Using social media to develop ‘networked’ pre-service teachers and prepare them for teaching with technology

The purpose of this qualitative study was to investigate pre-service teacher’s beliefs about their use of social media to develop a personal learning network (PLN) in a first-year teacher education technology course. As new technologies are emerging rapidly and pre-service teachers are being trained to educate future generations, technologies courses in teacher education need to focus on developing educators who are prepared to be life-long learners. The pre-service teachers in this study participated in a technology course designed to transform the preparation of pre-service teachers by teaching them how to develop a PLN, access professional development, resources, and advice outside of traditional university teaching channels. This study presents pre-service teacher beliefs about the use of social media in a PLN and how becoming a ‘networked’ teacher will prepare them for teaching with technology in the future.