Training teachers to use new technologies impacts multiple ecologies: Evidence from a national initiative

Abstract

A pair of papers re-examined the evidence from a national initiative to train all teachers in England to bring them up to the level of newly qualified teachers, who are required to know when to use and when not to use information and communication technologies (ICT) in their professional practice. The first paper confirmed that multilevel evaluation of professional development was robust for ICT teacher training. This second paper contrasts the highest and lowest rated designs for ICT teacher training: an 'organic' approach that provided training in schools was highly rated, whereas a centralised computerassisted learning approach with online access to trainers was the lowest rated design. The study supports an ecological view of the diffusion of ICT innovations in education and recommends that ICT teacher training be designed to support evolution of each teacher's classroom, school and region, as well as the training of the ICT teacher trainers.

Effect of ICT Skills on the Job Satisfaction of Teacher Educators: Evidence from the Universities of the Sindh Province of Pakistan

“…However, it was more stressed that the trainings should be very much relevant to the needs of teachers and related to the context of classroom practices that also affect the overall system of educational organization, such as the access to resources, curriculum, time and environment (Karagiorgi & Charalambous, 2006). ICT trainings are to be designed for TEs to support the evolution of their classroom, school, region and trainers, too (Davis, Preston & Sahin, 2009). In this regard, the applied research addressed the issues of development of appropriate content, effective methods of training for TEs, use of cognitive technologies in teaching, identification of the strengths and limitations of several cognitive tools for different learning situations and the factors affecting implementation of ICT innovation in education (Orhun, 2003).…”

Preparing teachers to integrate Web 2.0 in school practice: Toward a framework for Pedagogy 2.0

“…Previous research showed that effective teacher preparation is an important factor for successful integration and sustainability of ICT in education (Hennessy et al, 2007;Davis, Preston, & Sahin, 2009). On the other hand, most ICT teacher professional development initiatives tend to focus on technological aspects (i.e., how to use various tools) while pedagogical and instructional issues (i.e., why and how to use those tools to enhance learning) are often taken for granted (Jimoyiannis, 2008).…”

Cascading the use of Web 2.0 technology in secondary schools in the United Kingdom: identifying the barriers beyond pre-service training

“…This organic approach, however, does not seem to have had the positive effect identified by others who support a more ecological view of the diffusion of ICT innovations in education (Davis, Preston, & Sahin, 2008). It could be argued that the ecological climate of schools, once the respondents were teaching in them as qualified teachers was a much harsher climate, with fewer facilities and time, thus denying them the opportunities to reflect and engage with new technologies in the same way they did when they were pre-service teachers.…”

“…Research findings align the successful integration of technologies in the secondary classroom with developing appropriate pedagogy enabling criticality, a propensity to see the value of technologies in the classroom and suggesting that the interaction of the pre-service teacher and the environment is pivotal (Galan and Blanco, 2004;Mukama and Andersson, 2007;Davis, Preston and Sahin, 2008;Hammond et al, 2009;Granberg, 2009). Larose et al (2009) argue that practices observed by pre-service teachers during training might optimise the chances of these future teachers using technology in their own classrooms, while Bingimlas (2009) drawing on existing literature including Grabe and Grabe (2007) identified a range of barriers to the integration of ICT in education, some of which resonate with findings by Meyer et al (2011).…”