Teachers’ and students’ classroom work is increasingly described as knowledge work conducted in a in a rapidly changing globalised, digital world. To enable teachers to effectively support students in the shifting contexts created by constantly emerging new technologies, teacher professional learning has gained prominence as a priority area in education (Yates, 2007). This paper reports on research into teacher and student learning of digital literacies within the context of a project undertaken by a university and an educational authority. The professional learning project was designed to enable practising teachers to engage their students with digital literacies.The project seeks to offer innovative, differentiated professional learning by combining the concept of a collaborative learning community with structures of distributed leadership and processes of inquiry learning. The mixed methods research explored teacher and student learning through online surveys and case studies. Initial findings indicate that teacher agency, knowledge creation and commitment to sustained pedagogical change were fostered through inter- and intra-school communities of inquiry. Purposeful development of digital tools, within the context of teacher inquiry, collaboration and distributed leadership, led to increased and discerning use of these tools by teachers. As a result students had greater school-based access to digital tools and teachers and students worked collaboratively to develop their digital literacies.
History
Event
International Federation for Information Processing. Working Conference (2012 : Manchester, England)
Pagination
1 - 9
Publisher
Manchester Metropolitan University
Location
Manchester, England
Place of publication
Mancester, England
Start date
2012-07-02
End date
2012-07-05
ISBN-13
9781905476763
Language
eng
Publication classification
E2 Full written paper - non-refereed / Abstract reviewed
Editor/Contributor(s)
C Redman, F Trapani, K Carlin
Title of proceedings
IFIP 2012 : Addressing educational challenges: the role of ICT : Proceedings of the International Federation for Information Processing 2012 working conference