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www.learning-journal.com The International JOURNAL of LEARNING Volume 16, Number 6 Relation between Clear Aims and Teacher Satisfaction Betina von Staa

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www.learning-journal.com

The InternationalJOURNALofLEARNING

Volume 16, Number 6

Relation between Clear Aims and TeacherSatisfaction

Betina von Staa

THE INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF LEARNING http://www.Learning-Journal.com First published in 2009 in Champaign, Illinois, USA by Common Ground Publishing LLC www.CommonGroundPublishing.com. © 2009 (individual papers), the author(s) © 2009 (selection and editorial matter) Common Ground Authors are responsible for the accuracy of citations, quotations, diagrams, tables and maps. All rights reserved. Apart from fair use for the purposes of study, research, criticism or review as permitted under the Copyright Act (Australia), no part of this work may be reproduced without written permission from the publisher. For permissions and other inquiries, please contact <[email protected]>. ISSN: 1447-9494 Publisher Site: http://www.Learning-Journal.com THE INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF LEARNING is peer-reviewed, supported by rigorous processes of criterion-referenced article ranking and qualitative commentary, ensuring that only intellectual work of the greatest substance and highest significance is published. Typeset in Common Ground Markup Language using CGCreator multichannel typesetting system http://www.commongroundpublishing.com/software/

Relation between Clear Aims and Teacher SatisfactionBetina von Staa, Positivo Informática, SP, Brazil

Abstract: It is known that teachers who have clear aims for their lessons also reach more satisfactoryresults, and this includes classes that involve technology. However, it is important to better describethe concept of clear aims, and even of productive aims. Here we analyze the kinds of objectives thatrendered 70 teachers very satisfied, satisfied or unsatisfied when using the Alfabeto program (E-Blocks)for two months in 10 Pre-schools in São Paulo, Brazil, in more than 1,000 classes. We found out thatthe teachers who were very satisfied with their classes (44%) had clear and precise aims, which focusedon the step-by-step development of their students. Satisfied teachers (48%) tended to copy their aimsfrom lesson plans, and to focus on their own work as teachers instead of on their students’ development.Unsatisfied teachers (8%) formulated extremely broad aims that could never be accomplished in oneclass, or they focused on the learning of letters instead of more meaningful topics for children. Theseresults help us guide teachers to better plan their classes, especially when using technological devices.These resources tend to be very motivating themselves, but render much better results when its use isadequately planned.

Keywords: Satisfaction, Aims, Technology, Alfabeto, Planning

Introduction

TEACHER SATISFACTION IS an important education indicator for differentreasons. When teachers are satisfied with their classes, it usually means they havedeveloped a practice that is apparently productive, with motivated students who learnand develop their skills. Satisfied teachers may also mean lower turnover, which is

a serious problem in many educational contexts, including the public school system in Brazil.Of course, teacher satisfaction is a result of many external variables, including salaries,

workload, parent or professional support, recognition, incentives, or available resources(Lapo & Bueno, 2003). However, a very important internal variable that brings teacher sat-isfaction is the feeling of being useful and of accomplishing their aims. Ramos (2009) defendsthat students’ results are an important source of motivation for teachers, since they justifythe teachers’ work. On the other hand, low results bring about worries and frustration.Moreira (1997), after analyzing different studies on teacher motivation, states that it is notclear whether it is satisfaction that renders better learning results or the other way around.Nunes (1994) also mentions that a great source of uneasiness for a teacher is to continuouslyhave to put into practice decisions that were taken by others.

In the area of beginning literacy, teachers have typically had to adapt to different conceptselaborated elsewhere, which do not even share consensus. Beginning literacy is nowadaysa matter of controversy in many countries, including Brazil (Soares, 2004). There are discus-sions on whether whole language instruction or phonics produce better learning results, andthere are balanced instruction theories turning up. In Brazil, there is nowadays a tendencyto expand the concept of literacy from the knowledge on how to read and write to the

The International Journal of LearningVolume 16, Number 6, 2009, http://www.Learning-Journal.com, ISSN 1447-9494© Common Ground, Betina von Staa, All Rights Reserved, Permissions:[email protected]

knowledge on how to make use of reading and writing. However, during this development,very often both concepts of literacy have been blurred, which have probably caused the ex-tremely low literacy levels Brazilian schools have been obtaining in official evaluations(Soares, 2004). These results have certainly also contributed to some general teacher frustra-tion.

What Soares (2004) defends is that it is important to allow children to deal with manydifferent text genres, as well as to develop their knowledge of the phonological and phonemiccode and to learn to translate the oral form into the written form of language.

Another important issue in this context refers to the moment teachers should start formallydealing with beginning literacy in pre-schools. The laws and policies on pre-schooling inBrazil are quite recent. In 1988, for the first time, pre-schooling is mentioned in the Consti-tution and it is only in 1996 that an official guidance document (Brasil, 1996) was publishedfor this educational level (de Faria, 2005).

Five-year-old pre-school children have to be prepared for the first grade, when they turnsix, but one should not simply anticipate first grade instruction. Abramowicz (2003) mentionsthat 4 to 6 year old schooling means to insert children in culture, and to recognize they havea right to citizenship, but precocious schooling may also mean to discipline children, theirbody, their words and their gestures, taking away their childhood. The challenge in pre-schools, then, is to educate in order to insert children in culture without taking away theirchildhood and playful ways to learn and develop.

When children reach the age of six and enter first grade, in the state of São Paulo, theyare supposed to continuously develop their reading and writing skills. (São Paulo, 2007)Children are not expected to read and write fluently at this moment. São Paulo (2007) isexplicit that children should be able at least to write in a syllabic way and that they shouldbe able to read their own name, some of their classmates’ names, and some meaningful key-words in the first two months of the first grade. It is, nevertheless, expected that they reachfirst grade with some knowledge of the writing system to be developed during this year.

Apart from the controversies on how to deal with beginning literacy and when to startdeveloping reading and writing skills among children, there are also discussions on the impactof the adoption of technology at school. Reeves (1998) describes learning “from” computersas different than learning “with” computers. Ringstaff & Kelley (2002) explain:

“When students are learning “from” computers, the computers are essentially tutors.In this capacity, the technology primarily serves the goal of increasing students’ basicskills and knowledge. In learning “with,” by contrast, students use technology as a toolthat can be applied to a variety of goals in the learning process, rather than servingsimply as an instructional delivery system.”

Moreover,

“Many researchers investigating the use of technology in education have found thattechnology is most powerful when used as a tool for problem solving, conceptual de-velopment, and critical thinking (…) This kind of use consists of learning “with” tech-nology. It involves students using technology to gather, organize, and analyze inform-ation, and using this information to solve problems. In this manner, the technology is

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used as a tool, and teachers and students (not the technology) control the curriculumand instruction.” Ringstaff & Kelley (2002)

This means that, when teachers use a specific technology for their students to learn with,their have to plan their lessons very carefully in order to make the most of the resource.According to Straub (2009), “it is the individuals’ adoption patterns that illustrate a successfulimplementation.” Although it is crucial that teachers have clear aims when using technology(Cradler et alii, 2002), unfortunately this is not always a practice among teachers.

A technological solution for pre-school, then, has to consider all of these aspects: it isimportant that it enable children to learn, preserving their childhood, and it is important thatchildren start developing reading and writing skills without the need to be able to read andwrite fluently by the end of the year. Brazilian policies state very clearly that the developmentof students’ skills should be gradual at all levels. It is important that the teachers who use atechnological program have the opportunity to plan their own classes according to theirneeds, so that they do not have the feeling that the pedagogical decisions were taken byothers. As to the theoretical framework that informs a beginning literacy technological pro-gram, it should permit the development of code knowledge as well as use of language.

This study focuses on the use of the E-Blocks Multisensory Program Alfabeto in a pilot-project, which took place in May and June 2008 in 10 public pre-schools in the City of SãoPaulo. The Multisensory Program Alfabeto is an innovative technological solution designedto help children acquire written language using animation, video and sound resources tocreate a stimulating, interactive environment. Up to 6 children can use one panel at once,encouraging collaborative learning and the exchange of knowledge. By placing the colorfulblocks on the touch-sensitive panel, the student learns to recognize letters, to build words,to associate each word with its meaning, to read, to write, to interpret texts and much more.Apart from the words, texts, illustrations, videos and sounds included in the program,teachers can insert their own materials to prepare classes that deal even more with their stu-dents’ specific needs. The aim of the pilot-project was to check whether the resource wasadequate for São Paulo’s pre-schools, and it proved to be very valuable for the developmentof children’s hypotheses on reading and writing, and of their social skills (von Staa et alii,2009).

Here we observe teacher satisfaction when using technology in relation to the way theyformulate their aims, since we understand fulfilling an aim is extremely important forbringing teacher satisfaction. Moreover, it has not yet been defined what relation there isbetween formulation of aims and teacher satisfaction when using a technological solution.

We believe there is a limit to the possibilities of a specific technological resource to promotebetter quality education and more satisfied teachers. This limit is exactly the way teachersuse the resource. Our objective, then, is to find out which kinds of aims render more satisfac-tion in the context of beginning literacy teaching among five-year-old-children with the useof a technological resource that has already been evaluated as adequate for this context.

MethodThe study involved 2,600 5-year-old students as well as 70 teachers who used the Multisens-ory Program Alfabeto for two months. For each class given on the Program, the teachersfilled out a form, on which they wrote down the aim of their class, and checked the resource

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of the program that was used as well as their level of satisfaction with their class, whichcould be “completely satisfied”, “satisfied”, “a little satisfied,” or “unsatisfied”. This paperis based on the information retrieved by 1,317 forms and by 70 open questionnaires theteachers answered about their satisfaction with the pilot-project in general.

We separated the forms according to the level of satisfaction reported by the teachers witheach of their classes. Then we analyzed the types of aims of each group of forms accordingto accuracy, to the chosen verbs and to the chosen objects. The aims were classified as clearor vague, and their content was analyzed. Then, in order to better understand what teacherstended to ask their students to do or to focus on, we listed and counted with which frequencyteachers used specific verbs or objects in their formulation of aims.

The open answer questionnaires were used to confirm, disprove, or to offer more detailto the analysis of relation between the formulation of aims and teacher satisfaction.

The picture below shows a group of six children working on an activity of E-BlocksMultisensory Program Alfabeto. Here the teacher inserted the image of a heart that a studenthad drawn. The context is a popular folklore song that has the word “heart” in the lyrics.Children had recorded the sound and, right now, they are composing the word “HEART”(coração) on the panel.

Figure 1: Group of Children Working on Multisensory Program Alfabeto

ResultsWe will present our results starting with the general levels of teacher satisfaction. Then wepresent the development of teacher satisfaction in time. After that, we analyze the accuracyof objectives, what teachers asked the students to do and what they were supposed to focuson.

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Satisfaction with E-Blocks ClassesIn general, teachers were quite satisfied with their classes during the pilot-project with “Al-fabeto” E-Blocks Multisensory Program, as the graph below shows.

Figure 2: Level of Satisfaction of Teachers with their E-Blocks Classes

44% of the teachers were completely satisfied with their classes, 48% were satisfied, andjust 8% were a little or not satisfied at all. Since there were so few unsatisfied teachers, weanalyzed them together with the teachers who considered themselves just a little satisfied.This means that the technological resource apparently made teachers feel satisfied with theirclasses. However, as technology has a strong potential to promote some kinds of practices,but it does not render results without teachers’ work, it is important to analyze these data inmore detail.

Satisfaction in TimeWhen analyzing the levels of satisfaction in time, we saw that there was a decrease in satis-faction during the first five weeks of the study, in which 88% of the teachers were completelysatisfied or satisfied. Then the levels grew again, reaching 97% of satisfaction on the eighthweek. This development can be seen on the graph below:

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Figure 3: Level of Satisfaction of Teachers in Time

It is important to mention that the teachers received daily support by the education-technologyassistants during the pilot-project to plan their lessons. They discussed their difficulties withthem, who, in turn, suggested they plan their lessons or organize their groups differently.

We can thus infer that the teachers started the pilot-project with high expectations. Thenthey felt some difficulties, which were solved after interaction with other teachers, their co-ordinators or the educational-technology assistants. The teachers’ open answers to question-naires on satisfaction confirm this hypothesis.

They mentioned most of their difficulties occurred at the beginning of the pilot-project,because they were not comfortable planning this new type of lessons. However, in time,they learned how to plan more satisfactory lessons. They also mention it was important forthem to learn how to plan more context bound lessons, and this observation corresponds tothe fact that more contextualized lessons render more satisfaction, as we will show on thenext session of this paper.

Satisfaction in Relation to Preciseness of ObjectivesOur data enabled us to observe some tendencies on the kinds of objectives that made theteachers more satisfied or less.

Teachers who were Completely Satisfied

The completely satisfied teachers had a strong tendency to be very precise on the proposalof the aims of their classes. Here we have an example:

Example 1:“(My aim is)1 to work on the key-words of our animal-glossary, completing the wordsparrot, whale, kangaroo and dromedary with vowels.”

1 The words in brackets in the examples were added by the author of this paper.

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This pre-school teacher not only mentioned she would work on the animal-glossary theywere building together in class, but she also named the words she specifically expected thechildren to fill out with vowels on the Multisensory Program Alfabeto. The 5-year-old childrenwere not expected to know how to write any words, but they could focus on some parts ofmeaningful words, like the four animals the teacher listed in her objective.

Now we will consider an example of specific aim related to behavior:

Example 2:“To remind students that they have to wait for their turn when working in groups.”

In this example, the teacher does not simply expect children to respect each other, but shementions how she expects them to do it: waiting for their turn. Multisensory Program Alfabetooffers lots of opportunities for students to develop social skills, but it seems that teacherswho clearly know the skills their students need to develop end up more satisfied.

Another tendency of the completely satisfied teachers was to establish a relation betweenthe activity they would do on the Multisensory Program Alfabeto and their classroom project,as was the case in example 1 above. Children were not just practicing filling out just anywords, but the words they were filling out collectively were part of their class animal-glossary, which was a project developed with all the resources she had available, includingthe Multisensory Program Alfabeto.

The third feature we could notice among the completely satisfied teachers’ aims was thatthey referred to skills their students should develop gradually. They tend to use verbs thatshow they do not expect children to learn everything at once, but little by little:

Example 3:“To increase the knowledge they already have of the letters of the alphabet.”

Example 4:“To increase the children’s knowledge of games.”

Example 5:“To enrich students’ writing skills.”

As the examples above show, the teachers want their students to “increase” their knowledgeon specific topics, such as the alphabet or games, and they want them to “enrich” theirwriting skills (93 verbs used by completely satisfied teachers focused on gradual developmentof the student). They tend not to expect children to learn anything in just one class.

Teachers who were a Little Satisfied or Unsatisfied

To make a stronger contrast with the examples above, we can observe how the little satisfiedor unsatisfied teachers expressed their aims. Most frequently, their aims were out of context,like the following:

Example 6:“To recognize the consonants.”

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Example 7:“To memorize the letters.”

Example 8:“To increase the children’s vocabulary.”

These teachers did not mention which consonants of which words in which contexts theirstudents should recognize on the Alfabeto activity. Nor did they mention which letters theyshould memorize. The way these teachers formulate their aims is completely isolated fromany other project they might be doing or from any meaningful word for their students. Theyfocus on letter-recognition per se. By the end of the class, the teachers that formulate theiraims out of context are just a little satisfied with their work. They probably observe lesslearning among their students than the satisfied teachers.

Broad aims also tended to render little satisfaction among teachers:

Example 9:“(My aim is) to develop the taste for reading and to awaken the spirit of fellowship,solidarity, friendship and good habits.”

It is easy to infer that such broad and encompassing aims could not be achieved in one class,no matter what resource is being used, and they would not bring satisfaction to the teacher.It is simply impossible to fulfill so many objectives in only one class. The teacher who justexpected her students to learn to wait for their turn (example 2) felt a higher level of satisfac-tion by the end of her class.

Teachers who were Satisfied

The in-between category of aims is the one that brought some satisfaction but not completesatisfaction. The teachers who wrote these aims seemed to be a bit more insecure thancompletely satisfied teachers. In this category, teachers often simply copied the aims of theirclasses from the lesson plans they had received from the E-Blocks team. This did not happenamong completely satisfied or little or unsatisfied teachers.

Example 10:“To think about the writing system.”

Example 11:“To establish a relationship between verbal and non-verbal text.”

The image below shows a lesson plan with exactly the same sentences chosen by the teacherson examples 7 and 8:

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Figure 4: Image of a Lesson Plan Created by the E-Blocks Team* (*Translation of the markedtexts in the image: “To think about the writing system.”/”To establish a relationship between

verbal and non-verbal text.”)

This fact allows us to infer that satisfied teachers depended strongly on external suggestionsto use the Multisensory Program, and were not as independent as the completely satisfiedteachers. However, they gave themselves the trouble to read the suggested lesson plans, anddecided to try out new practices, even if they probably felt a little uncomfortable. In the end,they were satisfied, but not completely.

Another feature of satisfied teachers is that their aims for the use of Alfabeto are not asclearly stated as the completely satisfied teachers’:

Example 12:“To teach children how to write common words.”

Example 13:“To teach children how to write fruit names.”

Example 14:“That they interact with each other and learn some words.”

As we can see in examples 12, 13 and 14, teachers expect children to write “common words”or “fruit names”, but they do not mention which common words or which fruit names – andthese words have to be chosen when planning the specific Alfabeto activities, unless the

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teachers use the words form the program’s library. Satisfied teachers, thus, tend to use thedefault version of the program and read-made lesson plans.

As to behavior, we observe the same kind of statement: teachers expect children do interactwith each other, but they do not mention a specific social skill they want their students todevelop.

Finally, it is also clear that somewhat satisfied teachers focus more on their own workthan on their students’ production. It is only among satisfied teachers that we see the verb“to teach” (12 instances), and the verb “to work” is also the most frequent (37 instances) inthis group. The completely satisfied teachers focus on what their students are supposed tolearn, they do not use the verb “to teach”, and they use the verb “to work” with focus on thestudents’ tasks and not on their own.

Actions Students were Invited to doAnalyzing the verbs used by the three different groups of teachers (completely satisfied,satisfied and a little satisfied of unsatisfied), we will see some very relevant differencesamong them.

The completely satisfied teachers had aims that involved code knowledge as well as useof language. The image below shows the verbs this group chose most. The most frequentverbs appear in bigger fonts.

Figure 5: Verbs Used by Completely Satisfied Teachers* (*The words that appear on figures5-10 were translated from the Portuguese following some rules: Verbs and objects of com-pletely satisfied and satisfied teachers were translated when they were mentioned at leastsix times in our data. Verbs and objects of a little and unsatisfied teachers were translatedwhen they were mentioned at least twice in our data. Words that were mentioned less thanthat were not translated, because they are unreadable in the wordle image and, thus, irrelevant

in relation to the whole data.)

Completely satisfied teachers asked children to identify or to recognize different parts ofwords or texts, or even to complete words on the Multisensory Program Alfabeto, but theyalso asked children to write words or to reflect on different aspects of language. Moreover,they used a very high variety of verbs when expressing their aims, which indicates theseteachers have a very broad repertoire of what they can accomplish on Alfabeto. These

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teachers seem to have greater control on the curriculum, because they know how to use theresource for many different purposes.

Theses results show that the use of Alfabeto can equally satisfy teachers who are teachingcode knowledge or use of language, but apparently, when they have clear and varied aimsfor each of their classes, and when they balance use of language and code knowledge, theyget more satisfied with each of their classes.

Satisfied teachers also employed a broad variety of verbs to write down their aims, but itwas not as varied as the completely satisfied teachers’ verbs, which indicates a little lesscontrol of the curriculum. They also focused on both aspects of beginning literacy (codeknowledge and use of language). The image below reveals their choice of verbs when ex-pressing their aims:

Figure 6: Verbs Used by Satisfied Teachers

Finally, the teachers who expressed they were a little satisfied or unsatisfied focused almostonly on code knowledge. What we can infer from these results is that although Alfabeto allowsfor satisfactory code knowledge activities, when they are constantly out of context (as wesaw in item 3.3.2), they do not seem to render so satisfying results.

The image below shows the choice of verbs of little satisfied or unsatisfied teachers:

Figure 7: Verbs Used by a Little Satisfied or Unsatisfied Teachers

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Another interesting aspect to analyze when comparing these three groups of verbs is thatthe more teachers invited their students to be active, the more satisfied they were themselves.Constantly asking students to recognize, memorize or discriminate did not seem as satisfyingas alternately asking them to identify, to write, to reflect or to develop social skills.

Topics Students were Invited to Focus onIf we observe the objects the teachers chose to formulate their aims, we can notice what thedifferent groups of teachers preferred to focus on. This observation shows that the completelysatisfied teachers also had an extremely varied array of objects for their students to focuson, and they worked equally with letters (191 instances) and words (182 instances), emphas-izing the names of their students or their classmates’. They also worked with stories (46 in-stances) or texts (20 instances), which means that these classes were configured for eachclass, with the inclusion of meaningful words, texts, sounds or images, and consequentlycontext aware.

Figure 8: Objects Used by Completely Satisfied Teachers

Satisfied teachers also worked with letters (222 instances) and words (150 instances), andfocused on their students’ names. It is important to note that, during training, they had learnedhow to insert their students’ names into the program and plan activities with them. Onceagain, satisfied teachers were the ones who applied what they had just learned about the useof Alfabeto in their classes. In the end, this group of teachers showed less balance betweenthe work on letters and words as among the completely satisfied teachers, as the image belowshows:

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Figure 9: Objects Used by Satisfied Teachers

The teachers who were a little satisfied or unsatisfied focused much more on letters (44 in-stances) than on words (26 instances), and they hardly mentioned objects that referred tocontextualizing items, such as stories or texts, which were mentioned more frequently bysatisfied and completely satisfied teachers. Their choices of objects can be seen below:

Figure 10: Objects Used by a Little Satisfied or Unsatisfied Teachers

Our results indicate that a broad repertoire of aims, that are expressed clearly and related tobroader class projects, as well as a balanced focus on code knowledge and use of languagenot only produces more teacher satisfaction but also enables teachers to get the most of a“learning with” type of technological resource.

Final RemarksThis paper shows that the clearer the aims formulated by teachers when using a “learningwith” technological resource, the more satisfied they are with their classes. Satisfying aims,

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however, are not only clear, but also varied, which most probably means they are focusedon students’ needs and based on different theoretical frameworks.

These observations have various implications. In terms of educational technology, it isclear that, no matter how rich and flexible a resource is, teachers who know what it can beused for render higher levels of satisfaction and possibly better results among students.Teacher satisfaction also grows in time, as long as they interact with peers and educational-technology assistants about their difficulties. This means that it is always important to planteacher support when integrating new technologies into the curriculum. Teachers cannot beexpected to find out the best practices for the use of a resource all by themselves, but theyshould be encouraged to apply their curriculum knowledge when planning their classes witha new kind of technological aid.

Another relevant aspect of educational technology resources is that they should includesome suggested lesson plans as well as basic training with easily usable examples. In thisway, even teachers who do not feel at ease with the novelty find out how to start workingwith it in a satisfactory way. Of course, one does not expect teachers to be copying aimsfrom lesson plans forever or getting help for each lesson they prepare, but ready lesson plans,training and support are an important starting point for these teachers, since they producemore satisfactory results than among teachers who do not even seem to base themselves onsuggestions.

For teacher professional development as a whole the value of formulating clear aimscannot be underestimated. Our results show clearly that the teachers who know preciselywhat they want are also more satisfied. These teachers are probably also able to understandtheir students’ difficulties and accomplishments. If teacher professional development programsdeal with aware and precise formulation of aims, teachers might get more satisfied. Thismight also mean more learning among students and lower turnover among teachers.

As to beginning literacy practices among 5-year-old children, the study showed that, al-though teachers could equally work on code knowledge or on the use of language with theMultisensory Program Alfabeto without taking away their students’ playful childhood, theones who had clear aims decided to focus on both aspects of language in a balanced way.On the other hand, out of context code-learning seemed less satisfactory, which means it isprobably useful to teach the code to the children in a systematic way, but these activitiesshould be meaningful for students. As a whole, varied and purposeful use of “learning with”technology seemed to satisfy teachers most.

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/Leis/L9394.htmCradler, J., M. Mcnabb, M. Freeeman and R. Burchett. “How does technology influence student

learning?” Learning and Leading with Technology 29(8) (2002): 47-49.De Faria, Ana Lúcia Goulart. Políticas De Regulação, Pesquisa e Pedagogia na Educação Infantil,

Primeira Etapa da Educação Básica. Educação e Sociedade, Campinas, 26 (92) Oct. 2005.Available at http://www.cedes.unicamp.br.

Lapo, Flavinês Rebolo, and Belmira Oliveira Bueno. “Professores, desencanto com a profissão eabandono do magistério.” Cadernos de Pesquisa 118 (March 2003): 65-88. Available at ht-tp://www.scielo.br/scielo.php?pid=S0100-15742003000100004&script=sci_arttext&tlng=es

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Moreira, Herivelto. “Investigação da motivação do professor: uma dimensão esquecida” RevistaEducação e Tecnologia (1997). Available at http://escoladeser.files.wordpress.com/2008/09/in-vestig-da-moticacao-do-professor.pdf

Nunes, E.L. “O papel dos professores de Educação Física.”Revista Portuguesa de Pedagogia, XXVIII(3) (1994): 425-441.

Ramos, Susana Isabel Vicente. “(In)satisfação e stress docente.” FCDEF – Publicações Pedagógicas2 (February 2009). Available at http://hdl.handle.net/10316/8522.

Reeves, T. C. The impact of media and technology in schools: A research report prepared for TheBertelsmann Foundation. Available at: http://it.coe.uga.edu/~treeves/edit6900/Bertelsman-nReeves98.pdf. (1998).

Ringstaff, Cathy & Kelley, Loretta. The Learning Return On Our Educational Technology Investment:A Review of Findings from Research. WestEd (2002). Available at http://www.wested.org/on-line_pubs/learning_return.pdf .

SÃO PAULO (SP). Secretaria Municipal de Educação. Diretoria de Orientação Técnica. OrientaçõesCurriculares: expectativas de aprendizagens e orientações didáticas para a Educação In-fantil/ Secretaria Municipal de Educação. São Paulo; SME / DOT (2007)

Soares, Magda. “Letramento e alfabetização: as muitas facetas”. Revista Brasileira de Educação 25(January-April, 2004): 5-17. Avalilable at http://www.smec.salvador.ba.gov.br/site/docu-mentos/espaco-virtual/espaco-alfabetizar-letrar/lecto-escrita/artigos/letramento%20e%20al-fabetizacao%20as%20muitas%20facetas.pdf

Straub, Evan T. Understanding Technology Adoption: Theory and Future Directions for InformalLearning. Review of Educational Research, 79:625, (2009).

von Staa, Betina, Loureni Reis and Matilde Scandola. “The Impact of the Multi-sensory Program Al-fabeto on the Development of Literacy Skills of Third Stage Pre-School Children”.Educationand Technology for a Better World. 9th IFIP TC3 World Conference. Proceedings. (July2009): 39-47.

About the AuthorDr. Betina von StaaBetina von Staa is a PhD. in Applied Linguistics with focus on distance education. She hasbeen doing teacher training in educational technology since 2001. She coordinates a referencesection on educational technology for educational portals of Positivo Informática(www.educacional.com.br/tecnologiaeducacional). As a research coordinator, she has analysedthe outcomes of big educational technology integration programs in Brazil, in the City ofSão Paulo and in the State of Piauí.

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EDITORS Mary Kalantzis, University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign, USA. Bill Cope, University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign, USA. EDITORIAL ADVISORY BOARD Michael Apple, University of Wisconsin, Madison, USA. David Barton, Lancaster University, Milton Keynes, UK. Mario Bello, University of Science, Cuba. Manuela du Bois-Reymond, Universiteit Leiden, Leiden, The Netherlands. Robert Devillar, Kennesaw State University, Kennesaw, USA. Daniel Madrid Fernandez, University of Granada, Spain. Ruth Finnegan, Open University, Milton Keynes, UK. James Paul Gee, University of Wisconsin, Madison, USA. Juana M. Sancho Gil, University of Barcelona, Barcelona, Spain. Kris Gutierrez, University of California, Los Angeles, USA. Anne Hickling-Hudson, Queensland University of Technology, Kelvin Grove, Australia. Roz Ivanic, Lancaster University, Lancaster, UK. Paul James, RMIT University, Melbourne, Australia. Carey Jewitt, Institute of Education, University of London, London, UK. Andeas Kazamias, University of Wisconsin, Madison, USA. Peter Kell, University of Wollongong, Wollongong, Australia. Michele Knobel, Montclair State University, Montclair, USA. Gunther Kress, Institute of Education, University of London, London, UK. Colin Lankshear, James Cook University, Cairns, Australia. Kimberly Lawless, University of Illinois, Chicago, USA. Sarah Michaels, Clark University, Worcester, USA. Jeffrey Mok, Miyazaki International College, Miyazaki, Japan. Denise Newfield, University of Witwatersrand, Johannesburg, South Africa. Ernest O’Neil, Ministry of Education, Addis Ababa, Ethiopia. José-Luis Ortega, University of Granada, Granada, Spain. Francisco Fernandez Palomares, University of Granada, Granada, Spain. Ambigapathy Pandian, Universiti Sains Malaysia, Penang, Malaysia. Miguel A. Pereyra, University of Granada, Granada, Spain. Scott Poynting, Manchester Metropolitan University, Manchester, UK. Angela Samuels, Montego Bay Community College, Montego Bay, Jamaica. Michel Singh, University of Western Sydney, Sydney, Australia. Helen Smith, RMIT University, Melbourne, Australia. Richard Sohmer, Clark University, Worcester, USA. Brian Street, University of London, London, UK. Giorgos Tsiakalos, Aristotle University of Thessaloniki, Thessaloniki, Greece. Salim Vally, University of Witwatersrand, Johannesburg, South Africa Gella Varnava-Skoura, National and Kapodistrian University of Athens, Greece. Cecile Walden, Sam Sharpe Teachers College, Montego Bay, Jamaica. Nicola Yelland, Victoria University, Melbourne, Australia. Wang Yingjie, Beijing Normal University, Beijing, China. Zhou Zuoyu, Beijing Normal University, Beijing, China.

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