TEACHER EDUCATION IN CONTEMPORARY SOCIETY: TRANSFORMING TEACHER EDUCATION THROUGH TECHNOLOGY INTEGRATION IN LEARNING

This paper reviews literature on the role of technology integration in education and illustrates how integration of technology in learning could transform teacher education by equipping teacher trainees with the skills that enable them to transform learners into empowered and ethical citizens who effectively contribute to sustainable development. Technology integration in education is crucial because the youth today are growing in an environment where they are interacting with various forms of technology and their operations. Integrating technology in their learning is therefore likely to offer them motivation and curiosity to learn as the learning is in the context of their daily experience, thus meaningful. The review is done with a view to making recommendations on how teacher training institutions could support curriculum delivery with mobile technologies in order to set the pace for other learning institutions on the need to provide learners with holistic quality education that meets the needs of today’s dynamic global society. Integration is critical because technology is the major key driver of the 21st century skills (including communication, critical thinking, collaboration, problem solving and innovation), which has revolutionized education, making it accessible anytime and at any place. This paper will focus on the benefits accrued by employing technology to shift teaching from the formal education knowledge production model to a more engaging and collaborative model that is competence based. It is hoped that this review will shed light on the need to reform teacher training curricula content and scope, objectives, teaching methods and resources to ensure that the programme produces teachers who are well equipped  with skill that enable them to effectively develop learners with skills that enhance their contribution to the development agenda of the society.   Article visualizations

Digital communities: context for leading learning into the future?

In 2011, a robust, on-campus, three-element Community of Practice model consisting of growing community, sharing of practice and building domain knowledge was piloted in a digital learning environment. An interim evaluation of the pilot study revealed that the three-element framework, when used in a digital environment, required a fourth element. This element, which appears to happen incidentally in the face-to-face context, is that of reflecting, reporting and revising. This paper outlines the extension of the pilot study to the national tertiary education context in order to explore the implications for the design, leadership roles, and selection of appropriate technologies to support and sustain digital communities using the four-element model

Sustainability in the theology curriculum

This is the author's PDF version of a book chapter available in Sustainability education: Perspectives and practice across higher education. Edited by Paula Jones, David Selby, and Stephen Sterling. London: Earthscan, 2010. This book chapter was reproduced with the kind permission of EasthScan.This book chapter discusses how theology has the potential to contribute to education for sustainable development

Embedding sustainability through systems thinking in practice: some experiences from the Open University

One initiative that has emerged during the UN Decade of Education for Sustainable Development (ESD) through the work of the Open University Systems group has been its postgraduate programme in Systems Thinking and Practice (STiP). Built on some forty years’ experience of systems teaching and research at the Open University (OU), this open learning, distance taught programme is designed to develop students’ abilities to tackle complex messy situations, to provide skills to think more holistically and to work more collaboratively to avoid systemic failures. This paper critically reviews the trajectory of this programme –its past, present and future. It discusses the STiP programme’s many boundaries with other programmes and across sectors. Challenges of epistemology, ethics and purpose are explored, in relation to education for sustainability. The programme’s many and varied teaching and learning processes are explicated. The pedagogy of the STiP programme is grounded in a diverse range of students’ experiences and needs that by no means all focus explicitly, or primarily, on sustainability or sustainable development. Many OU students study part-time alongside their other commitments, both work and community-based. STiP students are all interested in systems and learning. But what STiP is a part of for them varies considerably. Students come mainly from the UK and rest of Europe. Many of their interactions are online through several different fora. A diverse, active and critical OU STiP alumni community has developed, initiated by the early graduates of the programme. Academics responsible for the programme also participate in this community’s deliberations, at the invitation of student alumni. In this paper, the authors build on their various experiences of the STiP programme and re-explore its contexts and boundaries from an ESD point of view. They use some of the systems heuristics that they teach, to critically reflect on both what is being achieved through this programme in relation to education for sustainability and what they and some of their past students and associate lecturers think ought to be occurring in this respect as they go forward

Managing evolution and change in web-based teaching and learning environments

The state of the art in information technology and educational technologies is evolving constantly. Courses taught are subject to constant change from organisational and subject-specific reasons. Evolution and change affect educators and developers of computer-based teaching and learning environments alike – both often being unprepared to respond effectively. A large number of educational systems are designed and developed without change and evolution in mind. We will present our approach to the design and maintenance of these systems in rapidly evolving environments and illustrate the consequences of evolution and change for these systems and for the educators and developers responsible for their implementation and deployment. We discuss various factors of change, illustrated by a Web-based virtual course, with the objective of raising an awareness of this issue of evolution and change in computer-supported teaching and learning environments. This discussion leads towards the establishment of a development and management framework for teaching and learning systems