Emotional Intelligence (EQ) and Technology: On Incorporating EQ Skills in Teacher Education to Foster Teachers’ Meaningful Use of Technology to Support Learning
Abstract: Emotions shape who we are and what we do; they cannot be separated from our thinking, successes, or failures. We need to start giving them the importance they deserve and learn how to deal with them properly. In this paper, I first study the role emotions play in making education an impossible profession; second, review the way emotions are discussed in the literature; third, explore the role emotions play in teachers’ use of technology in their teaching; fourth, explain what emotional intelligence entails; fifth, portray a major criticism of emotional intelligence and refute it; and finally, provide a brief overview of how EQ skills can be incorporated in teacher education. My main objective is to help people recognize how emotions shape our classroom interactions, and start brainstorming to come up with a program that serves to incorporate EQ in teacher education and sets the basis for the development of effective pedagogies of emotions that benefit both teacher and student.