From Digital Doubt to Digital Confidence: Tracking Capability in Teacher Education with Katie Wilson

In between PhD data sets, teacher educator Katie Wilson took on a small reflective project with her first-year students — and what she found was bigger than expected.

In this episode, Katie (a lecturer at ACU in Brisbane) shares how tracking pre-service teachers’ digital confidence across a semester opened up unexpected insights about capability, curriculum, and identity. Grounded in ACARA’s digital requirements, framed through TPACK and the Digital Capability Continuum, this isn’t just a tech talk — it’s a powerful reflection on what it means to teach with intention in a digitally complex world.

With honesty, humour, and deep practical insight, Katie unpacks how small changes in delivery can lead to big shifts in confidence — and why teacher educators should never assume their students “just know how to use the tech.”

Further Reading: For Listeners Who Want to Dive Deeper

 Digital Capability & Continuums

• Cain, M., & Coldwell-Neilson, J. (2020). Reviewing digital capability in higher education: A framework for benchmarking.
  • The foundation of the Digital Capability Continuum used in this project.
• Jisc (2022). Building digital capability: The six elements framework.
  • A practical model used widely in HE to map digital development for staff and students.

Pedagogical Frameworks (TPACK & PedTech)

• Koehler, M.J., & Mishra, P. (2009). What is technological pedagogical content knowledge (TPACK)?
  • The core article introducing the TPACK framework, which underpins the pedagogical lens in the project.
• Aubrey-Smith, F. (2022). From EdTech to PedTech: Changing the way we think about digital technology in education.
  • Katie’s favourite! A brilliant, accessible reflection on using tech with purpose, not just presence.

Digital Identity, Literacy & Confidence

• Ng, W. (2012). Can we teach digital natives digital literacy?
  • Unpacks the myth of the “digital native” and what real digital literacy requires.
• Couch, J. (2019). Rewiring Education: How Technology Can Unlock Every Student’s Potential.
  • Accessible and practical, this text provokes deep thinking about designing learning in the digital age.

Transcript

Natalie McMaster
Hi and welcome to another podcast from the AARE Technology and Learning SIG. Today, I'm talking to Katie Wilson. Hi, Katie. Welcome to the podcast.

Katie Wilson
Hi, Natalie, thank you for having me.

Natalie McMaster
Oh, not a problem. I guess we'll start, if you can tell us a little bit about who you are and what drives your work in education and technology.

Katie Wilson
Yeah, sure. So my name's Katie Wilson. I am a lecturer in teacher education. And I work with pre-service, Early Childhood, Primary and Secondary teachers at ACU on the Brisbane campus, but also nationally throughout online courses. Officially, and most commonly, I do work within the technology space, but really I'm a bit more of a generalist. I'm driven by my passion for quality education for all, so I'm more than happy to teach it all as well.

Natalie McMaster
I know you've been doing your PhD. Can you share a little bit with us today about how it connects to the work that we're going to be talking about?

Katie Wilson
Yeah, sure. So the work that we're talking about today connects really closely with my PhD. In fact, it actually came out from some of my initial research collection that I did. So my PhD is through the University of Canberra where my supervisors Kate Highfield and Holly Turtle are really supporting me get through quite quickly. I'm about 2/3 of the way through exploring my topic of how initial teacher education prepares pre-service teachers to meaningfully and confidently use technology in their future classrooms. A bit of a mouthful. But the projects that we're talking about today came from that space. As I was interviewing participants, I noticed a significant number of students were expressing frustration. Not just that they didn't know how to use certain technologies, but that they expected to learn those particular technologies at university and then were surprised when they hadn't. So for me, that was a real moment of reflection. What is it that I'm explicitly teaching in my own classes, and what am I implicitly assuming that they already know? So I went looking for a way to test that not just to theorise about digital capability, but what's embedded into my teaching and then observe what happened when I made some changes. So what started as a piece of reflective practise for myself has actually led to really rich significant data, where I'm now actually hoping to formalise the process that I use in Semester 2, so that I can then share share my results a bit more broadly.

Natalie McMaster
Oh, fantastic. So you mentioned that this was part of your reflective practise. What kinds of activities or strategies did you use to explore digital capability in your unit?

Katie Wilson
So I implemented this in a first year core unit called ‘Digital cultures and capabilities’. As part of my own reflective practise, where I'm looking at like, student evaluation data. I designed and delivered a short pre test and post test on digital confidence. I used ACARA’s digital capability framework to help me build that. So it wasn't a formal research tool, it was more something that I created to help me better understand where my students were starting from, so that I could then adjust my teaching strategies to better meet their needs, and then track what shifted across the semester. I was really transparent with the students. I explained that the idea had come from my PhD work, but that it wasn't a research study. It was for my own professional learning. The students had the option to participate or not, and most of them did choose to participate. And the data really helped me to track changes in confidence across a range of skills, from basic tool use, to designing the learning experiences I put into practise in my tutorials. And that really gave me a clearer sense of where my teaching was having the most impact.

Natalie McMaster
Well, that sounds exciting. So what did the students confidence look like at the beginning of the semester? Were they really as digitally savvy as sometimes we assume they are?

Katie Wilson
Ahh, no. Not exactly. And that was probably one of the most eye opening things for me. A lot of our students came in with everyday tech skills. They know social media, messaging apps, streaming content, that sort of thing. But they didn't necessarily recognise those as transferable to teaching. So their confidence levels at the beginning were really mixed. Some were comfortable using a laptop or navigating a learning management system. So we use canvas here at ACU. But many hadn't used things like collaborative documents before, cloud storage or digital tools for designing learning. And many didn't even realise that those were the kinds of skills that need to succeed in a university degree, let alone in a teaching career. So that really challenged me to think about how often we, as educators of any group, expect our students to transfer their personal tech use into other contexts without explicitly supporting that process. You know, from the preppy who knows how to unlock Mum's phone. Being expected to enter a unique password at school. To tertiary students being asked to design an infographic. All of these tasks create a huge cognitive load, not because they've never used technology, but because they haven't been shown how to use it for a different purpose.

Natalie McMaster
So what did you do with this information that you gathered, Katie?

Katie Wilson
So I used the pretest results to shape how I approached the unit. I didn't change the content. It is a national subject with a shared curriculum. So being just one of the many tutors in the National University doing it, I couldn't adjust the content, but I adjusted how I supported the students within the existing structure. So I embedded more intentional modelling into my own classes. For example, I might show the students how to use tools like Padlet or Canva or OneDrive during our tutorials, and then invite the students to use those same tools in ways that made sense for their future teaching context. Also, things like when we were using Canva talking about due diligence, so that they understand that technology choices have impacts, particularly as future teachers. I then also created low stake opportunities for them to practise, things like collaborative tasks or simple tech based reflections, where the focus wasn't on the tool itself, but on building confidence and making those critical connections between their existing skills and then the demands of teaching. So really I focused on reducing their cognitive load and helping them see that the digital capabilities they already had could be transferred. They just needed the space, the language and the encouragement to do that. And so while this particular unit doesn't formally teach pedagogy, I think the impact reaches further, because if the students can't recognise their own digital capabilities or see the value of moving through the continuum, then how can we expect them to teach their future students to use technology authentically? And so we end up in this spiral of disconnect. So for me, this wasn't just about building confidence in one subject, it was about laying stepping stones that then support their whole degree.

Natalie McMaster
Fantastic. So what did you find changed by the end of the semesters? And what do you think made the difference?

Katie Wilson
By the end of the semester, the data showed clear growth in student confidence across a whole range of digital capabilities. But to really understand the nature of that growth and where it was most meaningful, I analysed the data through two different lenses. I used Kohler's TPACK framework and then I also used the Digital Capability Continuum, which was developed by Cain and Coldwell-Neilson.

Natalie McMaster
Can you give us a bit of a rundown on what those two frameworks are and how you use them in particular?

Katie Wilson
Yeah, sure. So I'm sure most people listening have come across Kohler's TPACK framework at some point, so that's the Technological, Pedagogical and Content Knowledge, often seen as the Venn diagram with lots of circles that intertwine. And it's a way of understanding how teachers bring the three domains together. So I used TPACK to analyse the kind of growth I was seeing. For example, were students simply getting more confident with the tools themselves. So the T-K. Or were they learning to apply those tools in a teaching context? So T-P-K. Or were they thinking more critically about things like safety, ethics and appropriate use. Which brings in that broader pedagogical and dispositional thinking. The other lens I used was Cain and Coldwell-Neilson's digital capability continuum. So this is a bit of newer research, but I found it really powerful. And basically they map capability development across 3 stages. Foundations. Where students are accessing and operating digital tools. Literacies. Where they're applying these tools consciously and competently. And then fluency. Which is where they are confident, adaptive and able to use tech, purposefully, creatively, and then ethically. What I really like about the continuum is that it sees digital growth as contextual and fluid. It's not something you just achieve once, but it's something that you build over time, depending on the environment, the task and your mindset.

Natalie McMaster
Once you applied those lenses, what stood out in the data?

Katie Wilson
So I talked before about how many of the students came into the course with personal tech knowledge. But I didn't recognise that those skills were transferable. They'd sit at the foundations level of the digital capability continuum, from the beginning. So they had the general tech familiarity, but they hadn't yet made that shift into using those skills in academic or professional contexts. So when I analysed the post data using the continuum, the biggest movement was from foundation into literacies. From, ‘I can log in and use this’ to, ‘I understand how to use this purposefully’ and then when I overlaid the TPACK framework it aligned strongly with the T-P-K, Technological Pedagogical Knowledge, the beginning stages of understanding how and why, they want to use digital tools in learning environments. So what that level of unpacking showed me, is that we can't assume digital fluency just because students are comfortable with tech in their personal lives. But we can guide them along the continuum, and when we do that intentionally through embedded authentic learning experiences, then the growth is real and it is actually measurable.

Natalie McMaster
Are there any other key findings or points of interest for you personally, or that you think our listeners might find helpful or interesting?

Katie Wilson 
Absolutely. One of the most interesting findings for me, was how much impact we as teachers can have, on areas that aren't even the official focus of a unit. For example, in this particular subject, digital safety and ethical tech use are covered, but are not core outcomes. But because I've created this space for open discussion about things like AI, online identity, privacy settings, and digital footprint awareness, my students showed really significant growth in those areas. It was a reminder that when we treat students like professionals in progress and engage them in real world relevant conversations, they can rise to the occasion.

Another thing that stood out was how powerful language was. Once I gave students a framework, like the continuum, to understand where they were starting and where they could grow, it helped reduce that sense of ‘I’m bad at tech’ and it shifted the narrative to ‘I’m still building my fluency’. And that reframing made a huge difference in motivation and confidence. Interestingly, our Celt data dropped last week and so I was actually able to see student feedback on that and that came through really strongly in their feedback to me as well. You know, ‘I started off really not feeling comfortable with technology’. ‘I didn't want to do this subject’. One student actually said ‘I put off this subject for three years’. And the change has been significant. And all of those students commented on the fact that they can now see the relevance and importance of technology. And my heart is full hearing that, because that's just what we want to hear.

Natalie McMaster
That's fantastic.

Katie Wilson
Even even though this started as a a bit of a reflective practise for myself, it did end up sparking a much broader conversation about the kind of intentional support that can be built in, to set our students up for success across their entire degree.

Natalie McMaster
So how do you balance explicitly teaching digital skills without making adult learners feel patronised?

Katie Wilson
It is such a delicate balance, and one I think about constantly. These are adult learners and many of them are incredibly capable in other areas. So the last thing I want to do is make them feel like I'm teaching them, how to turn on a computer. For me, the key is respectful transparency. I frame digital capability as something we're all still building, including myself. I'll say, ‘Here's a tool we're gonna use today and I'll walk you through how I set it up’. Not because I think you can't figure it out, but because I wanna save you the time and mental load of reverse engineering it. I'll also make how to videos and post them onto our LMS. And this way those who need some additional scaffolding can return to the video and go through it as many times as they need. I also make a point of using correct terminology, but always pairing it with a colloquial description. Like calling the Google Apps grid, the ‘Channel 9 symbol’ or ‘the waffle’. It keeps things light, lowers anxiety, and makes the environment feel safe to ask questions without feeling embarrassed. And with that one I have found, even my colleagues aren't necessarily aware that the technical term for the channel 9 symbol is the waffle. Finally, I'm model vulnerability. I let them know when things don't go to plan for me either and that opens the door for students to experiment, to problem solve and to grow without feeling like they're being judged. Our classroom is not about simplifying the content, it's about scaffolding the experience.

Natalie McMaster
I guess one of the last sort of questions I'm going to ask you is, what would you say to other teacher educators wondering whether this kind of capability building is worth it?

Katie Wilson
I would say absolutely it is. Knowledge is power, right? So projects like this, that helped me grow as a teacher, and improved students digital skills, and helped students shift their identity. I think that's just gold. When we build digital capability intentionally, even in small ways, we're not just teaching tools. We're helping our pre-service teachers or our Primary/Secondary students, see themselves as people who can adapt, problem solve, and teach in a modern learning environment. Teach and learn in a modern learning environment. That kind of shift doesn't come from one workshop or one flashy app. It comes from consistent modelling, authentic use and creating space for our students to build confidence over time. But it's also preventative if we don't build capability early, we see the effects later. In placement stress, in resistance to tech integration, in missed opportunities in their classrooms. This kind of work might not always be visible in a rubric or learning outcomes. But it shows up in who they become as teachers. So, yes, definitely worth it. Even if you just start small. One tool, one scaffolded activity, 1 thoughtful reflection, it plants the seed and then that seed grows.

Natalie McMaster

So what's next for you in this space, Katie?

Katie Wilson
I love keeping busy, so I'm formalising this work as part of my PhD. The pilot data from this semester showed me that there's real value in tracking and supporting digital capability in a deliberate scaffolded way, and now I want to explore that on a larger scale with full ethics approval and a more structured research design. But I'm also working on developing a simple self-assessment tool or reflection framework, based on the digital capability continuum. Something that students can use across their degree to track their growth, not just for marks, but also for their own insight. Because I think if we can help students see where they are and where they're heading, we'll empower them to take ownership of their own digital journey. I am also trying to fast track my PhD and would like to present that at the beginning of next year. And then of course, I will keep embedding these ideas in my own teaching, because at the end of the day, that's where our impact starts. It's not in the theory, but it's in the classroom. As Mary Mackillop, who is my inspiration for being a teacher said, “we must teach more by example than by word.” Those words are the foundation of who I am as a teacher. It's how I try to show up every day. And I plan on continuing to do that.

Natalie McMaster
Oh, fantastic, Katie. Thank you so much for sharing your research with us today. And I wish you all the best with the finalising that PhD.

Katie Wilson
Thanks Natalie.

Natalie McMaster

Bye for now.