Contemporary Issues in Technology & Teacher Education has a whole new look, and article URLs have changed. We have found 2 articles that may match the URL you entered or followed:

The Design of an Online Community of Practice for Beginning Teachers

by Anthony Herrington, University of Wollongong; Jan Herrington, University of Wollongong; Lisa Kervin, University of Wollongong; & Brian Ferry, University of Wollongong

Beginning teachers face enormous challenges in their first year of teaching. High attrition rates of teachers within the first five years attest to the difficulties inherent in commencing professional life as a teacher. This paper describes the design of a Web site developed to overcome many of the problems of professional isolation encountered by beginning teachers. The Web site allows new teachers to access curriculum resources that are dynamically updated through RSS feeds, to communicate with each other and expert teacher mentors through discussion boards, and to reflect on practice through weblogs. The paper describes the theoretical foundations of the approach, the features of the site in detail, and the plan for evaluation of the site.

Commentary: Expanding Notions of Acceptable Research Evidence in Educational Technology: A Response to Schrum et al.

by Kara Dawson, University of Florida; & Richard E. Ferdig, University of Florida

“Developing Acceptable Evidence in Educational Technology Research” (Schrum et al., 2005) and its precursor editorial, “A Proactive Approach to a Research Agenda for Educational Technology” (Bull, Knezek, Roblyer, Schrum, & Thompson, 2005), are unprecedented collaborative efforts by journal editors to influence research in our field. This response aims to highlight the inherent complexity within each of the four main issues addressed by Schrum et. al. and to expand the conversation. We appreciate both the editors’ efforts to be proactive with the problems and solutions as well as their open invitation to comment on their ideas for advancing the field. We look forward to continued dialogue.