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This small-scale design-based study describes a cyclical model of professional learning between three stakeholders in initial teacher education (ITE) namely: university-based educators (UEs), student teachers (STs) and co-operating teachers (CTs). This model promotes the development of digital learning leaders through an innovative mentoring process. This process started with university-based educators (UEs) mentoring their student teachers (STs) in the pedagogical use of Virtual Reality (VR) and the creation of re-usable learning objects (RLOs). STs were supported and encouraged to cascade this learning to their placement schools as digital learning leaders connecting the innovative practice from the university directly to their classroom practice. Through bi-directional reverse-mentoring the STs and CTs supported each other technically (with the VR) and pedagogical (through the links to the curriculum) to create additional subject-specific RLOs which the STs were able to demonstrate to the UEs on their return to university. Thus, providing the final link in the cycle of learning leaders across the triad of partners in ITE.

The use of digital technologies in programs of Initial Teacher Education (ITE) is now well established, both for purposes of teaching, learning, and assessment of students within ITE programs, and so that student-teachers may themselves learn to use Information and Communications Technology (ICT) in their own teaching. This chapter undertakes a scoping review of the use of one particular form of digital technology in ITE: Student Response Systems (SRSs). It systematically selects and reviews 19 studies retrieved from a rigorous search of academic journals across a 10-year timespan (2011–2021), with a focus on web-based SRS applications. The review considers a number of factors with regard to the use of these SRS in ITE, including what systems are in use and the terminology used to describe these, the ITE subjects and ITE levels they are being used with, the research objectives guiding investigations of SRS usage within ITE, the research methods and approaches used to pursue these objectives, and the reported advantages and benefits, as well as challenges and limitations, of using these systems in ITE settings. It concludes by identifying a number of research gaps relating to Student Response Systems in Initial Teacher Education and recommendations for further research.

Conferences are widely recognised as a central component of academic life, providing important opportunities for dissemination of research, professional networking, and extending scholarship. Notwi...

Computational Thinking (CT) is a problem-solving process applicable across all disciplines. It has been defined as a 21st-century skill (Wing, Communications of the ACM, 49(3), 33–35, 2006). Unfortunately, little pedagogical research is available to guide teachers and designers when devising a CT course. This study addresses this issue by describing how a framework to teach CT to second-level students evolved. This framework, ADAPTTER, has been shown to result in a high quality, engaging, low threshold, effective, and practical course. A three-phase Educational Design Research study was employed to develop this framework. It involved six schools, eleven teachers, four content experts, and 446 students. Data was gathered using various means: teacher interviews and diaries, students' questionnaires, artefacts, and tests. The ADAPTTER framework is offered as a way for teachers and researchers to design a CT course, understand its components and have conversations around the same.

This paper aims to interpret, analyse, and critique educational pasts, presents, and futures. It is framed by potentially falsifiable memories of colonization and struggles for identity and social justice. We adopt the device of social science fiction (Gerlach and Hamilton 2003) as a specialist genre of speculative fiction (Graham et al. 2019). Such speculative approaches seek to develop provocations rather than predictions (Selwyn et al. 2020) and to implicate their readers rather than to inculcate them. In this tradition, we seek to ponder possibilities of post-pandemic educational futurities. Our work centres on the ramblings of an unknown scholar who, on the cusp of a postscientific world, screams a maddened poem into the void titled ‘The Pandemic will not be on Zoom’. The events surrounding this poem are pieced together to reveal a world of stark inequities and digital and biological fractures. These fractures prefigured a bleak colonization of humankind by a deepmind hive Artificial Intelligence (AI) (Fig. 1) that caused us to become forever isolated from ourselves and that brought an end to the grand projects of science and education. In our conclusion, we call for other historians of futures past to help uncover timelines, and write alternative fictions, that promote pedagogies of hope, care, justice, and a brighter day.

While School Placement is long established as a central component of Initial Teacher Education programmes, there is an increasing awareness that these placement experiences should go beyond the practical activities most directly associated with teaching. This paper considers how engagement in a school placement period with a focus on non-teaching activities contributes to the professional and personal development of student-teachers, and to their sense of ‘belonging’ while on placement. Drawing primarily on the analysis of data obtained from online logs maintained by student-teachers during this predominantly non-teaching placement, it establishes the activities that they engaged in, and their reflections and opinions about the value of these experiences and this practicum placement. Findings include an increased sense of belonging to the school community, greater confidence and a stronger sense of identity as teacher.

This paper reports on a distinctive one-year online open crowdsourcing initiative which originated in the Republic of Ireland with a view to compiling an A–Z directory of educational technology tools for teaching and learning. Through analysis of multiple sources of data, the paper presents an intrinsic case study which outlines the design and implementation of the initiative and offers critical insights into engagement and participation in the project. The study found that participants from across the spectrum of educational sectors contributed to this project from a range of geographical locations, with significantly greater numbers engaging with the directory of educational technology tools that resulted from the crowdsourcing activity. It concludes that the creative project design, combined with a novel crowdsourcing methodology encompassing elements of collaboration, competition, and gamification, were strong motivational factors for participation. The case study provides a valuable context for considering the wider potential of this particular crowdsourcing format (and crowdsourcing applications in general) for teaching and learning purposes.

School Placement is recognised as a central component of Initial Teacher Education (ITE) programmes for the professional development and personal growth of student-teachers. It is also acknowledged to be a particularly challenging time for students during which they require support and guidance from their ITE tutors. In this regard, online environments hold much potential to facilitate greater communication between student-teachers and tutors during school placements. This paper considers the communicative features of a custom-built online environment for teacher education in the context of a concurrent ITE degree. It identifies a number of positive outcomes from the use of this system with regard to communication between student-teachers and their tutors. These include a more sustained and dialogical engagement between student-teacher and tutor throughout the duration of the placement, enhanced levels and quality of support that tutors can extend to student-teachers while on placement, and more productive face-to-face communication between tutors and students.

This literature report is a phase one output from the #Openteach: Professional Development for Open Online Educators project, which is funded by the National Forum for the Enhancement of Teaching and Learning in Higher Education. The #Openteach project aims to generate new knowledge about effective online teaching practice. It aims to harness this knowledge to support the professional learning of online teachers and to more effectively support online student learning experiences. This report was developed to help lay a foundation for the project through a critical analysis of relevant literature.

This study examined the ethical considerations researchers have made when investigating MOOC learners’ and teachers’ Twitter activity. In so doing, it sought to addresses the lack of an evidence-based understanding of the ethical implications of research into Twitter as a site of teaching and learning. Through an analysis of 31 studies we present a mapping of the ethical practices of researchers in this area. We identified potential ethical issues and concerns that have arisen. Our main contribution is to seek to challenge researchers to engage critically with ethical issues and hence develop their own understanding of ethically- appropriate approaches. To this end, we also reflected and reported on our own evolving practice.

This chapter tells the story of the development of a largely on-line community of practice among participants from three institutions that are in the process of becoming incorporated. It is set in the socio-historical context of Ireland. An Irish metaphor, Meitheal, is used to describe the work, which built from initial collaboration by two of the authors in two different institutions, and spread ‘virtually’ to include the other authors. Leadership is spread, and boundaries are fluid. Adobe Connect (a web conferencing platform) and Google Hangouts (an online system for video chat and collaboration) were used, in conjunction with Google Communities, to share and develop tools and systems that have worked for the benefit of all. Specific examples of these tools and systems are presented, along with challenges, benefits, lessons learned and suggestions for future research. Literature about Communities of Practice, rhizomatic learning and Foucauldian analysis of power underpins the work.