What is Social-Constructivism

This chapter shares research that examined how perspectives about mobile technology integration were cultivated in a required pre-service teacher (PST) education course. Specifically, the camera feature of mobile smartphones was used to design a social-constructivist learning experience. Pre-service teachers were invited to shift from media consumers to technology producers, participating in innovative, student-centered learning. PSTs were positioned to use their prior-knowledge to engage in meaningful learning using their mobile phones in a way that modeled strategies they could use in their future classrooms to meet the learning needs of millennial students. Literature reveals that mobile tools are often used in limiting ways, such as accessing and consuming industry-produced media content. However, they have the potential to be used for active, social-constructivist learning. This chapter has implications for teacher educators and administrators in higher education who are seeking emerging practices for how to prepare PSTs to learn how to innovate using technology by designing learning experiences that focus on students as media makers.