An interactive digital platform for preservice secondary English teachers’ reading: First iteration findings

Preservice teachers of secondary English need sustained and confident experiences of the pedagogical affordances of information and communication technologies (ICTs), to overcome the constraints perceived by their secondary teaching colleagues. They also need to rapidly develop an extensive knowledge of adolescent fiction titles for progressing the reading engagement and success of their future students. Building on the students’ acceptance of ICTs, this study examines the impact of using an interactive digital platform within preservice secondary English courses, for adolescent reading requirements. This paper reports results of the first iteration of the innovation. Data were collected via a questionnaire and results show that using an interactive digital platform with social networking characteristics for writing and reading book summaries, augmented knowledge of titles, increased motivation for reading, developed a repository of titles for use in the first year of teaching, and demonstrated how a digital platform might be successfully used in schools. Recommendations for the second iteration of the innovation are also reported.