“You have to teach to your personality”: Caring, sharing and teaching with technology

Abstract

Studies of teachers in higher education have acknowledged the relationship between teaching and teacher identity. Teacher identity is seen as dynamic, context-specific, and encompassing a teachers’ sense of meaning, values and self-esteem. This article considers the relationship between the values dimension of teacher identity and the use of technology. Using qualitative data from a multisite case study, it explores three aspects of the relationship between values and technology in teaching: firstly, the extent to which technology allows university teachers to share their values and their personality with students; secondly, the way in which technology affects the performance of teaching; thirdly, the ways in which teachers enact their care for and commitment to students though technology-mediated means. The article suggests that technology can be used in ways that teachers feel support or hinder their ability to communicate their values and shows how an individual’s use of technology may be shaped by aspects of their identity as a teacher.