| According to Tapscott (1998), society has dictated the directions and goals of the educational community. He asserted the educational community as well as society in general has gone through a dramatic paradigm shift. Due to the technological infusion into the home, workplace, and school, the education society must evaluate how information is communicated and accessed (Semali & Pailliotet, 1999).;Colleges of education hold the charge in creating high quality educators. In creating the program for elementary education majors, colleges of education are held to certain standards by NCATE. Standards for elementary pre-service teachers were created by ISTE (1998) and adopted by NCATE. However, the standards for pre-service elementary education majors focus on the opportunities for mastery, and do not focus on actual mastery.;According to Nicaise and Barnes (1996), many teacher education programs have implemented technology into practice. However, the implementation is merely using the technology as a means of presentation while lecturing. Therefore, technology has not changed the teaching strategies or methods used by faculty. The purpose of this study focuses on the use of technology by pre-service teachers during their student teaching.;Through descriptive data of the total population of pre-service teachers and cross-case analysis of the focus group participants, an understanding of pre-service teacher's methods of application and integrating of technology occurred. Specific considerations of course experiences in integration of technology, student teaching experiences of technology integration, activities integrated into the curriculum, and factors influencing the integration of technology were analyzed.;The results suggest pre-service teachers did use methods of technology integration and application. However, the experiences of the pre-service teachers are different in both course experiences and student teaching experiences. Specific recommendations were: (a) to create competencies expected of the pre-service teachers when leaving the university and evaluating throughout the coursework to ensure that the competencies were met, (b) to develop proficiencies for the professional development of the college of education faculty and field based schools, and (c) to conduct further research on the student teaching program and pre-service teachers' use of technology. |
