The goals of this project center around the improvement of Professional Development of educators by means of new technologies. Our vision has been to create learning communities in which pre-service and practicing teachers collaborate in the conduct of real-world tasks (as opposed to textbook exercises) with the aid of new technologies. We have created just such a learning community by having pre-service teachers enrolled in a technology-in-education course team with practicing teachers as the latter go about their day-to-day work of planning and using technology with K-12 students. This will provide pre-service teachers with access to actual "teaching with technology" problems that arise in the classroom and to authentic feedback on the quality of their efforts, while simultaneously benefiting practicing teachers who are expanding their knowledge on the use of technology within the context of their specified needs. This partnership provides the foundation for supporting a learning community of pre-service and practicing teachers that situates both in collaborative practices that are authentic and valuable to all involved.

Specifically, we have studied how issues of ownership, power, authenticity, and collaboration contribute to students' successes and the success of the program through four case studies.� We also explored how asynchronous conferencing tools might be used to facilitate communication across geographic and chronological boundaries, breaking down traditional barriers to distributed communities of practice and making possible the creation of a co-evolutionary model for supporting the emergence of a context that was authentic to both pre-service and in-service teachers.� In contrast to claims that suggest authenticity for an individual can be prescribed to a learner by the instructor, we deny the legitimacy of preauthentication.� Instead, an assumption underlying this research is that authenticity is an emergent process that is actualized through individuals� participation in tasks and practices of value to themselves and to a community of practice.