Preservice teachers’ perceptions of instant messaging in two educational contexts
Date
2008Author
Doering, Aaron
Lewis, Cynthia
Veletsianos, George
Nichols-Besel, Kristen
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Instant messaging; Middle school students; Teachers and community; Communication in community developmentAbstract
Using an activity theory framework, we investigate how preservice teachers and middle school
students utilized instant messaging in educational contexts, and the impact of instant messaging
on the development of community among preservice teachers. Qualitative results from six focus
groups and two personal interviews indicate that instant messaging enhanced the development of
community among the preservice teachers and facilitated the breakdown of teacher-student
social barriers while being predominantly exploited as a social rather than an academic medium.
The instant messaging assignment consisted of three overlapping activity systems that
complicated the assignment and created some degree of tension for the teachers. Even though
preservice teachers felt uncomfortable being at a peer to peer level with students, instant
messaging enabled them to build an activity system that can be characterized as a multifaceted
learning and knowledge-based community.
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