Kieran Forde

Technology education (TE) has the creating, making, and doing aspects of human activity at its foundation. This article presents a comparison of the teaching sense of efficacy (TSE) of practicing TE teachers and teacher candidates (TC) pre/post a forced switch to emergency remote teaching (ERT). In study 1, the effect of the switch to ERT had a significantly negative effect on TE teachers (N = 42; d = 1.77). In study 2, TE TCs (N = 16) were similarly affected (d = 1.16). Results of a two-way mixed ANOVA demonstrate that ERT had a greater negative impact on TE teachers’ TSE for student engagement (partial eta squared = .11) and classroom management (partial eta squared = .19) than it did on TE TCs’ TSE. As novice teachers tend to draw more from contextual factors than mastery experiences, this research demonstrates that experienced teachers were at a greater loss due to the pandemic than TCs.

The resource was created because teachers today face regulation and restrictions in their use of social media. Some regulations and restrictions are self-imposed, as they seek to keep a clear boundary between their professional and private lives, while others come from provincial guidelines and school district policies regulating the use of social media. Quite often, these guidelines and policies are unclear and leave it up to teachers' "best judgement" as to how to navigate this challenging area. In the absence of overarching policies, teachers are then open to the possibility of facing disciplinary action for using social media in a way that they may have considered acceptable while an authority deems the content or expression "inappropriate." This resource seeks to help in addressing this challenge in the hope that both current and future teachers can avoid the pitfalls surrounding their use of social media. https://socialmediapolicy.cste.educ.ubc.ca/

This study proposes to use a corpus-based approach to identify and evaluate some of the discrete features of spoken Southern Irish English. The features to be analysed were chosen on the basis that they were identified in the secondary literature, predominantly Harris (1993) and Filppula (1999) and are considered by those working in the field to be representative of the forms that make SIE a distinct variety of English. The study is corpus-based. This allows the researcher to use actual incidences of speech from contemporary speakers of Southern Irish English, thus allowing for an empirical approach to the research whereby physical evidence rather than intuition is the basis for the findings. The corpus to be used, The Limerick Corpus of Irish English, containing one million words of transcribed contemporary Southern Irish English casual conversation, is sufficiently large to verify the contemporary usage of most of the patterns of Southern Irish English. The study is limited to cer...

The way individuals interpret and reinterpret their experience is central to meaning-making and, ultimately, to teaching learning. Grounded in Mezirow’s Transformative Learning Theory, this research explores whether pandemic-related emergency remote teaching manifested in a disorienting dilemma for technology educators. Educators negotiated curricular outcomes between physical aspects of making and doing and design and creative problem solving resulting in a pandemic transformed pedagogy. Thematic analysis revealed that making and doing was severely challenged due to decreased communication, student motivation and engagement. However, most concerning to educators was the heightened disparity in equity and access in their most vulnerable and at-risk students.

Purpose The disruption caused by the pandemic declaration and subsequent public health measures put in place have had a substantial effect on teachers’ abilities to support student engagement in technology education (TE). The purpose of this paper is to explore the following research question: How do TE teachers see emergency remote teaching (ERT) transitions to blended learning into the next academic year affecting their profession? Design/methodology/approach A snowball and convenience sampling design was used to recruit specialist teachers in TE through their professional organization and were asked to respond to the question: What are your concerns about the future of teaching TE remotely? The qualitative data collected from the participants (N = 42) was analyzed thematically (Braun and Clarke, 2006). Findings The analysis revealed that the switch to ERT impacted the teachers’ ability to support hands-on competency development owing to inequitable student access to tools, materi...

HAVE YOU EVER taken swimming lessons? (Or did you just get tossed into the lake and told, “Sink or swim!”?) In those lessons, you get into your swimsuit, jump in a pool, and learn how to exhale underwater, to hold your breath, and various strokes to keep you afloat. Now, imagine doing those swimming lessons online.

This study proposes to use a corpus-based approach to identify and evaluate some of the discrete features of spoken Southern Irish English. The features to be analysed were chosen on the basis that they were identified in the secondary literature, predominantly Harris (1993) and Filppula (1999) and are considered by those working in the field to be representative of the forms that make SIE a distinct variety of English. The study is corpus-based. This allows the researcher to use actual incidences of speech from contemporary speakers of Southern Irish English, thus allowing for an empirical approach to the research whereby physical evidence rather than intuition is the basis for the findings. The corpus to be used, The Limerick Corpus of Irish English, containing one million words of transcribed contemporary Southern Irish English casual conversation, is sufficiently large to verify the contemporary usage of most of the patterns of Southern Irish English. The study is limited to certain non-standard forms occurring in the verb phrase, the noun phrase, the complex sentence, and in indirect questions. The research finds that, to differing degrees, these forms are all to be found in L-CIE and thus can be said to be in current usage in the genre of casual conversation in IE.

Developments in Web 2.0 technologies have heightened the level of scrutiny that teachers face. Teachers' digital identities and social media use can conflict with expected standards of professionalism, especially where these standards are ambiguous or absent. This creates tensions that may inhibit teachers from using internet technologies, both in the on-and off-duty contexts, which divorces them from the supports offered through professional learning networks as well as from inclusive platforms through which education in the STEM field can be delivered. This presentation is focused on the need for support and guidance for teachers to ensure that their use of Web 2.0 technologies, both on-and off-duty, does not cause them reputational harm or impact negatively on their professional identity. Specifically, the concerns of pre-service teachers regarding their use of social media are addressed which highlights the tensions that exist for teacher candidates around their use of SM as they transition into certified teachers. Participants will be presented with the concerns of pre-service teachers around their use of technology as they transition into their professional identity. It is hoped that this will highlight the additional challenges and dangers that Web 2.0 technologies can bring to teachers, given the higher standard to which they are held. It is expected that participants will gain a greater appreciation of the challenges teachers face in this regard, understand the tensions that these create, and see the urgent need for clear policy in the area of digital technology use for teachers.