GREIP Research Centre

Perhaps one of the greatest challenges for teacher-educators is enabling novice teachers to develop ‘quality’ teaching skills and the knowledge that is necessary for them to become ‘effective’ at supporting their students’ learning process (Avalos 2011; Kumaravadivelu 2012; Wiseman 2012). Another difficulty is ensuring they have the teaching skills to fully integrate the use of technology into their pedagogical framework (Hubbard 2008; Koehler and Mishra 2009; Dooly and Sadler 2013). Due to recent technological, social, political, economic, and cultural changes (at both global and local scales), teachers must rethink the content of what they are teaching, beginning at the core of what comprises ‘knowledge’ in today’s interconnected world. Similarly, theorists have begun to conceptualize learning in ways that closely represent newer means of  interaction. (…) None the less, current education systems do not easily adapt to collective ‘produsage’. Knowing how to create optimal language learning conditions for ‘distributive knowledge’ can be a real challenge for teachers, especially creating conditions for multiple experiences of sharing and participating for their students in embedded, meaningful activities with others, both locally (for example their classmates) and globally (for example online peers). (…) One technology-enhanced learning configuration that has drawn considerable attention in the past two decades is telecollaboration. (Sadler & Dooly, 2017, pp. 1-2)

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Work cited:

Sadler, R. & Dooly, M. (2016). Twelve years of telecollaboration: What we've learnt. ELT-J, 70(4), 401-413.