Eseta Tualaulelei

This Element focuses on the role of interactive technologies in enhancing pre-service teachers' engagement with learning in online environments. It begins with a brief overview of the current state of teacher education, focusing on online teaching. This is followed by analysing the concept of engagement, underscoring its importance for pre-service teachers studying online. The Element explores various dimensions of engagement – cognitive, behavioural, affective, and other – and how interactive technologies can enhance these dimensions in online learning. A key feature of this Element is its exploration of key challenges that teacher educators and pre-service teachers encounter when using interactive technologies with practical recommendations for addressing them. The concluding section shifts the focus to the future, offering recommendations for how teacher education can use interactive technologies to 'grow' teacher educators who can engage their students. Throughout the Element, practical examples complement theoretical discussions to bridge the gap between theory and practice.

This Element focuses on the role of interactive technologies in enhancing pre-service teachers' engagement with learning in online environments. It begins with a brief overview of the current state of teacher education, focusing on online teaching. This is followed by analysing the concept of engagement, underscoring its importance for pre-service teachers studying online. The Element explores various dimensions of engagement – cognitive, behavioural, affective, and other – and how interactive technologies can enhance these dimensions in online learning. A key feature of this Element is its exploration of key challenges that teacher educators and pre-service teachers encounter when using interactive technologies with practical recommendations for addressing them. The concluding section shifts the focus to the future, offering recommendations for how teacher education can use interactive technologies to 'grow' teacher educators who can engage their students. Throughout the Element, practical examples complement theoretical discussions to bridge the gap between theory and practice.

This book explores the portrayal of refugee experiences in children’s picture books using insights from Joseph Campbell’s The Hero with a Thousand Faces. Chapter 1 considers this emerging genre of children’s literature within its social and educational context and explains how the narratives embedded within these books were examined. Chapter 2 cites key studies in the field of children’s picture books about refugees to uncover common narrative arcs, characterisations, themes and educative value. Remaining chapters detail the three core elements of Campbell's canonical narrative arc to review how the experience of refugees is presented in modern picture books using this familiar narrative structure as a means of exploring a humanitarian issue with overt political overtones. In so doing, the authors employ an innovative means of analysing picture books that deal with refugees by positioning them within a familiar narrative arc that belies the fear of difference they may otherwise represent.