Virtual worlds in pre-service teacher education : the introduction of virtual worlds in pre-service teacher education to foster innovative teaching-learning processes

ii Publications arising from this research v List of Figures xi List of Tables xi Editorial Notes xiii Chapter 1 Introduction 1 1.1 Education, Learning and Digital Technology in the 21st Century 1 1.2 Educational Change and Innovation 3 1.3 Critically Evaluating Educational Technology 5 1.4 Pre-­‐service Teacher Education 6 1.5 Virtual Worlds 8 1.6 Aims of the Research 11 1.7 Background to the Research 11 1.8 My Position as a Researcher 14 1.9 Thesis Structure 15 Chapter 2 Educational Context 18 2.1 Change and Innovation 18 2.2 Diffusion and Adoption of Innovation 20 2.3 Educational Change and Innovation 23 2.4 21st Century Learners 25 2.5 Engagement 27 2.6 Learning Theories for a Digital Age 30 2.6.1 Conversational learning 30 2.6.2 Immersive learning 32 2.6.3 Situated learning 35 2.6.4 Connectivism 36 2.7 Pedagogy, Andragogy, Cybergogy 37 2.8 A New Culture of Learning 39 2.9 Research Need 41 Chapter 3 Technological Context 43 3.1 Introduction 43 3.2 The Effect of Technology on Teaching-­‐Learning Processes 43 3.3 Barriers to Technology Integration and Innovation 44 3.4 Disruptive Innovations 50 3.5 Virtual Worlds 52 3.5.1 Defining virtual worlds 52 3.5.2 The evolution of virtual worlds 54 3.5.3 Affordances of virtual worlds 58 3.5.4 Virtual worlds in pre-­‐service teacher education 61 3.5.5 Virtual worlds in K-­‐12 schools 65 3.5.6 Barriers to the adoption of virtual worlds in education 67 3.6 The Research Potential 70 3.7 Conclusion 73 Chapter 4 Methodology 74 4.1 Research Aim and Questions 74 4.2 Paradigm Within Which the Research is Situated 75 4.3 Complexity as the Theoretical Grounding 77 4.4 Action Research as a Meta-­‐Methodology 79