Session Information
01 SES 17 A, Teacher Education and Transdisciplinary Teacher Professional Competencies
Symposium
Contribution
This paper is an outcome of an ongoing empirical study that seeks to establish the strategies to improve the continuous development of educators’ digital competence in teacher training institutions (TTIs) in Uganda. The study is motivated by the ever-growing interest in integrating digital technology in teacher training institutions across the world, which has created tension among educators, still contemplating on how best they can use the available digital tools in their teaching process (Lund & Aagaard, 2020; Säljö, 2010). It is assumed that digital technologies have a great potential for improving the quality of education (Toit, 2015) and indeed for years, several countries all over the world have embarked on the use of digital tools in the teaching process (UNESCO, 2015). However, an analysis of the curriculum for teacher education across educational contexts indicates that digital competence is integrated to a limited extent in the curriculum documents for teacher education programmes (Instefjord, 2014; Ministry of Education and Sports, 2006; European Commission, 2007). Thus, basing on a case study design, semi-structured face-to-face interviews and non-participant observations was employed to gather qualitative data from participants who included educators and administrators from selected TTIs in Uganda. The findings indicate that Uganda TTIs meets challenges similar to what has been identified in international research and ought to; develop and provide digital infrastructure, conduct in-service training on the pedagogical use of digital tools, develop subject-based ICT curriculum, improve access to digital tools (hardware, software and internet). Furthermore, Uganda TTIs ought to develop and implement ICT policies at institutional level and motivate teachers to use digital tools as well as advocate for attitudinal change towards the use of digital tools among educators. An appropriate adoption and implementation of these strategies by TTIs, as evidenced from the research findings, could guarantee acquisition and/or improvement of digital competence among educators that is relevant for pedagogical purposes in today’s technological-rich environments in Uganda as well as other parts of the world.
References
EuropeanCommission, (2007). Key competences for lifelong learning. European reference framework. , Luxembourg: Office for Official Publications of the European Communities. Instefjord, E., (2014). Appropriation of Digital Competence in Teacher Education.. Nordic Journal of Digital Literacy, vol. 9, Nr. 4-2014 s., p. 313–329. Lund, A. & Aaagaard, T. (2020) Digital Agency in Higher Education. Transforming Teaching and Learning, Routledge Uganda MoES. (2006). Revised ICT Draft policy for information and communication technology in the education sector. Kampala: Ministry of Education and Sports. Säljö, R., (2010). Digital tools and challenges to institutional traditions of learnig: Technologies, social memory and the performative nature of learning. Journal of Computer Asssisted Learning (26), pp. 53-64. Toit, J. D., (2015). Teacher Training and Usage of ICT in Education: New directions for the UIS global data collection in the post-2015 context, Montreal: UNESCO Institute for Statistics. UNESCO. (2015). Information and Communication Technology in Education in Sub-Saharan Africa: A Comparative Analysis of Basic e-readiness in Schools. Montreal: UNESCO.
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