(806)AUTHORSHIP AND COMMUNITY: A BAKHTINIAN ANALYSIS OFWEB 2.0 COMMUNICATION AMONG PRE-SERVICE STUDENTTEACHERS

摘要

Second-generation Web (Web 2.0) technologies allow for the linking of people as well asinformation. As a result, they enable hybrid learning spaces that travel across physicaland cyber spaces according to principles of collaboration and participation [1]. Theseinteractive forms allow for publication, participation and networking through blogs, wikis,twitter and various social networking sites. The types of interaction made possible byWeb 2.0 applications allow users to exercise authorship, communicate with an audienceand produce text or multimodal artifacts [2]. For most pre-service student teachers, Web2.0 technologies are a preferred mode of communication outside the classroom but rarelyused in schoolThe construction of a teaching self (identity) is an important factor in both the success ofpre-service student teachers during their practicum and the subsequent decision to maketeaching their profession [3]. This case study explores the use of Web 2.0 softwareamong a cohort (n=10) of pre-service student teachers. A number of concepts associatedwith the work of Mikhail Bakhtin (authoring, dialogism, heteroglossia and ventriloquation)are used to provide a theoretical framework for understanding how interactivecollaboration and participation in Web 2.0 applications helps (or hinders) pre-serviceteachers as they negotiate the complex and often conflictual process of student teaching.According to Bakhtin [4], we “author” an identity by positioning our voice in relationship tothe voices of others. The construction of a teaching identity is especially complex in themultifaceted context of a student teaching experience where the student teacher isconfronted with a multitude of competing voices in constant dialogue. Some of thesevoices are authoritative and are likely to be resisted while others are internally persuasiveand are assimilated. Web 2.0 applications extend dialogical interactions into virtualspaces where both centrifugal (hierarchical, ordered, centralized) and centripetal(dispersed, horizontal) forces are at work. Some applications privilege authorship whileothers emphasize collaboration and community building.The central finding of the study was that participants with strong teaching identitiestended to favor Web 2.0 applications that they believed facilitated collaboration andcommunity building (i.e. wikis) while those who were struggling to construct a teachingidentity favored those applications that gave them a more effective space for authorship(i.e. blogs).