ICT For Teacher Education

ICT For Teacher Education

“If a country is to be corruption free and become a nation of beautiful minds, I strongly feel there are three key societal members who can make a difference. They are the Father, the Mother and the Teacher. ”

 

- Dr. A.P.J. Abdul Kalam, Former President of India

The knowledge revolution and role of the teacher
The pace of technological revolution and emergence of a knowledge society can change the traditional role of the teacher and the students. Traditionally, the teacher used to be the source of knowledge for the students. There is some cooperation among students to explore new knowledge. In many cases, the teachers do not posses adequate knowledge to supplement the view of the student. And the main source of knowledge remains limited to text book. The development of ICT changes the epic centre of knowledge. At present, in a number of cases the student is more informed than the teacher. Furthermore, there is likely to be confusion in the teachers mind about his/ her new role in relation to the use of these technologies i.e. teachers find themselves in a situation where they are no longer the principle source for delivery of information. In the new phase of the knowledge revolution the source of knowledge has shifted from a one source to a different source. In other words, we can say that there is a decentralization of the knowledge source. This has an overall impact on the development of learning abilities among the children. There is a need to facilitate training on ICTs for teacher both at the pre service level and in service level.

ICT a solution for the improvement of the expertise of teacher

ICT enabled distance education is poised to rule the world. This would not only strengthen the elementary education needs of the country but would also increase the dependence of education on ICT. Technological development always warrants transition to newer technologies by jeopardizing the cost effectiveness of the distance education programme. Retaining the already existing technologies for a considerable period of time and subsequently embracing new technologies should have fine balancing, so as to improve also the quality of education. India is one among the few countries in the world, which has not allowed the expenditure on education to shrink over the years. The increase in expenditure on elementary education alone over the last four Five Year Plan periods has been more than the increase in expenditure on education as a whole. With all the inputs around, there is only hopefor enhancing the quality of education at the elementary stage.

Role of Teacher in Enhancing Learning Achievement of Child

Education, as we know is instrumental in ensuring that the future generation is well informed and competent. Unfortunately, because the quality and accessibility of education varies so greatly between regions, the school system of our country often fails to deliver the level of education necessary to ensure such competency. Many schools have limited resources for buying books, stationery, furniture and other classroom materials. Teachers lack adequate qualification and training to engage their students in learning. Their lesson plans are most often outdated or irrelevant. These jeopardize the available quality of education. ICT enabled distance education, to a great extent, can combat this problem. Because the present day distance learning is ICT-enabled, most of the programmes include computer and Internet training to facilitate the use of essential technology. The acquisition of fundamental ICT skills among teachers and students helps knowledge sharing, thereby multiplying educational opportunities. However, all teachers are not willing to introduce new technologies to themselves first and subsequently to their students. In order to implement ICT-driven distance education programmes, the teachers must first understand and be comfortable with the technologies. They must be given opportunities for acquisition of a new knowledge. This can begin by promoting computer-training programmes for teachers. Monetary incentives can be offered as means of motivation. The use of ICT can effectively enhance learning where traditional models have failed. While these technologies offer advantages, they also pose challenges. Several studies have been conducted in the west about the use of ICT in Middle and High School students. One such study is by Martin Carnoy 14 which is entitled- Education: Possibilities and Challenges-2004-05 Academic Year. According to him, ’Using ICT as a supplement to improve test score results, may, however, be seen to be more effective than traditional teaching one, hence is much more applied.’ He also comments about the use of ICT for teacher and administrator training. ‘Private firms such as Sylvan quickly saw the potential of ICT as an in-service training medium for teachers, and this now forms an important part of Sylvan’s extensive ICT learning systems… An entirely different approach to teacher improvement is web access to course content, lesson plans and network to other teachers. This database or content, approach is used by Net Schools and the IBM foundation. Both these organizations focus on using ICT as teacher training for course content rather than improving pedagogy.’(UNESCO) It can be seen that Distance Learning Technologies have been employed in the education of teachers both at pre service level and at the in-service level. UNESCO has published a summary of case studies conducted in nine countries in different parts of world and most of these studies reflect the necessity of having multi-prong strategies for teacher education and to improve their expertise. For example, ‘in China television has been tremendously used for teacher education. In India, there is a multimedia approach for teacher education. In UK, due to heavy shortage of teachers of Mathematics and Science, the Department of Education invited tenders…the Open University was successful in this and the result was Open University’s Post Graduate Certificate of Education (PGCE) programme, where ICT plays a large role in enabling interaction between students, tutors, regional support centres and programme providers ’.

ICTs and Teacher Education

There are a variety of approaches to professional development of teachers in the context of use of ICTs in education. Professional development to incorporate ICTs into teaching and learning is an ongoing process and should not be thought of as one ‘injection’ of training. Teachers need to update their knowledge and skills as the school curriculum and technologies change. Two aims of teacher training are fundamental: teacher education in ICTs; and teacher education through ICTs.

Teacher Education in ICT

The most obvious technique for professional development for teachers is to provide courses in basic ICTs knowledge and skills. It is necessary for teachers to become skilled in operating the new technologies and in exploiting them effectively as educational tools. Teachers must master the use of information – skills of research, critical analysis, linking diverse types and sources of information, reformulating retrieved data – if they are to teach their pupils to develop these same skills. There needs to be more emphasis placed on training in pedagogy, as opposed to the current trend in many education systems where the major focus is on specialized knowledge in specific curricular subjects. Teachers must be adequately equipped with more didactic competencies so as to assume their new role as experts in the learning process.

Teacher Education through ICTs

ICTs can support effective professional development of teachers. Using ICTs as tools for training of teachers is as important as introducing the basics of ICTs to the prospective teachers. As sources of information and expertise, as well as tools for distance communication, ICTs can offer many new possibilities for teacher education. Teachers may through the regular use of these technologies. Use of new media, new rules of communication – even a new language – have to be learned.

A Framework for ICTs in Teacher Education

In planning for infusion of ICTs into teacher preparation programmes, the factors important to a programmes success must be considered. A holistic framework proposed by the UNESCO (2002) takes into account the factors, e.g. cultural, educational, technology resources that are important in planning the integration of technology into preservice curriculum. The framework provided in figure – 1 has been designed to assist policy makers, teacher educators, textbook writers, and other professionals who are charged with developing the use of ICTs in teacher education.

Four Themes

Context and Culture identifies the culture and other contextual factors that must be considered in infusing technology into the teacher education curriculum. It includes the use of technology in culturally appropriate ways and the development of respect for multiple cultures and contexts, which need to be taught and modelled by teachers.

Leadership and Vision are essential for the successful planning and implementation of technology into teacher education and require both leadership and support from the administration of the teacher education institution.

Lifelong Learning acknowledges that learning does not stop after school.

Planning and Management of Change is the final theme, born of today’s context and accelerated by technology itself. It signifies the importance of careful planning and effective management of the change process. These themes may be understood as a strategic combination of approaches that help teacher educators develop the four core competencies. The core competencies may be seen as clusters of objectives that are critical for successful use of ICTs as tools for learning.

Four Competencies The ICT competencies are organized into four groups.

Pedagogy is focused on teacher’s instructional practices and knowledge of the curriculum and requires that they develop applications within their disciplines that make effective use of ICTs to support and extend teaching and learning.

Collaboration and Networking acknowledges the communicative potential of ICTs to extend learning beyond the classroom walls and the implications for teacher’s development of new knowledge and skills. Technology brings with it new rights and responsibilities, including equitable access to technology resources, care for individual health, and respect for intellectual property included within the Social Issues aspect of ICT competence. Finally, Technical Issues is an aspect of the Lifelong Learning theme through which teachers update skills with hardware and software, as new generations of technology emerge.

Role of ICT in bringing efficiency of delivery mechanisms Efficient delivery mechanisms are an important component of overall school management. ICTs can provide the efficiency of delivery mechanisms of educational services by supplementing conventional delivery mechanisms:

• Technology’s capacity to reach learners in any place and at any time has the potential to promote revolutionary changes in the educational paradigm. This means eliminating the premise that learning time equals classroom time. Students can be encouraged to revisit the lessons/topics to reinforce learning without active intervention by teachers.

• Another illustration of efficiency is the domain of virtual laboratories. All school systems want to provide labs because science is empirical. But few schools have furnished them with equipment and supplies and fewer yet are willing to risk using them. Technology allows for video and digital demonstrations as well as digital simulation of laboratory activities in a very real manner – but without the risks and costs associated with laboratory experiments. Simulations will not replace hands-on activity completely. Rather, they prepare the learner to conduct real-life experiments in the same manner as flight simulations prepare the student pilot for test flying.

• Multimedia-enabled learning modules can be developed by a group of master teachers and instructional designers, which can then be shared with all schools to assure quality standards of learning delivery.

• Concerns about costs are always raised in discussions related to technology. Depending on the technology used, start up costs can be high but economies of scale are significant. That is, the more the technology is used i.e. when more students use the product, the unit costs of producing educational content ware decrease proportionately. Trade-offs must be considered as well when evaluating technology’s initial costs.