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Why we should teach with technology, and the challenges in integrating ICT in the classroom

'Why ICT is important to incorperate into classrooms and lessons

In the year of 2016 it is becoming increasingly important to integrate Information and Communications Technologies (ICT) into our classrooms as teachers. It is imperative as up coming teachers that we set our students up with the opportunity to develop the technology skills that will engage them in becoming life-long learners. With the use of ICT today it makes many more resources ready and available for the students. It teaches our children the newest innovative ways they can use technology in the workforce, or their own studies.

“Teachers who succeed in using technology often make substantial changes in their teaching style and in the curriculum they use” As long as technology in the classroom stays on task, students are opening a door to a greater base of knowledge. It helps students become familiar with current events. This allows our students to make connections with our current, past, and future. Often making a subject like social studies relatable and real for the students. The wide access ICT gives teachers and students a variety of resources that is too great not to exploit. A study was done by Tamar Levina and Rivka Wadmany around teachers who had integrated ICT in their classrooms. The findings reveal that following multi-year experiences in technology-based classrooms, teachers’ educational beliefs had changed quite substantively. The teachers began to demonstrate multiple views for their students rather than their own pure beliefs. If we as teachers can start presenting mulitple views for our students, we will possibly be creating a more thoughtful society. Intern having a more thoughtful citizens will help end stigma's around equality, LGBTQ etc.

The challenges in integrating ICT in the classroom

Some teachers/schools are using ICT as a supplement to classroom activity by accessing existing information and knowledge, rather than as an integral part of pedagogical practice and Ward (2003) goes further to claim that there is limited use of ICT in classroom practices. This indicates a need and learning curve for teachers to gain an understanding of how ICT can be used to extend students’ thinking and problem-solving skills, rather than just as a publication and research tool. Specifically, we propose that teachers’ mindsets must change to include the idea that “teaching is not effective without the appropriate use of information and communication technologies (ICT) resources to facilitate student learning.” There was a study done asking teachers what where the problems they faced trying to intimate ICT in the classroom and the results where as follows: For the students problems associated with not remembering passwords inhibited their access to resources, and the high demand for good literacy skills to be able to engage with the resources on the World Wide Web also denied some students access to those resources. For the teachers themselves the issue of school structures was highlighted. The booking system whereby computer labs were permanently booked for ICT dedicated subjects posed problems. This issue was compounded by timetable constraints resulting in some classes having little or no access. Additionally, the number of computers and computer labs in the school did not accommodate the high demand for student access and resulted in some teachers not being assured of getting their classes into the computer labs when needed. All teachers expressed disappointment at not being able to give their students more experiences using ICT. Subscript text From this we see that it is important for the school to plan and promote for the increase use of ICT. As well having more access can be planned and adapted for classes out side of the regular ICT courses.