Exploring German preservice teachers’ electronic and professional literacy skills

Abstract

This article presents findings from an exploratory pilot project which aimed at fostering electronic and professional literacy skills of preservice language teachers through computer-mediated peer collaboration. The research context is a qualitative case study involving cooperation via the email and chat functions of FirstClass among preservice teachers at the Justus-Liebig Universität in Giessen and the Pädagogische Hochschule Heidelberg in Germany. The author investigates participants’ prior experiences with regard to computer skills, Internet proficiency, and technology-based language learning and teaching. Next, she discusses benefits and challenges for preservice teachers with respect to collaborating via computers (computer-mediated communication or CMC) with their transatlantic partners. In collecting and analyzing preservice teachers’ reflections, a Grounded Theory approach (Strauss & Corbin, 1998) was used. Instances of electronic and professional literacies were identified and triangulated with data from pre-course questionnaires, post-course self-assessments, logs, email and chat transcripts, and field notes. The author discusses benefits and challenges which preservice teachers encountered through the collaboration. Findings include preservice teachers’ differing levels of electronic literacy skills, tolerance for ambiguity, institutional constraints, peer feedback, and perception of the final product. Based on her findings, the author stresses the need to encourage preservice teachers’ meta-level reflections on the challenges of the collaboration and suggests conducting longitudinal follow-up studies in order to investigate if and how in-service teachers apply the knowledge they gained from their teacher education program to their own teaching.

The Computer Literacy and Use: The Case of Taiwanese Pre-service Elementary School English Teachers

“…Previous research exploring language teachers' computer literacy skills has been conducted in Asia (Albilirini, 2006;Aydin, 2013;Chen, 2012;Li & Walsh, 2011;Park & Son, 2009;Shin & Son, 2007;Son, Robb, & Charismiadji, 2011;Sumi, 2010;Yunus, 2007), Europe (Dooly, 2009;Fuchs, 2006), North America (Fuchs & Akbar, 2013;Kessler & Plakans, 2008;Lam, 2000;Meskill, Anthony, Hilliker-Vanstrander, & You, 2006;Wiebe & Kabata, 2010), and South America (Barsotti & Martins, 2010). It has been demonstrated that increased access to technology facilities does not guarantee that language teachers would always integrate CALL into their instruction.…”

“…Teachers' attitudes toward and beliefs about computer technology have been considered a critical factor for the success of technology implementation in education (Fuchs, 2006;Woodrow, 1992). Despite the diverse picture of language teachers' computer literacies, most research illustrates that a large proportion of language teachers consider CALL implementation beneficial for their instruction (Albilirini, 2006;Aydin, 2013;Bordbar, 2010;Li & Walsh, 2011;Park & Son, 2009;Yunus, 2007).…”

Editorial: Teacher education research in CALL and CMC: more in demand than ever

“…Shield et al (2001) building on Hauck and Haezewindt (1999) come up with an overview of tutor roles and associated administrative, cognitive and social skills and relate those to learners' perceptions of tutors. Since then several directions have been proposed to apprehend what a techno-pedagogical competence encompasses (Bangou, 2006;Fuchs, 2006;Peters, 2006;Thomas & Reinders, 2010;Wong & Benson, 2006). It includes the capacity to: Some of these abilities are also reflected in Hampel and Stickler's (2005) ''pyramid of skills'' which includes from the bottom up skills related to dealing with the technology at hand and using its advantages, then social skills of community building, followed by language teaching skills, and finally the ability to teach creatively and develop a personal teaching style in an online medium.…”

“…Researchers who have addressed the issue of teacher training have generally used their own experience as trainers to propose a few guidelines which can be summarized as follows: > Share out the techno-pedagogical components all along the training programme instead of making them the content of a stand-alone module (Peters, 2006); > Anchor teacher training and experiment with technologies in a specific setting, so that trainees develop a better understanding of institutional constraints (Egbert, Paulus & Nakamichi, 2002); > Focus on the development of competences that can be transferred to other educational contexts (Slaouti & Motteram, 2006); > Develop basic technical skills that can readily be used instead of training teachers to use a bespoke application or programme that might become obsolete quickly (Kessler, 2006); > Make sure trainees put pedagogical objectives before technological ones (Fuchs, 2006); > Adopt constructivist or socio-constructivist approaches to language learning to help trainees conceptualize the use of tools in a pertinent way (Parks et al, 2003); > Develop collaboration skills among trainees (Parks et al, 2003).…”

“…(2001) building on Hauck and Haezewindt (1999) come up with an overview of tutor roles and associated administrative, cognitive and social skills and relate those to learners’ perceptions of tutors. Since then several directions have been proposed to apprehend what a techno-pedagogical competence encompasses (Bangou, 2006; Fuchs, 2006; Peters, 2006; Thomas & Reinders, 2010; Wong & Benson, 2006). It includes the capacity to:…”