Content area
Full Text
INTRODUCTION
Recent initiatives in education focus on reforms and improvements in teacher preparation. National educational initiatives like Race to the Top (2012) place attention on teacher accountability. Race to the Top's fact sheet indicates an intention to support:
Attracting and keeping great teachers and leaders in America's classrooms, by expanding effective support to teachers and principals; reforming and improving teacher preparation; revising teacher evaluation, compensation, and retention policies to encourage and reward effectiveness and increase the number of effective teachers in our schools; and ensuring that our most talented teachers are placed in the schools and subjects where they are needed the most. (White House Press, 2012)
An important element in accountability for reforming and improving teacher preparation is the accreditation of teacher education programs. An important component of teacher preparation is promoting appropriate methods to integrate classroom technology (Bai & Ertmer, 2008). NCATE determined in 1997 that the majority of teacher education programs were not effectively preparing teachers to use technology in the classroom (Shoffher, Dias, & Thomas, 2001). National Council for Accreditation of Teacher Education (NCATE) recommended that technology education be central to the teacher preparation process (Shoffner et al, 2001). In 2000, the International Society for Technology in Education published National Educational Technology Standards for Teachers. This increased call for technology integration in teacher preparation programs was eventually translated to the state and university level. Standards set by the National Council for Accreditation of Teacher Education (NCATE, 2012) stress the importance of technology integration for teachers.
The purpose of this study was to explore faculty members' experiences with the introduction of LiveText as a technological innovation in a college of education. LiveText (2009) is a web-based learning, assessment, and accreditation system. The terms content management system (CMS) and learning management system (LMS) are often used interchangeably. The term content management system is used to discuss these applications in this article. A CMS is designed to support academic courses. LiveText is one of a class of applications (i.e., Taskstream, Folio Live, and others) that links students' artifacts (eportf olios, projects, and documents) to appropriate content and institutional standards. Simultaneously, these same artifacts allow faculty to access student work, provide online feedback, and allow a college of education to collect and aggregate data...