Although the use of digital technologies in teacher education has reached advanced stages in the developed world, it is still in its infancy in many developing countries, including Uganda. In their struggle to advance the use of digital technologies in teaching, educators face various challenges that prevent the successful adoption of such technologies in the classroom. This study explores the motivation and material accessibility challenges that art and design (A&D) educators in Uganda encounter when teaching with digital technologies and examines how they cope with these challenges. To address the research question, the study adopts a descriptive case study design that seeks to document the participants' accounts. Semi-structured interviews and non-participant observations were employed to collect data from teacher educators (TEs) and administrators (ADs) in two teacher training institutions (TTIs) in Uganda. The findings indicate that A&D TEs face accessibility challenges relating to motivation and material access. The educators use various strategies to cope with the existing challenges including peer support, continual practice, improvisation, lobbying for technical and financial support, and advocating for Bring Your Own Device (BYOD).

This case study explores how teacher educators use digital technologies in teaching Art and Design (A&D) in a developing country. It uses semi-structured interviews and non-participant observations to gather qualitative data from teacher educators at two teacher training institutions in central Uganda. To understand the actual use of technologies by teacher educators in the A&D classroom, analysis of the data employed concepts from van Dijk’s resources and appropriation theory (RAT) and Mishra and Koehler’s TPACK framework. The findings indicate that low digital competence among teacher educators and insufficient access to appropriate hardware, software and the Internet means that A&D teacher educators in Uganda only occasionally use digital technologies in the classroom. Instead, teacher educators use non-professional software such as Microsoft Office to teach Art and Design subjects. The findings further confirm teacher educators’ limited awareness of the relationship between technology, pedagogy and content knowledge in the Art and Design classroom. Insufficient access to adequate digital resources, skills and knowledge explains the low creative use of digital technologies in teaching A&D lessons.