Online Discussions as a Tool for Learning:Case Study of the Benefits of ICT Use in a First Year

Teacher Education Context

http://pppjj.usm.my/mojit/articles/pdf/1204/Online%20Discussions%20as%20a%20Tool%20for

%20Learning.pdf

non-comparative approaches.

purpose of evaluation:

This paper is a report of a qualitative case study on the benefits of online discussion for a particular cohort of pre service teacher education students in their first year of a university English program in Australia.

Define participants:

The study is based on a cohort of first year university students. There were 192 students in the unit. As part of their assessment requirements they had to post to the discussion board three times. The range of ICT abilities of the students was from complete novice through to students who could design their own web sites. This was one of the background rationales for running the discussion board and book rap observations, that it would increase the students’ familiarity and levels of engagement with ICT.

evaluation instruments applied:

The paper reports some principled of observations of service teacher program in an Australian university and observation of students’ online communities .

advantages and challenged :

Advantages:

1. One of the anticipated benefits of this unit was that students would develop operational use of ICT as an end in itself.

2. students were coping with the context of their learning experience as much as of how much they were learning.

3. transferring students’ attention from their own learning to what was made possible by ICT use and what negative conditions might preclude its successful use.

4. the e-mails grouped within this theme demonstrate that students’ responses to the discussion board were sometimes couched in terms of their knowledge of ICT use in authentic contexts for a university student.

challenged:

1. The teaching experiences were driven by the challenge to educators to ‘integrate new technologies meaningfully and transparently into learning activities’

2. Preparedness to consider new ways of teaching/ learning. They explicitly challenged each other to take up the book rap as a way of engaging children with literature on online.

3. on a personal level and a critical level. They were challenged to think on different levels. It was not sufficient to respond to prompts with comments that told if a student enjoyed an experience or give a description of what they saw. Rather, the students were challenged to comparatively critique what they saw in terms of the two raps as models or contexts of learning. The non-technical students learned how to use technology effectively.

4.Changes to past experience with ICT.

Report the results:

Case Study of the Benefits of ICT Use in a First Year Teacher Education Context information and communication technology into classroom practice, suggests that a successful model for pre service teacher education is where professional experience is

combined with reflection and enquiry to become the basis for the development of understanding and skills.