T HE USE OF I NFORMATION AND C OMMUNICATION T ECHNOLOGY DURING THE T EACHING P RACTICES OF STUDENT TEACHERS P.K.J.E. Nonis Dept. of Science Technology Education Faculty of Education University of Colombo

I NTRODUCTION Information Communication Technology(ICT) is grounded in all aspects of School Education Schools have to play leading role in emerging and changing needs of the society by making room for the student as well as teachers to become familiar with ICT at their school premises. Having high-end technology in schools does not necessarily mean high uptake of ICT competency by the teachers or students. Nowadays, most of the teacher development programmes provide ICT learning experiences to their teacher trainees to uplift their competencies with ICT. “Capacity building is a continues process and therefore needs to inculcate values, attitude and drive so that the students become self-directed lifelong learners”(Bhattacharya & Dwivedi,2011,p29)

L ITERATURE Teachers need to equip themselves with adequate ICT knowledge and skills to be able to perform better as facilitators and designers of students’ learning. Rapid development and advancement of technology influence pedagogical practices of teachers. Formal ICT training significantly influences to enhancement of ICT literacy of the teachers’ (Mahmud and Ismail,2010).

L ITERATURE C ONTD … 21 st century learning is flexible, creative, challenging and complex than industrial model of 20 th century(Bhattacharya & Dwivedi,2011) Technological advances have impact formal, informal and non-formal education, so teachers need to take holistic approach and think creatively and explore the potentials of currently available technologies(Bhattacharya & Dwivedi,2011)

O BJECTIVES OF THE STUDY Present study was done to assess the level of ICT integration in lesson plan implementation by the PGDE full time and part time teachers during their teaching practicum(TP) Specific Objectives of the study Identify attitude of the student teacher towards incorporating ICT for their teaching Examine to what extent student teachers feel confident using ICT during teaching practices Explore classroom room environment factors to use ICT Examine how student teacher satisfaction about the existing content of the PGDE curriculum

M ETHODOLOGY The present study adopts mixed methods approach. Both quantitative and qualitative method was employ in the process of data gathering, analysis and presentation. Descriptive and interpretative data presenting used mainly to identify the phenomena in different perspective. Survey design was mainly concerned with the gathering of people`s interest using questionnaire and interview. The use of these instruments enabled data triangulation thus enhancing data validity and reliability. Data were collected from 60 lesson observations using an observational schedule. Fifteen questionnaires were administered to 15 teachers and interviews were held with 20 teachers.

C ONCLUSION It was noted that majority of the lessons were delivered without incorporating a single ICT device by the PGDE teachers during their second phase of TP. Only the ICT subject teachers delivered lessons by incorporating ICT during their TP. Majority of the teachers could not give reasons as to why they did not incorporate ICT during their TP. Some pointed out that nature of the subject, unavailability of ICT resources were the main reasons not to incorporate ICT in their lessons. It was revealed that all teachers had a basic ICT literacy gained from various sources before TP was carried out. Though an objective of teaching ICT in the PGDE course is ICT application after completing PGDE by the teachers, the study showed that student teachers continue to use traditional techniques rather than ICT integrated lesson delivery during their classroom practices.