Análisis de la Oferta

Pre-service training prepares teachers for professional practice. Experiences during their pre- service training with technology encouraged teachers in this study to use technology in their teaching. In South Africa, pre-service teachers are typically exposed to technology training on a university campus with lecturers and during Teaching Practice in schools with mentor teachers.

In the online survey, 27 of the 74 teachers (36%) responded that their pre-service training enabled them to use technology. Half of the teachers were not influenced by their pre-service training. Research (Chigona, Condy, Gachago & Ivala, 2012; Tiba et al., 2015) has confirmed that TEIs do not adequately train teachers to teach with technology. This is similar to Ertmer et al.’s (2007) earlier finding, that participants rated pre-service training as the factor that least encouraged them to use technology. Research conducted by Liu (2011a) on factors influencing pre-service teachers’ use of technology concluded that teacher education courses failed to prepare pre-service teachers to teach with technology.

In the one-on-one interviews, it became evident that the teachers’ experiences during pre- service training on campus with lecturers and peers, and with mentor teachers during Teaching Practice, encouraged their use of technology. Regarding pre-service training on campus, Teacher 8 explained:

… my experiences with the digital story [a technological project] influenced me very much because with the digital story I had to use a lot of stuff [technology equipment] to get that perfect digital story right ... After the project many of the students, not leaving myself out were encouraged as we learned how to search for information, use Photostory and summarise a text which increased my confidence to use technology.

All the teachers reported during the interviews that their experience with projects assigned them by their lecturers encouraged them to use technology in their teaching. Some lecturers devised technology projects that required them to use various technological tools. From using a range of equipment to complete their projects, they gained the confidence to use technology for teaching and learning.

Teacher 7 remarked:

I was exposed to technology at varsity; most especially in the Geography class, we did many presentations using smart boards or projectors … so I had to somehow learn how to present my assignments using technology [smart board and projectors] after four years at varsity which encourage me to use it now with my learners … A similar view was shared by Teacher 10:

You know, most of my assignments during pre-service training, like 99%, were done using technology and in some instances, I presented it in class …

Teachers 7 and 10 explained that during their pre-service training, they were assigned activities that required them to search for information on the Internet and present their findings to their

peers using a data projector connected to a laptop or a smart board. After four years of making presentations they acquired the skills and confidence to use technology in their classes.

All the teachers interviewed acknowledged that they had had sporadic workshops on campus during their four years of pre-service training that focused on teaching them how to use technology for teaching and learning. These workshops motivated teachers: some of them (Teachers 6, 7, 8, 9 and 10) had little or no exposure to technology before their pre-service training. Teacher 6 explained:

… we had computer workshops as well, with another man, and he showed us how to use the smart board. He explained how we could use it in the classroom … that motivated me because I saw things that a smart board could do.

Teacher 10 added:

The instructor during computer training workshops showed me how to teach with technology because I came there [university] not knowing how to use a computer properly … so I did struggle but ... it was not an IT course so we didn’t go deeper … but they [facilitator] taught us the basics, you know.

This finding concurs with the literature, that teacher training was instrumental in encouraging teachers to use technology for teaching and learning (Baek et al., 2008; Bozdoğan & Ȍzen 2014; Liu, 2016; Mtebe et al., 2016). According to Venkatesh et al. (2012), in terms of their construct of ‘habit’, teachers automatically use technology because of prior experience and exposure. However, one could infer from the findings in this study that the teachers often learned technology skills in isolation, and consequently found it difficult to blend them effectively into their teaching (Mishra & Koehler, 2006; Liu, 2011a).

Though they received training, two of the ten teachers interviewed were of the view that the training was inadequate in terms of the number of sessions in which they participated during their four years. Stressing this point, Teacher 1 commented:

… I think it was a month or less than a month when a guy came and showed us how to use a smart board. One month for the whole year, in my opinion was too little to learn how to use a smart board.

Teacher 3 said:

… we had [training] in our first year, second and third year as well … we had a computer course. It was not enough and in our final year we had the digital story project …

It should be noted that the ten teachers interviewed unanimously agreed that the training sessions provided by the university were insufficient for them to become familiar with, and skilled in, the use of a particular technology. According to Teacher 1,

… because lecturers modelled how to use it [technology] and fellow students also modelled, I could see what they were doing and I learned from that.

And Teacher 8 added:

… I taught … the Water Cycle exactly the same way my lecturer taught it at varsity. I showed the same videos to my learners.

According to these teachers, they learned to use technology from observing their lecturers, and were now replicating exactly the same pedagogy with their learners.

In contrast to this finding, Teacher 4 reported:

… I was in my first year and there was no lecturer that said, ‘Here let’s open up a notebook’, or for example, ‘Let’s do a lesson on a topic using a smart board’. So I mean, if I had not been shown how to integrate it [technology] into my lesson, how then could I now be expected to teach effectively with a smart board?

Teacher 8 reported that she learned how to use technology from her peers on campus during her pre-service training. She commented:

I won’t say we were adequately trained on how to use technology … some guy came in the second or third year, you know, he taught us how to use the interactive white board. He just showed us what it could do, he didn’t show us how we could use it … Some of us were fortunate because we competed with friends when we were given tasks, like who got the best presentation and I asked them to show me how they did it.

With regard to training during Teaching Practice, three of the ten teachers in the study reported that they were fortunate to have been placed in schools where their mentor teachers used technology and were prepared to help them. Teacher 4 described his experience thus:

No, I think I learned more about using technology in the classroom from my tutor teachers during Teaching Practice. I mean, I had one tutor teacher that was accomplished on the smart board and I learnt a lot from him. I think I would not have been this advanced without him.

This finding is consistent with that of Grove et al. (2004), to the effect that pre-service teachers learn how to use technology if they have mentors who are knowledgeable about it. This is evident in studies by Keating and Evans (2001) and Liu (2016): pre-service teachers were

encouraged to use technology as a result of modelling by their mentor teachers, especially how to design activities using technology.

On the other hand, Teacher 6 noted:

… there were some schools which I went to but the mentor teacher was not using technology even though the school had a computer room ....

Not all teachers were exposed to technology during Teaching Practice because there were several schools where mentor teachers did not use technology in their teaching.