Section Four: ICT Training

This section of the questionnaires tried to capture the elements of the ICT training that the participants had liked or disliked in the past and then moved on to presenting the opportunity of attending the ICT CPD that this study proposed. It asked the participants to indicate the content that they would like the training to cover, preferred delivery modes of the training, and the length of the training session. From the participants’ responses it was clear that the majority (n=12) had attended at least one ICT training course. However, two participants indicated that they had not attended any ICT-related training previously. Responses to the type of previous ICT training attended varied, where nine participants indicated attending a lecture-type ICT training, three indicated attending a hands-on style training, while one participant indicated attending an online self-access and a demonstration-style ICT training, respectively. An example of the participants’ responses to the open-ended question that asked them what they liked or disliked about the ICT training they attended is provided below:

Liked the training:

● “The training was for interactive white boards and the instructor was an expert in using them and he described it very well to us.”

● “I enjoyed the Intel training but I did not like the group-work parts as we had to work from lecturers from other departments.”

● “I liked it because it gave me some ideas about how to teach with technology.”

Disliked the training:

● “What is the point of attending a training on whiteboard if you don’t have one in your classroom?”

● “There was no need to introduce online learning when we do not have computer labs.”

● “I did not like the workshops style; we need to know how to use them in the classroom, we do not need information only”

When offered the opportunity to attend an ICT CPD that was based on their needs, the participants (n=14) agreed to take part in the ICT CPD offered by the study. In terms of the content of the training, the majority of the participants (n=12) indicated that they wanted the training to cover authoring application, online presentation, and social media platforms, while eight participants indicated VLEs and Google services. As far as the design of the ICT CPD was concerned, responses (n=11) showed an interest in online training with classroom support, while others (n=7) reported a mix of online training and a hands-on demonstration of the tools and application. Lecture-style training was the least reported (n=3). Responses to the preferred length of the ICT CPD also varied, for example six participants indicated that they would like the training to be a small number of events, while four indicated they would prefer attending a small number of events with classroom support. Three participants indicated that they would like to attend single-event training and one participant preferred attending a long accredited training.

general regarding use of computers for different purposes such as administrational and work- related research. There was also a general tendency to engage students in and out of classroom ICT-related activities with less engagement in the classroom, which could be a result of the availability of facilities or curriculum constraints. In terms of opportunities, there was also an agreement among the participants that ICT use was interactive and allows activities that are engaging for the students. There was, however, a proportion of the participants (n=5) who believed that ICT use should be supplementary to classroom instruction. Nevertheless, a large number of the participants (n=10) indicated that ICT allowed them to deliver ideas more clearly, which showed an understanding of an opportunity provided by ICT use in the EFL classroom. In terms of constraints, as with the literature review in chapter 2, availability and reliability of facilities, class time/size, support, and curriculum issues were reported with different variations. In terms of training opportunities, as we have seen earlier, lack of relevance to practice, mix of teachers from different fields, and mismatch to teachers’ needs were reported as negative attributes of previously attended training events. In contrast having a skilled trainer and the introduction of practical implementation ideas were reported as elements that the participants had enjoyed about previous training events. In terms of the content, delivery, and length of the ICT CPD offered, the participants indicated a tendency towards a mix of different applications that serve different purposes with authoring tools, online presentations and social media application being the most preferred. They also preferred the training to be online and saw a mix of a small number of events and classroom support as important. As for the delivery of the training, the participants favoured a mix of online training and hands-on demonstration of tools/applications use in the classroom.

Following from the breakdown of TPACK and how it informed the design of this ICT CPD, and examining the data from the needs analysis, the expected outcomes of the training were set as the following:

1. All teachers would use some ICT tools and applications, some would show frequent use.

2. All would understand the pedagogical implementation of selected ICT tools/applications and their applications in the EFL context.

3. Teachers would share experiences and ideas and establish the basis for a community of inquiry.

In relation to TPACK the overall aim was to develop the participants’ ICT use through developing TPK and TK and allowing the participants’ time to experiment using the tools in their teaching (TCK) and reflect on their use. It was through such process that the aims of this ICT CPD could be met.