Understanding Students’ Perspectives as Learners through Photovoice

In this chapter, the authors explore photography as a participatory research tool that facilitates the interactions of participants and researchers as co-researchers to effect change. They illustrate this discussion with a study examining the perspectives of teacher education students regarding teaching practices and institutional structures. Photography offered participants a way to document experiences, and it became a community-based methodology that elicited narratives from the “participant as photographer” and the community of investigators.

Fostering Early Literacy Skills with Technology

In this chapter, the authors provide an overview of research literature for technology use with emergent-stage literacy learners. They review the overall research on technology for young children, then look at literacy and the role of technology in the classroom. The authors outline the development of literacy skills in the emergent stage (commonly defined as birth to age five). Finally, they use the framework established by the previous studies and the developmental sequence of the emergent stage to critically evaluate several literacy apps and e-books aimed at these learners. The authors finish with a selection of resources for selecting and using technology to foster these early literacy skills.

Building Knowledge

This chapter argues that the best learning occurs as knowledge is constructed, challenging the assumption that learning occurs mainly when knowledge is gathered and absorbed. This chapter thus builds contrasts between a constructivist epistemology and other approaches toward learning that do not seek the intentional construction of knowledge. Expanding on the current discourse regarding constructivist epistemology, this chapter considers more thoroughly problem-based learning as a pedagogical approach. The chapter begins and concludes with a preliminary study that illustrates how implementing a mobile application into a problem-based learning approach has enhanced learning for students collecting field data for biology and environmental studies research, as well as for students developing the application. This example illuminates a viable approach to translating educational theory into praxis.

Digital Literacy and the Emergence of Technology-Based Curriculum Theories

A shifting focus in education is resulting in more networked, technology-enhanced classrooms. Contemporary educators need to be aware of the skill sets students require to thrive in twenty-first century educational environments. This developmental and learner-centered approach, known as digital literacy, enables students to use technology to find, evaluate, organize, create, and communicate information. This chapter, therefore, proposes a theoretical framework for teaching digital literacy. The authors examine contemporary learning theories, including connectivism and chaos and complexity theories, in an effort to promote further discussion on the epistemological development of digital literacy. Taking into consideration advantages and barriers to promoting digital literacy in the classroom, the authors propose best practices for educators seeking to incorporate these competencies into their curricula.

Cyborgs and Cyberpunks

This conceptual chapter introduces theoretical issues to consider when reflecting on digital technologies in educational processes. Rather than beginning this book with a practical discussion of how to employ digital technologies as teaching or learning tools, the ideas presented here, and in this section of the book, provide a beginning to philosophically probing the implications of integrating such technologies into schooling. This type of reflection, initiated in this chapter and developed further in others, should continue throughout the book to inform perspectives shaped when reading about more practical matters. Ideally, theory and practice concerning digital technologies form a cyclical relationship. The dialogue presented here on empowerment, identity, and social/corporate globalization will hopefully lead to a Freirian notion of praxis involving reflection and action that transforms the world.

Of Embodiment and Ether

This chapter is an autoethnographic account of a scholar’s journey toward understanding his experience of the complexity of community, both physical and virtual, and how he began to understand, in relationship with others, the interplay between the two. Related to the centrality of relationships and community in physical and virtual spaces, this work explores how young men use technology and social media, particularly Facebook, texting, and video games, to establish, maintain, and strengthen in-person relationships and community ties. It also provides a narrative of researching and reflecting on research and reveals how digital technology can play a significant role in reaching out to and connecting with others.

Digital Icarus?

Video’s affordances can help researchers derive richer answers to a wider variety of questions than was once previously possible, especially when this medium leverages the networking capabilities of the Internet. However, uncritical use of video can exact significant costs, possibly jeopardizing research integrity. This chapter considers issues when using video recording for educational research. The first section discusses the practical advantages of using video in research and addresses concerns when collecting data. The second examines video within ethnographic contexts. It discusses video as a complement to participant observation and the author’s use of a personally produced ethnographic film to elicit student affective response. The third discusses philosophical issues that contextualize visual media used within research. This includes the production of meaning by images, the impact of the mechanical reproduction of images, as well as using visual media to explore the perceived gap between objectivity and subjectivity.

Study Skills in the Digital Age

Study skills, as defined by Harris and Hodges (1995), are the “techniques and strategies that help a person read or listen for specific purposes with the intent to remember” (p. 245). With over 34 percent of the world’s, and approximately 79 percent of North America’s, population using the Internet (Internet World Stats, 2012) and the percentage of classrooms in the U.S. that have Internet access increasing from three percent in 1994 to 94 percent in 2005 (Wells & Lewis, 2006), the way that students study and are taught to study must change. To teach study skills, teachers should use the explicit explanation model of reading (Stahl, 1997), which involves the teacher modeling, students practicing with the teacher scaffolding their use of the skills, and then students using the skills independently, using both print and digital texts. This chapter discusses these issues.

Preparing Preservice Teachers to Thread Literacy across the Curriculum with Blogging and Digital Storytelling

This chapter describes a case study integrating technological tools, digital storytelling, and blogging into a content-area literacy course for preservice teachers. The theoretical rationale and models are discussed, and the steps in planning for integration are outlined. Examples and resources are provided as well as a discussion of lessons learned during and after the integration.

Multimodality in the Preparation of Teachers of the Social Studies

The chapter outlines a project designed to address the challenges in developing and delivering the Social Studies methods course. The knowledge base represents a symbiotic integration of selected philosophical, theoretical, and methodological ideas. Specifically, it reports on two pilot courses that integrate online, traditional face-to-face, and Web-based formats. The project scaffolds the resulting weave with the Case Study process for Problem-Based Learning. This integration advances teacher education practice and facilitates the development of teacher candidates' democratic understanding of the issues surrounding the teaching and learning of Social Studies. It demonstrates the usefulness of multimodality in Education.