Preparing Tomorrow's English Language Arts Teachers Today: Principles and Practices for Infusing Technology

Pope, C., & Golub, J. (2000). Preparing tomorrow's English language arts teachers today: Principles and practices for infusing technology. Contemporary Issues in Technology and Teacher Education [Online serial], 1 (1). Available: http://www.citejournal.org/vol1/iss1/currentissues/english/article1.htm

This article does a great job of supporting our topic of discussion involving TPACK and integrating technology into teaching language arts. The primary focus of this article was how teacher preparatory courses in English language arts can integrate technology into courses.

The authors begin the article by giving 3 examples of how teachers were using technology to connect their children to the world.

High school students in New York assemble and publish a school literary magazine each year. The students working on this magazine are from 10-15 different countries. The student editors solicit contributions on the Internet, and students' writing is sent to the editors through e-mail for review and evaluation.

A teacher in Florida used a listserv to have chapter discussions where students in her classroom and students in Russia post their responses to each chapter and share thoughts about their readings.

Shorecrest High School, in Seattle, Washington corresponded with Israeli students through the International Education and Resources Network ( http://www.iearn.org/ ) during the Persain Gulf War.

Using these types of technology practices would be beneficial for my school as we part of the International Baccalaurette programme which the philosophy is to create well balanced and worldly students.

The authors continued the article by stating that teacher educators need to be infusing and modeling technology into their teaching to prepare students and future teachers for the 21st century. The authors noted seven principles for infusing technology into language arts teacher preparation programs:
focus on the importance of technology as a literacy tool;
model English language arts learning and teaching while infusing technology;
evaluate critically when and how to use technology in English language arts classroom;
provide a wide range of opportunities to use technology;
examine and determine ways of analyzing, evaluating, and grading English language arts technology projects; and
emphasize issues of equity and diversity.

The authors suggest that the principles listed above can be utilized by English language arts methods courses to “infuse technology in a way that does not interfere with content pedagogy but supports it in a way that actively involves students and prepares them with the technical and pedagogical skills for creating the new learning-centered classroom.”

At the time of my teacher preparatory course I had one course involving technology, but only the basic functions of the computer such as internet and powerpoints. Clearly, technology has become much more advanced since the 12 years I have graduated. It is up to teachers, school districts, and college preparatory courses to keep up to date on the advancing technologies. If not we are doing a disservice to our future educators and students in regards to preparing them for the 21st century.