Creating a new model of technology-driven learning for teacher training in Chile

This paper is intended to add to the emerging dialogue on preparing teachers to use technology to promote grounded theory-based practices in their classrooms. In it, I report on a longitudinal case study examining changes to teacher trainees' identities, learning and teaching practices when they are exposed to the use of a variety of social networking technologies for language learning in the context of their teacher preparation program in a private university in Chile. The 12-month classroom-based case study was conducted using a variety of ethnographic tools - observation, interviews, and online conversation analysis. I investigated how the integration of technology into their content courses, as opposed to more traditional stand-alone course on technology use, mattered. The approach to technology used mattered both in terms of making a difference in the ways that these pre-service teachers viewed themselves as learners and as future teachers of language, as well as of their evolving perspectives on the use of technology for learning and teaching. My aim in conducting the study was twofold. First, I examined whether innovative technology- infused (TI) courses would serve to enable the beginning teacher participants to shed their traditional, passive, rather narrow cultural mindset as individuals and learners that are contrary to the identities of effective teachers. Secondly, I sought to determine whether opportunities for these individuals to use a variety of innovative technologies for their own learning would have an influence on the pedagogies they themselves employed in their teaching practices. Would technology-infused courses lead to teaching with technology? While acknowledging the challenges within classroom-based research and the complexities involved in social science-based qualitative research paradigms in drawing generalizable conclusions, the data analysis clearly confirms that there were encouraging signs for both aims for this particular group of pre-service teachers. This study should be of interest to all stakeholders in education, most especially those whose responsibility it is and who may struggle with practical strategies to ensure that pre-service teachers have the identities, skills and tools necessary for providing quality 21^st century education programs.