How can ICTs help transform the learning environment into one that is learner-centered?
What are the challenges with respect to capacity-building?
Various competencies must be developed throughout the educational system for ICT integration to be successful.
Teachers
Teacher professional development should have five foci:
- skills with particular applications;
- integration into existing curricula;
- curricular changes related to the use of IT (including changes in instructional design);
- changes in teacher role; and
- underpinning educational theories.
Ideally, these should be addressed in pre-service teacher training and built on and enhanced in-service. In some countries, like Singapore,Malaysia, and the United Kingdom, teaching accreditation requirements include training in ICT use. ICTs are swiftly evolving technologies, however, and so even the most ICT fluent teachers need to continuously upgrade their skills and keep abreast of the latest developments and best practices.
While the first focus-skills with particular applications-is self-evident, the four other foci are of equal, if not ultimately greater, importance. Research on the use of ICTs in different educational settings over the years invariably identify as a barrier to success the inability of teachers to understand why they should use ICTs and how exactly they can use ICTs to help them teach better.Unfortunately,most teacher professional development in ICTs are heavy on "teaching the tools" and light on "using the tools to teach."
Teacher anxiety over being replaced by technology or losing their authority in the classroom as the learning process becomes more learner-centered "an acknowledged barrier to ICT adoption" can be alleviated only if teachers have a keen understanding and appreciation of their changing role.
Education administrators.
Leadership plays a key role in ICT integration in education.Many teacher- or student-initiated ICT projects have been undermined by lack of support from above. For ICT integration programs to be effective and sustainable, administrators themselves must be competent in the use of the technology, and they must have a broad understanding of the technical, curricular, administrative, financial, and social dimensions of ICT use in education.
Technical support specialists
Whether provided by in-school staff or external service providers, or both, technical support specialists are essential to the continued viability of ICT use in a given school. While the technical support requirements of an institution depend ultimately on what and how technology is deployed and used, general competencies that are required would be in the installation, operation, and maintenance of technical equipment (including software), network administration, and network security. Without on-site technical support, much time and money may be lost due to technical breakdowns.
In the Philippines, for example, one of the major obstacles to optimizing computer use in high schools has been the lack of timely technical support. In some extreme cases involving schools in remote areas, disabled computers take months to be repaired since no technician is available in the immediate vicinity and so the computers have to be sent to the nearest city hundreds of kilometers away.
Content developers
Content development is a critical area that is too often overlooked. The bulk of existing ICT-based educational material is likely to be in English (see section on language and content below) or of little relevance to education in developing countries (especially at the primary and secondary levels). There is a need to develop original educational content (e.g., radio programs, interactive multimedia learning materials on CD-ROM or DVD,Web-based courses, etc.), adapt existing content, and convert print-based content to digital media. These are tasks for which content development specialists such as instructional designers, scriptwriters, audio and video production specialists, programmers,multimedia course authors, and web-developers are needed. Like technical support specialists, content developers are highly skilled professionals and are not, with the exception of instructional designers, historically employed by primary and secondary schools.Many universities with distance education programs, and those who otherwise make use of ICTs, have dedicated technical support and content development units.