Integrating ICTs in teacher training

Last Tuesday, Bindu Thirumalai gave a talk in front of D.Ed. principals about the potential of ICTs to enhance teachers' training, as well as their professional experience through the use of ICTs in the classroom and to build networks with colleagues. Find out more by reading the handout, checking the presentation and reading Bindu's feedback below.

"The presentation was to address D.Ed. college principals from all over Karnataka. The objective of the presentation was to convey a high level understanding of how ICTs may be used in education in different spheres and focussing on its optimal usage in D.Ed colleges. As the organisers of the workshop pointed out:

'All D.Ed. colleges are equipped with computers as per NCTE norms. But our study shows that they are grossly underutilised. Our objective of including a one hour session for the Principals is to give them an idea of possibilities of tapping ICT beyond imparting computer skills to students.' Mythili Ramchand, PhD, Director, RV Educational Consortium.

Knowing that many of the participants may not have exposure to computers or may be first time users of the technology, I felt that I would at the onset need to briefly demystify concepts such as ICT, Computers and Internet. Then make the participants aware of the dangers of ICTs and hence the importance for educators to become aware of the benefits and pitfalls of using technology. For now, we are at a stage where technology is fast changing our lives and we are past the debate of “whether” we need to use technology and have moved to “how best” we can use it - responsibly and optimally - in education. The latter part of the presentation covered the objectives mentioned above where I explained the use/role of ICTs in administration, pedagogy and professional development.

I was first told there would be 40 principals attending the presentation but on the day, I found out that there would be about 80 principals. If that didn't make me nervous, I was also told that Kannada would be the preferred language to deliver the presentation. I am fairly fluent in conversational Kannada, but my fluency is not at a level where I can present in front of 80 principals who are proficient Kannada orators!

Notwithstanding my fear of stages, the number of participants, and my language difficulties (my colleague Krittika told me that I actually have improved in how much Kannada I include in my presentations!!), once I began, I was comfortably able to deliver what I set out to do. Making it more interactive by asking the participants their opinions was helpful as well as informative. My reflections would be to simplify the slides both in language and to some extent in content for this audience for a more effective presentation."