Abstract
This action research study examines preservice teachers' responses to a SAMR-focused App Smashing engagement created with suggestions from other technology studies with preservice teachers. In this study, the authors used qualitative methods to collect and analyze data from interviews, a pre- and post-App Smashing engagement survey, and digital artifacts. Findings revealed that some preservice teachers viewed the exploratory, independent nature of the engagement as beneficial to their learning. Yet most requested more step-by-step instructions and guidance than the authors initially thought preservice teachers would need. Results challenge the notion that preservice teachers are digital natives who prefer to learn about technology integration through “faster, less step-by-step” lessons. The results are a reminder that teacher educators need time to strategically design learning experiences to encourage preservice teachers to integrate technology into their instructional plans in meaningful ways.
TopIntroduction
Digital Natives are used to receiving information really fast…Today’s teachers have to learn to communicate in the language and style of their students. This doesn’t mean changing the meaning of what is important, or of good thinking skills. But it does mean going faster, less step-by step, more in parallel, with more random access, among other things. Educators might ask “But how do we teach logic in this fashion?” While it’s not immediately clear, we do need to figure it out. (Prensky, 2001, pp. 2-4)
Although digital natives as preservice teachers use technology extensively, their use of technology has been mainly focused on and related to their social-communication activities and their learning activities as students. As preservice teachers, they lack the knowledge, skills, and experiences to integrate technology into classrooms to help them teach and to help their students learn, even though they fully recognize the importance of doing so...They might be digital native students, but they are not yet digital-native preservice teachers. (Lei, 2009, p. 92)
These above quotes are part of the on-going conversations taking place amongst educators, researchers, and policy makers regarding technology and literacy instruction in the field of teacher education. Historically, educators have been resistant to integrating technology into their instructional plans (Lei, 2009; Taylor, 2017). Yet Prensky (2001) predicted that this issue would be resolved once technology savvy digital natives saturated the educational landscape. That time is now, but Prensky’s prediction has not yet been fully reconciled.
Learning Technologies in the Classroom
The use of mobile devices and apps are not only commonplace in classrooms today, they hold promise to enhance instruction and engage students through situated, contextualized, individualized, and personalized learning experiences (Pegrum et al., 2013). While most of today’s preservice teachers grew up using internet, apps, and mobile devices with ease, they are not necessarily confident in transitioning from digital-natives to digital-native teachers (Lei, 2009). According to Kosnik et al. (2016), teacher educators lack skills, dispositions, resources, and strategies to help preservice teachers marry technology meaningfully with content and pedagogy. Hamilton (2007) suggests that the arduous process of selecting appropriate apps to use in the classroom further compounds these issues. This is especially problematic because new teachers are expected to be proficient at leveraging learning technologies to reflect the real world in which their students live in (Office of Educational Technology, 2017).
During the Covid-19 pandemic, the bar was raised even higher when classroom teachers adopted innovative technologies to ensure the continuation of student learning while teaching remotely from home (Collins, 2020; Froemming, 2020; Terada, 2020). A growing body of research shows the importance of future study in response to the pandemic (Oinas & Hotulainen, 2022; Veguilla-Martinez et al., 2022). For instance, Oinas and Hotulainen (2022) learned that many children had difficulties while learning remotely from home and therefore, teachers would need to be better prepared to address their digital incompetency. Future teachers need to be confident in building their digital teaching toolkit, and key stakeholders continue to search for strategies that will encourage them to do so (Tierney, 2020).
Key Terms in this Chapter
Technology Integration: Teaching with technology infused into instruction in meaningful ways.
Digital Natives: Individuals that grew up in the digital age.
Flipgrid: A video app used to promote student agency and voice. This app can serve as a formative assessment.
SAMR (Substitution, Augmentation, Modification, and Redefinition) Model: A technology integration model that encourages meaningful technology integrated instruction and fosters high order thinking.
PicCollage: An app that allows the creator to personalize a photo collage with stickers, text, various fonts, backgrounds, and frames.
Digital Storytelling: The practice using apps to enhance and share a story with voice, music, images, or text. This form of self-expression can serve as a formative assessment.
App Smashing: The process of combining two or more apps to create an original, multi-media product that can be shared with others digitally.
Seesaw: An app that serves as an online learning journal, digital portfolio, and communication platform designed to create a community atmosphere of inquiry with students, families, and teachers.
Digital Immigrants: Individuals that did not grow up in the digital age.
Digital Native-Teachers: Digital native as teachers who are proficient at integrating advanced learning technologies into instructional plans in meaningful ways.
Digital Native-Preservice Teachers: Digital natives who are practicing to become proficient at integrating learning technologies into classroom instructional plans in meaningful ways.
Digital Teaching Repertoires: The practice of growing a learning technologies toolkit for technology integration.
Buncee: An app that serves as a presentation tool to visualize and communicate concepts.