Competent Teachers for the Rural Arctic in the turbulence of globalization

1
Competent Teachers for the Rural Arctic in the
turbulence of globalization

• Þuríður Jóhannsdóttir
• Randi Skjelmo
• Kjell Johansson

2
ICT competences in teacher education - meeting
new challenges in the rural Arctic

• Iceland University of education
• Þuríður Jóhannsdóttir

3
Teacher educators response to contemporary
transformations

• What are teacher educators doing to enhance
  students use of ICT, such that they are capable
  of meeting new challenges caused by social and
  cultural changes and emerging new technologies?
• We focus here on ICT in teacher education with
  special attention to the role of distance
  (decentralized) teacher education
• We present text analysis of teacher education
  curriculum texts in
• Luleå University of Technology,
• Tromsø University College and
• Iceland University of Education

4
Intentions of the teacher education

• How competent in ICT use are the teacher students
  supposed to be when graduating?
• Is there a difference between distance students
  and on campus students regarding ICT competency
  in what way?
• How is ICT being used in learning and teaching in
  distance education?

5
Analyzing the use of ICT by the Computer Practice
Framework

• How much? In what way? And for what purpose?
• to develop information technology skills
• as a learning tool,
• or perhaps for some other reason e.g. as a reward
• identify to which extent the use of technology is
  affecting the content and practices of learning
• http//www.med8.info/cpf/twining/twining-details.h
  tm
• use of the CPF can be helpful to support vision
  building and shared understandings of use of ICT
  in education.

6
The main conclusion of a study on the current and
future use of ICT in higher education

• Carried out in the Netherlands, Germany, Norway,
  Australia, Finland and the USA
• General conclusion 1
• Change is slow and not radical moving toward
  more flexibility within the traditional campus
  based setting
• General conclusion 2
• ICT in teaching and learning Widespread but part
  of a blend
• General conclusion 3
• Instructors gradually doing more, but with no
  reward
• See Collis van der Wende http//www.eden.bme.hu
  /contents/dissemination/bulletin.html

7
Twining, Collis van der Wende

• Rationales mentioned in the research literature
  are used to clarify which understanding seems to
  be underlying objectives for ICT in education
  (Twining 2002)
• International comparative study
• Crucial difference seems to exist between the
  countries with higher scores and those with low
  scores related to their views and expectations
  with respect to the diversifying student
  population.
• Institutions and countries with comparatively
  higher scores related to change and ICT use have
  a clearer view on their mission with respect to
  serving different target groups (e.g. lifelong
  learning or international students) with ICT
  (Collis van der Wende 2002)

8
Iceland University of Education

• Student population 2001-2002
• Distance students 1130
• Undergraduate at a distance 650
• primary school teachers 365
• Post-graduate faculty 480 ????
• Student population 2002-2003 (status march 2003)
• Distance students 1232 (808 on campus)
• Undergraduate at a distance 752
• primary school teachers 367
• Post-graduate faculty 480

9
ICT in Iceland University of Education

• We analyze
• The institution's policy texts
• ICT as a subject (obligatory for all students and
  ICT as a specialization subject)
• General use of ICT in teaching and learning
• ICT integrated with the primary schools subject
  matters
• In-service teacher training in the post-graduate
  faculty at distance
• The distance learning

10
ICT objectives as stated in the policy texts

• teacher students are supposed to gain competency
  in finding information, evaluate it value and
  learn to use it in their studies as well as in
  their profession (work).
• as ICT plays an important role in the
  contemporary society, teacher students are
  supposed to have the opportunity to be competent
  users of the technology,
• being able to use it in their studies
• as well as in their work as teachers.
• In addition they need to be competent at
  evaluating and judging how ICT is best serving
  them as a tool.

11
Why an innovator in ICT

• Identified rationales compared to research
  literature see Twining 2002
• In order to learn IT skills
• As a tool to achieve traditional teaching and
  learning goals across the curriculum
• In order to provide access to the curriculum, for
  those who might otherwise be excluded from it
  (the distance education)
• As preparation for living in a society that is
  permeated with technology

12
ICT as a subject in the Icelandic teacher
education

• The ICT competencies
• ICT-skills, knowing how to use the computer and
  computer programs
• pedagogical use of ICT, which includes to use ICT
  as a tool to support learning, be it their own or
  their future pupils.
• use ICT creatively with their students and in
  preparing their teaching
• understanding the role of ICT in the society, in
  the schools as well as in the pupils life.

13
Analyses according to the Computer Practice
Framework

• A good deal of time spent on enhancing ICT skills
• ICT is also being used as a learning tool
• as a support in traditional learning tasks e.g.
  mind-manager for organizing learning tasks
• as an extension where ICT makes it possible to
  organize learning tasks that otherwise would be
  too complicated
• e.g. access to different kind of information
  which can be processed in easy way by available
  computer programs
• Transformation the curriculum content and/or
  process are different, and these changes could
  not have taken place in a classroom context
  without a computer See http//www.med8.info/cpf/t
  wining/twining-details.htm
• e.g. making of multimedia educational material.

14
General use of ICT in teaching

• the teachers are using ICT as a tool to support
  their teaching
• the same content and same processes but the
  technology is making their work more effective
• Some teachers take one step further and use the
  course webs to extend their students learning,
• e.g. by organizing discussion on the web and
  publishing students learning products such as
  thesis and papers on the course web

15
ICT part of a blend

• All students should when graduating, have an
  experience of using ICT as a natural part of
  their learning tools
• What we se in Iceland University of Education
  fits perfectly with model generated by Collis and
  van der Wende
• The general picture seems to be that there is
  much ICT in use, not to replace traditional
  on-campus settings, rather to complement them.
  Blended learning using ICT (especially
  Web-based systems) combined with lectures, books
  and other traditional media and ways of learning
  is already the norm. (31)

16
ICT and subject integration

• Specialization subjects
• learn how to integrate ICT in primary school
  teaching
• ICT integration mentioned only sporadically in
  the course descriptions
• The few examples seem to be because of personal
  enthusiasm of individual teachers
• Collis van der Wende 2002 comparative study
• Instructors are less concerned/interested
  in/hopeful about technology than those not on the
  front line (the decision makers and support
  staff). Instructors are not particularly
  concerned about ICT, and not very much changing
  their ways of teaching even though they use ICT
  in different ways.

17
ICT in distance education

• In the Iceland University of Education distance
  learning has been offered the last ten years via
  the Internet (from 1993)
• It began using e-mail, building on the tradition
  of letter exchange by ordinary mail
• gradually as the ICT technology evolves,
  web-based solutions are more and more used

18
Distance students learning tasks

• Tasks to perform on the web are most commonly
• discussion about the learning material
• publishing of the result of their studies -
  becomes more and more common in form of text
  documents or PowerPoint presentations
• to write a log book to map their learning process
  and enhance their meta-cognition as students
• Teachers publish their lectures on the web in
  various forms, word documents, PowerPoint
  presentations and some experiments with
  PowerPoint with talk

19
The distance students are using ICT

• as a learning tool in their studies and in that
  way it is an integrated part of their studies
• It is clearly both a support and an extension
• But we can not see that ICT use is transforming
  learning and teaching in general
• Teachers have not basically changed their way of
  teaching, but they have learned to use ICT as a
  tool to do things on the Internet that they used
  to do in the classroom.

20
Iceland University of Education Open and
flexible teacher education ?

• Collis and van der Wende
• Institutions and countries with comparatively
  higher scores related to change and ICT use, have
  a clearer view on their mission with respect to
  serving different target groups (e.g. lifelong
  learning or international students) with ICT
• They are aware of and responding to changing
  demand from these new target groups and that they
  have a strategic commitment to be successful in
  these markets seems to be a major drive for
  change in

21
Iceland University of Education is an open and
flexible teacher education

• Policy texts reveal a vision to serve changing
  demands and this is important for future
  evolution.
• The university has stated overtly its will to
  meet new demands from a society in change and
  clearly ICT is the catalyst. Without ICT the
  university could not do what it is doing.
• So we can conclude that institutionally ICT is
  transforming the way the university goes about
  organizing teaching and learning.
• When it comes to organization of individual
  courses we are not seeing much transformation
  (some innovators)
• but we are seeing ICT used as a support and
  extension, and as a part of a blend.