Exploring the Technological Make-up, Narrative and Ecologies of British Trainee Teachers
Abstract: Much research in the field has looked at bringing technology into the classroom over the last ten to fifteen years. Research has identified a number of reasons why technology integration works or fails, and these are well known, having been confirmed in many research studies. However, an uneven distribution of technology use in schools remains. This study postulates that current teacher trainees, in general, have a greater history with technology as learners and personally, in comparison to their older counterparts. A narrative based research study is conducted where teacher-trainees currently on a PGCE course are interviewed in an in-depth manner. There were a number of different ways in which this “history” with technology seemed to affect how the participants, as teachers, used technology. The combination of these experiences, it is argued, develops a distinct and potentially influential technological make-up which participants will enter their full-time teaching positions with.