The Affordance of Blogging on Establishing Communities of Practice in a Pre-Service Elementary Teacher Education Program

Source: Journal of Technology and Teacher Education, Vol. 21, No. 1, January 2013, p. 49-88.

The current study examines the affordances of blogging on establishing communities of practice within an elementary teacher education program.
The authors examined pre-service teacher participation in an online community of practice where pre-service teachers, over the course of their elementary education program.

As pre-service teachers participated in the community over the course of the academic year, they discussed shared practice, developed meaning and through this community transformed their identity over time.

An analysis of the data demonstrated tensions around epistemologies, community and identity development.
By using this framework to analyze the data, the focus became on the tensions and opportunities for development of pre-service teachers progression from the legitimate peripheral participant to a fully engaged practitioner.