Cyber pedagogy as critical social practice in a teacher education program

The policies and practices of higher education are reeling under the social, economic, and technological changes currently taking place in post-industrial, information societies. New communications and information technologies are constitutive factors in the philosophical and pedagogical shifts that are occurring in university classrooms. This paper uses a case-study methodology to investigate the use made of online technologies in one preservice teacher education context. Cyber technologies and their associated pedagogical activities are conceptualized in the paper not only as tools, but also as social practices. This approach enables a focus on learning and teaching as transformative practices. Following a description of the course content and delivery, the paper turns to an analysis of four key pedagogical features of cyber pedagogy as generated by the data. These are: Teaching and Learning as Self-directed Activity, Change in Student Identities and Self-perceptions, New forms of Technoliteracies, and E-tutorials. The research found that online pedagogies are forming new spatialities, multiliteracies, and identities of communication and learning