Lack of Adequate Training for Teachers to Utilize Classroom technology

Lack of Adequate Training for Teachers to Utilize Classroom technology

Introduction

Technology has played its part in changing and updating a number of aspects in all walks of life. Be it military, defense, medical and various other disciplines, technology has introduced a number of new gadgets to help individuals in their respective fields to improve their work quality and enjoy the convenience technology has to offer. Education and academics is also one of those areas that have evolved a great deal with the contribution of technology (John and Creswell, 2009). In fact, the contributions in the filed by science and the need of that contribution have lead to the origination of a new field commonly known as Educational Technology. It is defined as the study of all the ethical practices that can facilitates learning capabilities and enhance performances by proposing, applying and managing suitable technological resources and processes (John and Creswell, 2009). However, with the passage of time, Educational Technology was categorized into various sub domains. One of these is commonly known as Instruction Technology, which has started to enjoy a lot of attention currently. Classroom technology can simply be defined as the use of technology to improve, enhance and facilitate the explanation and learning of various complicated and complex learning matters, topics or subjects. In current times, the need of classroom technology is felt even more as the level of education has also improved. With the evolvement and discoveries in various fields, be it engineering, medical, aeronautics or any other discipline, the teaching of the courses without the help of technology is almost impossible (Saettler, 1990).

Discussion

Many critics of the current technology incorporation in the classrooms have emphasized on one of the major obstacle to the proper use of computers that is the teachers are not trained to put into practice their use. A number of recent researches have also supported the findings that many instructors are naive of how to put the new gadgetry to optimizing use. One of these studies reported that only 20 % of the teachers said they felt prepared to integrate technology into classroom. Another study reported that half of the 50 states in United States do not make the computer training a mandatory condition for teacher licensing. Furthermore, it has also been indicated by several researches that these scenarios are worsen by the fact that college teaching programs very rarely, if ever, offer the necessary training to the teachers at the time of their hiring (Mendels, 1999).

In addition, in some colleges, the teaching programs practices time-consuming and irrelevant sessions and learning activities for the new teachers. The simple question that arises here is how can one expect the lecturers to use technology when they are not provided the training to do so? Of the unlimited and infinite uses and applications of computers in the classroom, these teachers are not aware of even a handful of those possibilities. Therefore, many schools, universities and colleges invest ...