Building the Virtual into Teacher Education

Abstract

This chapter describes how two lecturers in teacher education (with the assistance of critical friends) developed a virtual primary school as a digital tool to help preservice teachers at the theory/HCI practice interface. The development and future directions of their online virtual environment will be discussed and will detail how scenario building in online learning communities fosters an alternative way of thinking about teaching and learning. Developing the virtual primary school was not based on a course requiring flexible delivery in distance education. The primary school was created to provide a place of learning not often available to preservice teachers on their professional practice placements. While the concept for a virtual school is not a new one, our goals for its design were different, and application was specifically oriented toward inquiry learning and new learning philosophies involving HCI. We will explore how a narrative-based scenario approach has been assisting our work at the edge of the traditional and the new.