Instructional planning and new technologies in teacher education: the initial phase of a research project

The purpose of this work is to present the initial phase of a research project focused on the integration of technologies in the education of kindergarten and primary school student teachers through instructional planning. Firstly, we illustrate a tool designed for planning integrated learning units and describe the training path in which it was used. Secondly, we report the results of a preliminary study conducted with 96 students attending a university course that investigates two personal traits considered as prerequisites for using the tool: perceived proficiency in technology use, and opinions on the importance of each constituent element of the tool. With regard to both traits, some statistically significant variations emerged. The results obtained are an encouragement to continue the research project to verify whether the tool could be suitable to help student teachers develop an integrated planning procedure.