4th Teaching & Education Conference, Venice

TECHNOLOGY AND TEACHER CHANGE: ARE ENGLISH TEACHERS EMBRACING AND TEACHING NEW FORMS OF DIGITAL LITERACY?

GINA SHELLEY

Abstract:

This study correlated the theories about teacher change, teachers' beliefs, and technology professional development to discover how English educators' pedagogy is changing to adopt new digital literacy curriculum as a result of technology. Teachers' beliefs influence how they teach and their choices about what tools to employ in their pedagogy. Understanding how the belief systems of teachers impact their use or lack of use with technology aids educational researchers in understanding how and why they are changing to use technology, if that is the case. Finally, the quality, frequency, and types of technology professional development have an impact on how teachers perceive the value of technology professional development and learn to adopt it. Since teachers are being pressured to integrate technology and new digital literacies into their curriculum, they must be provided with the training to do so, but it is useless unless teachers' beliefs are impacted and they concede to change their teaching styles to incorporate technology. Best practices and methods about how those who are changing to adopt new technologies are shared.

Keywords: teacher education, educational research, educational technology, digital literacy, teacher change, change theory, technology adoption

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