Information and Communications Technology (ICT) and Education

International audienceAs Information and Communication Technologies (ICT) gradually permeate daily life, they are profoundly changing the way education is conceived and delivered. Teachers play a key role in this transformation process; their beliefs, pedagogical practices, and teaching skills are continuously challenged. ICT integration in the educational process can significantly enhance traditional courses and Internet-based education, i.e., e-learning, is becoming a serious alternative to traditional, face-to-face courses. To be used as a lever for pedagogical innovation and institutional transformation, teacher ICT competencies need to go beyond skills in ICT use per se, and enclose contextual knowledge about technology, pedagogy, and content. On the other hand, learners' engagement with ICT in education depends on their expectations and conceptions of learning and required assessment. A learner's experience with ICT in education is linked to his perception of systems' ease of use and usefulness in achieving learning goals. Adaptive learning systems open new potentialities for a personalized instruction which is tailored to the learner's characteristics. At the edge of a new era, schools, colleges, and higher education struggle to seize opportunities and overcome obstacles

Accounting for Iranian EFL Teachers' Burnout: Educational Beliefs and Teacher Self-Disclosure in Focus

Teaching is considered a high-risk profession for those suffering from burnout syndrome. Burnout syndrome affects the person who suffers from it and everyone around them, e.g., family, friends, co-workers, students, and parents. The main purpose of this study was to investigate any probable relationship between Iranian EFL teachers’ educational belief and their tendency to self-disclose with their likelihood of suffering from burnout. The research instruments were The Teacher Self-Disclosure Scale (Cayanus Martin, 2008), Maslach Burnout Inventory (MBI-ES) (Maslach, C., Schaufeli, 1993), and the Teachers' Educational Belief Questionnaire. The participants were 98 EFL teachers selected from 25 private language schools in Shiraz, Iran. Descriptive statistics, Cronbach Alpha coefficients, and Person Product-Moment Correlation Coefficient were used to answer this research question. Analyzing the data collected through the questionnaires indicated a positive correlation between some dimensions of teacher burnout and teachers’ constructive or traditional beliefs. Thus, ‘lack of personal achievement’ and ‘constructive beliefs’, ‘emotional exhaustion’ and ‘depersonalization’, and teachers’ traditional beliefs were positively correlated. On the contrary, a negative correlation was identified between ‘lack of personal achievement’ and teachers’ traditional beliefs. Likewise, ‘emotional exhaustion’ and ‘depersonalization’ on the burnout scale were correlated with teachers’ constructive beliefs.  However, no significant correlation was observed between teachers’ neutral beliefs and any dimensions of the burnout scale. Moreover, teacher self-disclosure quantity and negativity were correlated with ‘emotional exhaustion’ and ‘depersonalization’ on the burnout scale

Accounting for Iranian EFL Teachers' Burnout: Educational Beliefs and Teacher Self-Disclosure in Focus

Teaching is considered a high-risk profession for those suffering from burnout syndrome. Burnout syndrome affects the person who suffers from it and everyone around them, e.g., family, friends, co-workers, students, and parents. The main purpose of this study was to investigate any probable relationship between Iranian EFL teachers’ educational belief and their tendency to self-disclose with their likelihood of suffering from burnout. The research instruments were The Teacher Self-Disclosure Scale (Cayanus Martin, 2008), Maslach Burnout Inventory (MBI-ES) (Maslach, C., Schaufeli, 1993), and the Teachers' Educational Belief Questionnaire. The participants were 98 EFL teachers selected from 25 private language schools in Shiraz, Iran. Descriptive statistics, Cronbach Alpha coefficients, and Person Product-Moment Correlation Coefficient were used to answer this research question. Analyzing the data collected through the questionnaires indicated a positive correlation between some dimensions of teacher burnout and teachers’ constructive or traditional beliefs. Thus, ‘lack of personal achievement’ and ‘constructive beliefs’, ‘emotional exhaustion’ and ‘depersonalization’, and teachers’ traditional beliefs were positively correlated. On the contrary, a negative correlation was identified between ‘lack of personal achievement’ and teachers’ traditional beliefs. Likewise, ‘emotional exhaustion’ and ‘depersonalization’ on the burnout scale were correlated with teachers’ constructive beliefs.  However, no significant correlation was observed between teachers’ neutral beliefs and any dimensions of the burnout scale. Moreover, teacher self-disclosure quantity and negativity were correlated with ‘emotional exhaustion’ and ‘depersonalization’ on the burnout scale

Pipe dreams or digital dreams: Technology, pedagogy and content knowledge in the vocational educational and training sector

Regional Australia provides fertile ground for the integration of online technologies to support the vocational education and training (VET) sector. This paper examines teachers’ beliefs about teaching with technology in a regional VET institute. VET teachers must demonstrate teaching expertise (pedagogical knowledge) and industry expertise (content knowledge) for diverse learners and contexts; however, the emergence of new digital technologies illustrates an increasing need for teachers to embrace ‘technology’ knowledge commensurate with industry practice. Recent surveys have revealed that teachers’ use of online digital technology within the VET sector is not effectively incorporated nor has it been embraced in pedagogically defensible ways. This paper adopts a mixed methods approach to understand how the epistemic beliefs of VET teachers influence their teaching and how the TPACK is applied in practice. Finally, this paper illuminates the need for professional development programmes to focus on developing teacher knowledge across all TPACK domains

Technological Use in EFL Instruction: Investigating Teachers’ Pedagogical Beliefs and Students’ Learning Engagement

This research aimed to find out the influence of EFL teachers’ pedagogical beliefs with regard to using technology on EFL students’ learning engagement in the classroom and also to find out which pedagogical belief dimension most influences EFL students’ learning engagement in the classroom. This is quantitative research with survey method. Data were collected from two online questionnaires. Data analysis methods in this research used descriptive statistics and Structural Equation Modeling (SEM). Respondents in this research were 125 EFL teachers and 125 EFL students in several secondary schools in the second semester of the 2019/2020 academic year in Gresik, East Java, Indonesia. This research found that EFL teachers’ pedagogical beliefs with regard to using technology have a positive and significant influence on EFL students’ learning engagement in the classroom (t-value is 10.840 > 1.96) and the pedagogical belief dimension most influences EFL students’ learning engagement in the classroom is “Teachers’ Practices with Regard to Using Technology” (t-value is 9.953 > 1.96)

Educational Innovations And Pedagogical Beliefs: The Case Of A Professional Development Program For Indonesian Teachers

This study aimed to explore the impact of a professional development program on the teachers’ pedagogical beliefs and practices. More specifically, the program endeavoured to design a prototype for teacher professional development in Indonesia that was sustainable and scalable. This one-year program built upon the participating teachers’ existing practices, reinforced with the concept of reflection as a tool for ongoing inquiry of their own practices. The three major components of this program were: action research, peer-coaching and leadership support. By using a mixed method of quantitative and qualitative data collection, this study examined the changes in the participating teachers’ beliefs and practices, and how these changes may be related to the professional development program. The key findings in this paper have highlighted the importance of (1) the clarity of both the content and the outline of the program, (2) applicable and suitable professional learning methods, (3) modelling , and (4) collaboration among teachers. The findings have also identified teachers’ (limited) resources, such as time and access to facilities, to be taken into account when planning for professional development programs. The discussion focuses on the challenge to design professional development programs based on a belief-action relationship

Barriers in teacher perception about the use of technology for evaluation in Higher Education

This article addresses perceptions that higher education teachers have on the integration of technology in evaluation processes, focusing on their beliefs about learning, evaluation and technology that enable or hinder this pedagogical innovation.This study considered teachers as part of a project using rubrics in Moodle to evaluate learning in a Chilean higher education institution in 2014, 2015 and 2016.Forming and evaluating in a competency-based approach involves challenges for the teaching staff and changes in their role that are accepted or resisted. The same happens in the face of innovation processes with information and communication technologies (ICT) integration in teaching practices.The primary results show a relationship between pedagogical beliefs and evaluation which is consistent with adoption and assessment of the digital tool used. In addition, it reveals the role of beliefs as secondary barriers to change in the face of access or primary barriers (Ertmert, 1999). The value of autonomy in student work and feedback are identified as key beliefs in technology adoption

ICT Competences and Level of Its Application for Educational Studies in Nigeria in the Amid of Covid- 19

With all learning institutions pre-maturely closed on March 2020 and all citizens advised to self-isolate in a bid to control the spread of COVID-19, this would negatively impacted on the educational studies. A lot of attention is paid to implementing ICT into educational process at all levels (primary, secondary, polytechnic, university, etc.). The purpose of this study is to examine the ICT competences and level of its application for Education studies in Nigerian schools in the midst of COVID-19. The paper also investigated the challenges of using ICT facilities for e-learning and teaching in the Nigerian education sector. Descriptive survey was adopted for this study. A self-designed questionnaire was used to collect the data for the study. The sample for the study is made up of 30 teachers and 40 lecturers randomly selected. Findings revealed that challenges included lack of enough computers, shortage of Internet facilities, students’ lack of access to e-learning facilities and erratic power supply (a major challenge.). The government should increase funding for the entire aspects of educational sector with emphasis on the use of ICT facilities in schools in place of face-to-face interactions. This will help improve the level of ICT competences among teachers and students. There should also be continuous and periodic training of teachers on application of computer and ICT facilities for e-learning teaching. Keywords: ICT competences, ICT facilities, e-learning teaching, educational studies DOI: 10.7176/JESD/11-16-11 Publication date:August 31st 202

The role of early learning experience in shaping teacher cognition and technology use

This chapter explores the role of teachers' early learning experiences in shaping their pedagogical beliefs and practice specifically in relation to technology use. Following a case study approach, the accounts of three in-service Arabic language teachers from a private institution of higher education in Cairo, Egypt, were examined. Practitioners with years of professional experience are not expected to have encountered elements of technology as we know today in their schooling. Nevertheless, findings suggest that conceptions formed early in life of what constitutes “good” or “bad” teaching act as filters through which new experiences, including the use of digital media, are internalized. As imprints of early learning experiences are manifested in teaching, it is the responsibility of teachers to look back on them for possible influences on their pedagogical theories. In complementary fashion, the study foregrounds the role of teacher education in mediating initial conceptualizations of teaching and learning and accentuates the value of reflective practice for continuing teacher development