Approaches to integrating ICT in teaching.

The Initial Approaches to integrate the ICT in teachings:

The Initial Approaches to integrate the ICT in teachings are Porting the classroom to the Internet – making notes available for download via the Internet,  “putting their lectures” on the Web by just transferring their existing materials to the Internet. Although this first stage adoption can be seen as a first step in the right direction but if technology is used unreflectively as a delivery tool to transport the classroom to theInternet, outmoded approaches to learning (teacher-centred information transfer, instruction paradigm, transmission model) are enforced. As a consequence, the real transformative opportunities offered by technology will not be utilised and lecturers will not become “reflective practitioners”.

Three phases in the successful integration of ICTs

To determine the current status of the transformation of the learning process as a result of the integration of ICTs, it is useful to distinguish between three phases in the successful integration of ICTs into teaching and learning:

1. The establishment of institution-wide technological infrastructure and the bottom-up institution-wide adoption of ICTs in teaching and learning activities (mostly experimentation, often without real reflection on the impact of ICTs on student learning).

2. The pedagogical use of the infrastructure and the effective integration of ICTs into teaching and learning activities to improve learning (reflection on the entire teaching and learning process with an emphasis on student learning).

3. The strategic use of ICT with a view to the different target groups of higher education. The goal in this stage is to integrate the different elements of the technological enterprise into a “seamless educational enterprise”

                                   Use of ICT within teacher-training programs around the world is being approached in a number of ways with varying degrees of success. These approaches were subsequently described, refined and merged into four primary approaches as follows.

1. ICT skills development approach: 

Here importance is given to providing training in use of ICT in general. Student-teachers are expected to be skilled users of ICT in their day-to-day activities. Knowledge about various software, hardware and their use in educational process is provided. about various software, hardware and their use in educational process is provided.

2. ICT pedagogy approach: 

This approach emphasizes on integrating ICT skills in respective subjects, drawing on the principle of constructivism, pre-service teachers design lessons and activities that centre on the use of ICT tools that will foster the attainment of learning outcomes. This approach is useful to the extent that the skills enhance ICT literacy skills and the pedagogy allows student to further develop and maintain these skills in the context of designing classroom-based resources. Students who have undergone this type of training have reported significant changes in their understandings associated with effective implementation strategies, as well as their self-efficacy as to their ICT competencies.

3. Subject- specified approach: 

Here ICT is embedded into one’s own subject area. By this method teachers not only expose students to new and innovative ways of learning, but also provide them with a practical understanding of what learning and teaching with ICT looks and feels like. In this way, ICT is not an ‘add on’, but an integral tool that is accessed by teachers and students across a wide range of the curricula.

4. Practice-driven approach: 

Here the emphasis is on providing exposure to use of ICT in practical aspects of teacher-training also. Emphasizing on developing lessons, assignments etc. using ICT and implementing these in their practical work experience at various levels, the students are provided with an opportunity to assess the facilities available at workplace and effectively use their own skills to manipulate these facilities. Based on the concept that the pre-service teacher is a learner, manager, designer and researcher, he is expected to research their practicum school’s ICT facilities, design ICT activities with their tutor-teacher, manage those activities in the classroom, and evaluate their effectiveness in terms of student learning  Ideally, an integrated approach is to be followed for developing ICT skills in teaching. Whatever may be the approach followed in the institutions to develop knowledge about ICT, it has its own limitations and coupled with other reasons, they are not making student-teachers fully confident of using ICT in their day-to-day classrooms and other situations. In the opinion of authors, all the four approaches are required to develop awareness of expert level skills in student-teachers.