An Evaluation of Blending Technology with Pedagogy for Teacher Education and its Implication for their Classroom Teaching

Abstract

Although research has been conducted on the benefits anddrawbacks of online courses, more is specifically needed inteacher-education to increase understanding of the transfer process from technology integration learning to the classroom. This study was designed to evaluate a model for blending technology with traditional classroommethods in preparing teachers to do the same. A combination of qualitative and quantitative methods was used to examine the collaborative and scaffolding approaches to the teacher learners construction of meaning in the online discourse. Data has been collected from blended graduate level courses taught in the area ofeducational technology for in-service and pre-serviceteachers from 2001 through 2006. These findings will be used to help identify best-practices for technologyintegration with teacher-education through informed applied research, and to create a new model for more comprehensive future blended course design.