Technology and teacher education: What might 21st century teacher education programs look like?*

As Larry Cuban and others have noted, technology in Pre-K-12 schools is oftenOversold and underused and teachers largely use computers to reinforce their old patternsof teaching, not to transform their practice. Marc Prensky often quotes a student who sayshe has to "power down" to go to school. Universities are supposed to be on the "cuttingedge,"but in terms of technology and teaching, data suggest schools of education are notmaking the cut. As many have warned, if the field of education does not respond to theneeds of the 21st century, schools may be replaced by computers. This chapter examinesschools of education and the ways in which they prepare teachers to teach withtechnology-as technoignorant, as technoreplicative, or as technotransformative-andmakes recommendations for how teacher education programs can model and teachinnovative ways of using technology to transform teaching.