Source: Interdisciplinary Journal of e-Skills and Lifelong Learning 12, 279-296
ICT (Information and Communication Technologies) in teacher education poses new challenges to faculty and students. This study was carried out to examine factors facilitating and hindering ICT implementation in teacher education institutes in Israel. Findings from our study, administered at two points in time, revealed that providing technological-pedagogical support to teacher educators and their perceptions and beliefs regarding ICT usage were consistent with being either facilitating or hindering factors in the integration process in colleges of education. Professional development of teacher educators in ICT skills and guidance in applying advanced technologies are additional facilitating factors. Resources, mainly time and infrastructure, were mostly a hindering factor with adverse influence on ICT integration. Three levels of successful ICT integration indicated successful implementation: teacher educators’ level, students in their practice, and the organization level in terms of policy.
Summarizing the findings to the research questions, i.e., factors encouraging or hindering the implementation of ICT among teacher educators in colleges of education and their increase or decrease over the 2 years, our main findings are that technological-pedagogical support encourages ICT implementation as the computerization program advances. However, professional development and rewarding ICT implementation, as well as availability and accessibility of technological equipment and perceptions and beliefs regarding ICT implementation in teaching had decreased. This may possibly be due to the knowledge as well as personal equipment acquired by teacher educators as a new routine. This in turn caused ICT perceptions and beliefs to be a non-issue, i.e., taken for granted as a necessity in teacher training in the information era. Main findings regarding hindering factors were similar in both surveys, i.e., time resources, technological infrastructure and rewarding ICT implementation, and ICT knowledge, skills, and competencies – these still seem to be insufficient. This may indicate the need to consider the new roles of teacher educators in the 21st century as requiring additional efforts and, as a result, the need for these efforts to be acknowledged somehow.
In the light of the importance of technology as a facilitator of growth in teacher education, the findings of our study are vital in understanding the perceptions, attitudes, and practices of teacher
educators that involve ICT as a major component. Findings have unveiled the underlying perceptions of teacher educators in colleges of education regarding ICT implementation within the process of preparing future teachers adequately for teaching in the information era.