Filling in the gaps: Linking theory and practice through telecollaboration in teacher education

Melinda Dooly, Randall W Sadler

Research output: Contribution to journalArticlepeer-review

Abstract

This article discusses a two-year telecollaborative project in teacher education that took an integrated approach to teaching about and through technological resources in order to introduce student-teachers to innovative methods for communicative-based language learning through computer-mediated communication (CMC). Via 'technological immersion', student-teachers in two groups in Spain and the US were required to work together online to give peer feedback and evaluation of several activities, including teaching sequences. They also co-created podcasts, along with accompanying educational activities. Some of the tools used were Moodle, Skype, emails, wikis, Second Life and podcasting. The article analyzes and discusses multimodal data collected during the collaboration. Results indicate that the online collaboration enhanced teacher development through opportunities unavailable in more traditional teacher education classrooms and enabled student-teachers to better make connections between theory and practice.

Original languageEnglish (US)
Pages (from-to)4-29
Number of pages26
JournalReCALL
Volume25
Issue number1
DOIs
StatePublished - Jan 2013

Keywords

  • CMC
  • Teacher Education
  • Telecollaboration
  • Virtual Communities of Practice (VCoP)

ASJC Scopus subject areas

  • Education
  • Language and Linguistics
  • Linguistics and Language
  • Computer Science Applications

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