(635) SO YOU'RE A TECHNOLOGY EXPERT - WHAT CAN YOU DO?

摘要

Teachers' acceptance of technology is an important factor in their use of technology in teaching. Inthis paper, the authors report on an interim stage of a longitudinal project that explores relationshipsbetween pre-service teachers' self-rated levels of expertise when using ICT, their reportedcompetency in carrying out certain tasks, their level of personal use of selected technology, theirexperience of technology use for education, and their level of technology acceptance (using theTechnology Acceptance Model (TAM)). In Autumn 2013, a questionnaire encompassing these aspectswas given to first-year students at the College of Education at which the first author teaches. Thefocus in this paper is on exploring the students' understanding of “expertise” in the light of their selfreportedlevel, and relating this to their responses to their competency, technology use and TAMresponses. Overall, findings suggest that most students consider themselves competent users ofcomputers and heavy users of some technology, especially social media. Particular attention wasgiven to the responses of students who reported themselves as either “Very Expert” (N = 16) or “Poor”(N = 8) in answer to the request “Please rate your expertise in using technology.” A picture of the“Expert” users, especially in contrast to the “Poor” users, was developed, and will be important inhelping to harness their expertise during their continuing studies.