Exploring Preservice Teachers' Justifications for Technology: Moving From a Discourse of Inevitability to Critical Perspectives

• In Event: Perspectives on Technology Integration From Preservice, In-Service and Technology Specialist Teachers

Abstract

This study aimed to explore how pre-service teachers justify the use of mobile technologies in schools. In order to achieve this, we presented 23 pre-service teachers with a vignette that asked them to justify the use of a one-to-one tablet initiative. The research found that pre-service teachers tended to justify the initiative as they saw the increasing technification of schools as an inevitable process. In addition, they presented quite pragmatic reasons for using the technology rather than highlighting their educational/pedagogic value. This study points to the need to challenge pre-service teachers’ innovation-centric and techno-centric attitudes towards technology use and encourage them to critically question prevailing discourses that often go unchallenged.

Authors

• Oliver McGarr, University of Limerick

• Ciarán Ó Gallchóir, University of Limerick