Technologies in Teacher E

ducation

Mark A. Minott Ed.D

Assistant Professor Teacher Education Department

University College of the Cayman Islands (UCCI)

January 11th 2010

The University College of the Cayman Islands UCCI is the ‘state institution’

Provides a range of undergraduate and postgraduate programmes.

Current number of students 1300 (this number includes students on the main campus, Grand Cayman and the remote site, Cayman Brac or the ‘Brac’.

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Approximately (2 % ) are Teacher Education Students.

Since 2008 the University College has used Interactive Video Conferencing Technology(IVCT) to enable students on the neighbouring islands to access courses.

This occurrence fulfils a part of the University College mission statement, which is to be responsive to the needs of the local community.

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There are no known writings on the benefits and challenges of using this technology in the local context, that is, the University College of the Cayman Islands (UCCI).

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There is no known formal evaluation of the use of this technology at the college since it was installed and implemented in 2008. T

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To determine the benefits and challenges of employing interactive video conference technology IVCT in various programmes including teacher education

To suggest ways of improving its use as a teaching and learning tool.

To make suggestions for its use specific to teacher education.

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An evaluative study Participants: lecturers, IT

coordinator, remote site campus director and students at the remote site.

Staff email interviews via the UCCI intranet (77% response rate)

Students’ Online survey ( 50% response rate)

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Both staff and students were asked the broad questions:

What do you consider to be the benefits of using IVCT at UCCI?

What do you consider to be the challenges of using ICVT at UCCI?

Is there anything else you would like to say about IVCT at UCCI?

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Benefits & Challenges

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Students on the remote site have access to a variety of courses.

Financial savings for the institution.

It forced staff members who are ‘afraid’ of technology to engage with it.

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While these findings are not surprising, they support the established literature on IVCT, from a country not yet explored by other researchers, namely, the Cayman Islands. According to Phillips and Pugh (1994) this is an original contribution to knowledge.

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Challenges Solutions

Technical: Frequent power outages, periodic disruption in internet connection, distorted sound & video equipment.

Greater vigilance and availability of technical staff.

Provide specific training to staff in ‘troubleshooting’. T

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Challenges Solutions

Students: inability to physically interact with lecturers and to build one-to-one relationship with fellow students.

Alternate live lecturers between main and remote campuses and arrange visits to the main site for students from the remote site.

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Challenges Solutions

Students: IVCT restrains or intimidates students

Provide more opportunity for students to ask and answer questions

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Challenges Solutions

Staff: maintaining students’ interest at both sites. Limits spontaneity. The use of various communication instruments, require a change in thinking and behaviour.

Training and continued engagement with IVCT will improve the ability of staff to cope with these challenges.

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Challenges Solutions

Staff: students lack the maturity to engage with IVCT and some need one –on-one assistance with selected subjects.

Chairman or coordinator being physically present at the remote site.

Arrange individual virtual face-to-face time for students needing assistance.

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IVCT should be used to establish links between colleges and schools.

This would require the use of some basic hardware elements i.e. input ,output and storage devices, camera, microphone, CPU, speakers etc to connect the sites.

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Using IVCT technology to establish links between the college and schools is important because:

it increases pre-service teachers’ exposure to children and classroom scenarios. This provides important theory to practice connections (Gibson & Kelland 2008).

face-to-face classroom visits as a part of various courses are not often feasible mainly due to time constraints.

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in remote field observations (especially when pre-service teachers’ placements are some distance from the institution) it can be used to facilitate a faculty member's observation of a pre-service teacher during their field placement (Swan, Mazur, Good, 2009). T

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it facilitates virtual classroom visits where pre-service teachers observe master teachers teaching in their classrooms. (Swan, Mazur, Good, 2009).

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The challenges that will be associated with using IVCT to establish links between colleges and schools would be similar to those highlighted by this study. Therefore, it behoves institutions considering the use of this technology to carefully examine the problems and solutions identified here.

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