Session Information
10 SES 14 C, Research on Professional Knowledge and Identity in Teacher Education
Paper Session
Contribution
a. Project objectives:
The aim of this exploratory research was to investigate disabled trainee-teachers’[i] experiences of digital technology uses during their training years. The three objectives of the project were:
a. to find out ways in which digital technologies can support trainee-teachers with disabilities in the context of their school experience blocks and university-based training;
b. to explore issues around the implementation of Information and Communication Technologies (ICTs) as personal support tools and teaching resources;
c. to discuss points emerging from the integration of these technologies on institutional structures and cultures of teaching and learning.
b. Theoretical framework:
The interpretive frameworks of Actor Network Theory (ANT) (Bijker 1999; Law and Hassard 1999) informed the study and provided the platform to explore the interactions between technologies, human participants and their related activities and negotiations. In ANT, engagement in the social processes of a community, such as a teacher training course, and use of its artefacts, such as ICT, shape both the learners/participants as well as the objects themselves. The theory acknowledges the agonistic struggle and unequal power relationships that will exist and develop during social interactions (Fox 2000) as the heterogeneous actors of a community pursue individual and collective objectives during their negotiations and exchanges. The focus of the interaction is to promote diversity and growth, to articulate, mobilise, deconstruct as well as stabilise systems rather than merely preserve established principles or sustain organisations as canonical entities. Consequently, ANT disregards the technologically deterministic view of ICT as an ‘enabler’ or ‘facilitator’ and focuses on how networks of actors translate and problematise the uses of digital technologies. ANT describes a four-stage process of translations (Latour 1987) in examining the key actants’ roles and interests.
Features of ICTs that can support inclusive practices in HE have been identified in the relevant literature (Riddell et al 2005, Seale 2006a), sometimes after consultation with the disabled students themselves (Tinklin and Hall 1999, Holloway 2001, Fuller et al 2004). References to digital technologies in these projects include the importance of accessible design of resources, flexible use of technology and conceptualisation of disability from a socio-cultural rather than a medical perspective. However, in most of these case studies discussion about ICT uses constitutes only a minor part of the student experience and is not the main focus of the study. In addition, in these discussions ICTs are described solely as tools rather than as dynamic and active entities that influence networks of interactions. The power relationships between the participating actors: teacher training institutions, schools and individual trainees with disabilities materialised by ICTs uses, uses which are dynamic and developmental, are not discussed as an interconnected web of interactions which shape social activities, experiences, policies as well as participation in the community life.
[i] [i] The terms ‘disabled trainee-teachers’ and ‘trainee-teachers with disabilities’ are used interchangeably in the text. They are both intended to acknowledge the power relationships involved in the construction of identities and recognise ‘the understanding that disability is a form of social oppression’ (Kelly 2005: 262).
Method
Expected Outcomes
References
Bijker, WE (1999) Of bicycles, bakelites and bulbs. Towards a theory of sociotechnical change. Cambridge MA: MIT Press Fuller, M, Bradley, A, Healey, M and Hall, T (2004) Barriers to learning: a systematic study of the experience of disabled students in one university. Studies in Higher Education, 29(3), 303-318 Fox, S (2000) Communities Of Practice, Foucault And Actor-Network Theory. Journal of Management Studies, 37(6), 853-868 Holloway, S (2001) The experience of higher education from the perspective of disabled students. Disability & Society, 16(4), 597–615 Kelly, B (2005) ‘Chocolate … makes you autism’: impairment, disability and childhood identities’. Disability & Society, 20(3), 261–275 Law, J and Hassard, J (eds) Actor Network Theory and after. Oxford: Blackwell Publishers Quality Assurance Agency for Higher Education (2000) Code of Practice for the Assurance of Academic Quality and Standards in Higher Education (Gloucester: QAA) [online]. Available from: http://www.qaa.ac.uk/academicinfrastructure/codeOfPractice/section4/COP_external.pdf [Accessed 10 June 2010] Pumfrey, P (1998) Reforming policy and provision for dyslexic students in higher education: towards a national code of practice.Support for Learning, 13(2), 87-90 Ridell, S, Tinklin, T and Wilson, A (2005) Disabled students in higher education. London: RoutledgeFalmer Seale, J (2006a) Disability, technology and e-learning: challenging conceptions. ALT-J, Research in Learning Technology, 14(1), 1-8 Rhodes, J (2009) Using Actor-Network Theory to trace an ICT (Telecenter) implementation trajectory in an African women’s micro-enterprise development organization. Information Technologies and International Development 5(3),1-20 Seale, J (2006b) E-Learning and disability in Higher Education. Accessibility research and practice. Oxon: Routledge Tinklin, T and Hall, J (1999) Getting round obstacles: disabled students' experiences in higher education in Scotland. Studies in Higher Education, 24(2), 183-194
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