowledge acquisition and retention for most students (e.g., Dochy, Mein, Van Den Bossche, & Gijbels, 2003; Mergendoller, Maxwell, & Bellisimo, 2006; Penuel, Means, & Simkins, 2000; Ross, Sanders, Wright, Stringfield, Wong, & Alberg, 2001). The internet continues to evolve as an educational tool and in many circumstances is a necessary resource. With advances in audio, bandwidth, synchronous/asynchronous communication tools, and applications galore, educators are in the age of Web 2.0 (Banister, 2008). This chapter explores the topics of Web 2.0 applications and instructional technology and how to help pre-service and novice teachers incorporate it effectively into their classrooms. Too often these teachers hear of good idea on a web page and just pull it into their classroom without any idea of how it should be used. Their friends will share an idea or pin it, like one does on Pinterest, and they feel they can incorporate it immediately into their lessons. There is a need for teacher preparation programs to train pre-service and novice teachers on the effective use of Web 2.0 technologies (Hicks & Graber). Table 1 is adapted from the website http://www.21stcenturyschools.com/, which provides some good comparisons between the 20^th century and the 21^st century environments for learning.

Adapted from http://www.21stcenturyschools.com/20th-vs-21st-century-classroom.html. (2016).