The annual Project Tomorrow Speak Up report is out. This year’s focus describes the digital experiences and expectations for tomorrow’s teachers. The report summzrizes what preservice teachers describe themselves as knowing about technology, how well prepared they feel they are to use technology in their future classrooms, and what present school administrators want and see in the new practitioners coming to work in their schools.
Let me begin with this observation. Part of what I understand my job responsibilities to be involves the preparation of teachers (practicing and preservice) to use technology in their classrooms. If what I do were a business, I would regard this report as good for business. The report would indicate that there was an unmet need and the report would indicate that the skills I happen to believe would be helpful to future and practicing teachers are the skills that are requested by those who hire these individuals.
Quite a few years ago now there was a series of years in which the federal government put money into higher education to encourage a focus on teaching with technology skills (PT3 – Preparing Tomorrows Teachers to Use Technology). The present report could have been used as the background justifying that funding program of long ago. The logic justifying some type of change, then and now, goes something like this. Preservice teachers have an interest in technology, but do not see meaningful educational use of technology in their college classes or in their observations in K12 classrooms. They may learn about technology in a stand alone college course, but this experience in combination with other preparatory experiences does not translate into instructional ideas or methods.
Here is the thing. My background may be focused on technology integration, but my background also encourages careful consideration of data and educational research. As much as I would like to believe that future teachers have this wealth of personal experience justing waiting to be redirected and as much as I would like to believe that school administrators support a much heavier emphasis on podcasting, blogging, etc. in the classroom, I am not certain that I do. My concern is that the survey methodology employed was more likely to attract “true believers” rather than a representative sample of preservice teachers and school administrators.
I do not believe that 20% of preservice teachers and 11% of practicing teacher have an active blog. I do not believe that 30% of preservice teachers and 10% of practicing teachers use Twitter on a regular basis (my wife disagrees on Twitter and suggests someone ask about SnapChat). I am inclined to believe that 80% of preservice teachers update a personal social networking site (Facebook). It also surprises me that 25% of administrators expect new teachers to be able to teach an online class or that 65% expect them to be able to create and use podcasts (not certain if this was in reference to the teachers or their students). All of this does seem to represent the logic and the experiences of those who might take advantage of an uncompensated opportunity to comment on technology in schools – not a representative sample in my opinion.
I constantly scour the literature for data related to K12 classroom uses of technology. I am not saying I have not added the Speak Up survey to may database. I keep track of whatever data I can find. While I like the summary, I think there is some danger in accepting some of the data at face value. I agree that college faculty members involved in all aspects of teacher preparation have a responsibility model what they believe are important instructional practices. I am less inclined to accept that college students have a wide range of technology skills that should be repurposed into instructional methods. I still believe these skills and related instructional strategies need to be developed.
