Defining a Field: Content, Theory, and Research Issues

The emerging field of information technology and teacher education (ITTE) can be defmed in many different ways. This paper proposes that ITTE be defined through a subject matter focus on the use of information technology, in all its forms, in teacher education. Although all of us prefer certain theories and methods of scholarship, there are many reasons to avoid defining, and thus limiting, the field by defining it in terms of a particular theory or research methodology. We should be thoughtfully eclectic when it comes to theoretical frameworks as well as the way in which theory is developed, used, and modified. We should be thoughtfully eclectic when it comes to methodology. There are many sources of information.