This study compared the effects of planning activities involving drama and drawing with the traditional planning activity, discussion, on the quality of narrative writing. The subjects were 63 second- and third-grade students, randomly assigned to three groups: the drama group, the drawing group, and the control group. A repeated measures control group design with pretest was used. All three groups participated in 15 weekly sessions consisting of a 15-min discussion focusing on aspects of narrative writing, followed by 45 min of drama, drawing, or language arts activities, and 30 min of drafting. Drama activities developed individual ideas for stories through paired improvisations and individual role play. Drawing activities developed individual ideas through story boards showing characters, settings, and main scenes. The control group used a traditional question-answer discussion as the pre-writing activity followed by a text-centered language arts program. Students' first drafts were analyzed as data for the effects of planning activities. Three trained raters assessed the quality of writing using a narrative rating scale devised by the authors. Repeated-measures ANOVA revealed that the writing quality of the drama and drawing groups was significantly higher than that of the control (discussion) group. It was concluded that drama and drawing are effective forms of rehearsal for narrative writing at the second- and third-grade levels, and that they can be more successful than the traditional planning activity, discussion.

This paper presents data from two international projects focused on the interaction between changemaking and digital making in university students. The data is drawn from the contributions of 63 university students located in the United States, Romania, Spain, Belgium, Norway, Denmark and England. Using a design thinking methodology and a thematic analysis of student responses, the aim was to understand how the creative use of immersive technologies, such as augmented and virtual reality, might create an environment for changemaking practices in an international context. Findings suggest that students demonstrated not only enhanced digital skills and student engagement but increased cultural competence and global mindfulness. International digital collaboration can create conditions for students to develop changemaker attributes and identify as changemakers within the spheres of entrepreneurship and education, preparing them to be a force for change in the world.

Subject marginalisation is an on-going concern across the primary education sector, particularly for the arts and humanities. This poses issues for pre-service teacher partnerships and for higher education institutions (HEIs) evaluating the role of subjects within their teacher training courses as they reform their curricula to prepare students to teach across diverse educational contexts. Through the interpretation of student voice, we disseminate a case study with primary initial teacher education (ITE) students that investigates learner perceptions of their training in under-represented foundation subjects. Emerging themes include tensions between university and school-based practices, and between curriculum models, together with the need to develop student adaptability and self-direction. The authors propose that if ITE students explore and take on the dispositions of changemakers, they will become equipped with the self-efficacy and adaptability needed to develop secure bases for teaching foundation subjects as they begin their careers.

This article reviews the use of mobile technologies within teacher education at the University of Northampton. In order to develop a strong commitment to digital literacy, the School of Education is using sets of teaching iPads with trainee teachers and has allocated an iPad to every member of the academic staff. Experiences from mobile technology projects involving ITT students, primary teachers and academics are shared to illustrate how mobile technologies have been a catalyst for new pedagogies based on a social constructivist model of learning in the teacher education programmes. The author aims to develop creative, self-directed learners who can work in collaborative teams within a professional community of teachers, academics and students. The author has considered ways in which mobile devices extend learning beyond taught sessions, and how the use of apps to make shareable digital artefacts can lead to purposeful engagement. To this end, the School of Education is focusing on a set of core apps that facilitate the creation, collaboration, curation, and capture of content.

Purpose: – Online learning is developing rapidly in higher education. As a result, in the Initial Teacher Education Division at The University of Northampton, UK, academics have experimented with methods to embed blogs and online communities into courses to enhance learning for staff and students. The paper aims to discuss this issue. Design/methodology/approach: – This paper critically analyses the approach used to examine media-rich multimodal content that was shared through these tools. Findings: – The paper models how blogs and communities have enhanced interdisciplinary subject teaching, staff development and student engagement. This is achieved by sharing case studies from the courses which model the strengths and limitations of practices adopted. Originality/value: – Focused discussion demonstrates how reflexivity, communities of practice and experimentation with technological teaching strategies fuel the learning that occurred.