1. @Teacher Teachers´professonal profile in ICT for education in Iceland October 2004 Venice, Italy
Kristín Helga Guðmundsdóttir
Icelandic National Investigator
Department of Continuing Education at the Iceland University of Education

3. Iceland
65 00 N, W
Area total
103,000 sq km
Population:
280,798 (2003)

4. Kristín Helga Guðmundsdóttir
Content
Curricular framework of ICT for educational in initial training
How initial teacher training is carried out..
Curricular framwork of ICT for education in-service teahcers training
In service teacher training
Kristín Helga Guðmundsdóttir

5. Curricular framework of ICT for education in initial training
Overall
ICT for pre-primary school teachers
Overall
Referring to the Icelandic national curriculum published in 1999, the use of ICT as a learning tool across the curriculum is stressed and IT skills should be considered in that context not as a special subject. Therefore it is expected that the Universities in Iceland offers courses in educational technology in teacher training. Each university has its special curriculum independent from the Ministry of Education.
Areas of Information and communication technology (ICT) are compulsory in initial teacher training. The aim is both to enlarge the personal knowledge that the teacher trainees have of ICT and to focus on particular teaching applications.
ICT for pre-primary school teachers
The Icelandic national curriculum put emphasis on that all children should be introduced to ICT in pre-primary school. The Iceland University of Education offer obligatory course in ICT in the first semester for pre-primary school teacher’s trainees. The name of the course is information technology. The main subjects are the same as the obligatory course in ICT for primary and secondary school teacher’s trainees. The main subjects are:
Have knowledge of the main areas of computer use in schools as well as the possibilities that information technology offers in communication, resource-searching, registration/ indexing, processing data, presenting different material, exercising, learning and teaching.
Be competent users of some specific tools that can be used, performing the tasks mentioned in former paragraph, develop a progressive attitude towards tasks and gain competency in using the technology in different situations in learning and teaching.
Explore the effects of new technology on culture and society, education and children’s conditions for growing up. Learn to know theories on learning and teaching with ICT and form their own ideas about the organization of schools, learning and teaching with ICT (Þuríður Jóna Jóhannsdóttir, 2003)
Three credit elective course has been offered in multimedia-technology. Students learn how to make a Web site, digital portfolios on the Internet, how to use tools for mediation of pictures and learn theories about how to use ICT with children. At the beginning the pre-primary school teachers trainees learning through a distance learning programme are offered non credit course in how to use the Web, , information resources on the Internet, Web-based systems and videoconference.
Kristín Helga Guðmundsdóttir

6. Curricular framework of ICT for education in initial training
ICT for compulsory school teachers
Information-technology and schoolwork
Learning environment
The knowledge-society
Make of educational material and media
ICT for compulsory school teachers
Compulsory school teachers trainees attend two credit obligatory course in ICT. In addition ICT is one of nine specialization subjects that students can select and they can choose up to 15 credits. Five courses give three credits each. The objectives for the ICT-specialization is to educate teachers who are competent users of ICT and are able to organize and perform school tasks and integrate ICT and other school subjects. The four courses offered are:
Information-technology and schoolwork: Technological competency and technical literacy is learned as well as something about ICT in schools.
Learning environment: Possibilities of the web is distributed and flexible learning and teaching is studied. Teacher students learn to use some course-ware commonly used in distance learning and teaching (e.g. WebCT).
The knowledge-society The knowledge-society: Education, learning and schools in the information society. Students evaluate e.g. educational computer programs and computer games and webs for children. Learning tasks are intended to intertwine organization of teaching and knowledge about digital material available for contemporary children.
Make of educational material and media: ICT-use and multimedia-technology. Students learn to use tools for mediation of pictures and sound to make educational material. They are supposed to learn some basic principles of media and presentation and build on learning theories when constructing educational material.
In addition. Students can choose elective courses in ICT-related subjects. These educational courses are for example mathematics and ICT, ICT and language teaching and computer and music.
Kristín Helga Guðmundsdóttir

7. ...Curricular framework of ICT for education in initial training
Distance learning programme
Distance learning programme
More than half of the students at the Iceland University of Education are in distance learning programme. Iceland University of Education and the Educational Department of Akureyri graduate teachers through a distance learning programme. Students in distance education generally complete most of their courses independently using computer technology and the Internet. All distance learning programmes, however, also include some on-campus activities.
The universities offer elective courses in ICT for the distance initial teachers trainees at the beginning of their studies. The students learn how to use the computer, computer programs and how to use distance learning environment and closed course-ware like WebCT or Its-learning. They are offering the same ICT courses as the on-campus students but at distance. The distance students are in many courses asked to write a log book to map their learning process and enhance their meta-cognition as students. Some few teachers have made experiments to use open blog-sites (web-log) on the web for that purpose (Þuríður Jóna Jóhannsdóttir, 2003).
Most courses both in distance learning programme and on-campus have their own websites.
Teacher license programs
The three universities I have mention offer 30 credits program for teacher license. The University of Iceland offers on-campus program and the other universities offer teachers license program in distance education. All the universities offer 5 credit courses in ICT in distance education. The students learn how to use common computer programs and educational programs. They learn how to make a website, to use tools for mediation of pictures, search for information on the Internet and to evaluate information.
Kristín Helga Guðmundsdóttir

8. Kristín Helga Guðmundsdóttir
...Curricular framwork of ICT for education in in-service teahers training
In-service training
The department of graduate studies
In-service training for teachers is optional in Iceland but the compulsory schools are obligate to constitute in-service device for their teachers to enhance their professional development. The commune is obligated to finance the in-service training for teachers in their school district if the budget allows it. The three universities offer diverse courses in ICT for in-service training for teachers in inconsistent with the national curriculum. The Iceland University of Education and the University of Akureyri offer courses, in-service training for teachers in pre-primary and primary and lower secondary schools and the University of Iceland offer courses for upper secondary school teachers.
Nine educational centres around Iceland in cooperation with the universities provide varied ICT courses, in-service training for teachers.
The department of graduate studies
The Iceland University of Education offer about 10 courses (30 credits) within the program which focus on this area in the department of graduate studies in distance education. The distance education, graduate level program in ICT in education aims at helping people to develop their leadership abilities in this area within the Icelandic educational system.
The name of few courses are e.g.;
Information & Communication Technology (ICT) in Education and School Computer Culture.
Innovation - Planning for development and research.
Reading circle. The students are exposed to a mix of theory and research, design and development, grounded in reflective practice.
The students also experience the use of different software tools and technology, facilitating communications and learning including computer.
The program is a distance education program where all kinds of software and tools are utilized to facilitate collaboration and online communications within the group(s) and help create a sense of community (professional and learning community).
Almost all students in the program are also practicing teachers (even full time; they have a 50% study load in most cases). The study is organized as project-based in most of the courses where students can and usually do link with their own teaching. The program uses blended technologies, i.e. it is mostly online but with campus-based sessions. It is a model that is also used in all other programs within the graduate department at the Iceland University of Education (Sólveig Jakobsdóttir, 2004).
Kristín Helga Guðmundsdóttir

9. Kristín Helga Guðmundsdóttir
...Curricular framwork of ICT for education in in-service teachers training
The department of continuing education
Varied courses held in the school districts
The department of continuing education
The Department of continuing education of Iceland University of Education provides varied courses in ICT. On-campus courses are usually from 12 to 30 hours of instruction. The distance educational courses are 6 to 12 weeks of instruction. Five ICT courses are offered on-campus for pre-primary school teachers in the winter Three ICT- related courses are offered for primary and lower secondary school teacher’s on-campus. Three courses are distant educational courses.
Varied courses held in the school districts
Schools order varied courses to be held in their districts. The Department of continuing education of Iceland University of Education organize such project for the school districts.
Kristín Helga Guðmundsdóttir

10. In service teacher training
LearnICT – using ICT in learning and teaching in Iceland. A project funded by the Research Council of Iceland under the Information Technology research program.
Teachers actual competencies and tasks in using ICT
It is important to emphasize the results of research concerning ICT in Icelandic households as well as individual’s use of computers and the Internet made by the Statistical bureau in Iceland. The use of a computer and the Internet is widespread in Iceland The participants in the study were 2000 people between the age years. 85% of all the individuals used a computer and four out of every five were Internet users.
Few studies have been carried out in ICT- related activities with pre-primary and compulsory teachers in Iceland. In the year 2002 a research was carried out of teacher’s competencies in using ICT in certain school district near Reykjavík. The participants were compulsory school teachers. The compulsory teachers were asked about their computer skills and the conclusion was that 75% compulsory school teachers use common pc computer programs, 60% use operating systems, 75% use word-processing, 50% use graphics, 60% use search information on the Internet, 65% use , 65% use the Internet, 40% use spreadsheet, 30% use databases and 40% use multimedia. These results show that teachers in Iceland are using common computer programs frequently.
LearnICT – using ICT in learning and teaching in Iceland. A project funded by the Research Council of Iceland under the Information Technology research program.
Kristín Helga Guðmundsdóttir

11. Kristín Helga Guðmundsdóttir
Kristín Helga Guðmundsdóttir

12. In service teacher training
How in-service teacher training is carried out e.g., using ICT tools or not, working online or not. Working collaboratively or not
How in-service teacher training is carried out e.g. Using ICT tools or not, working online or not. Working collaboratively or not
On-campus in-service courses are usually from 12 to 30 hours of instruction. The distance educational courses are 6 to 12 weeks of instruction. The teaching strategy is varied. They are; task-oriented, lectures and collaboration between participants. Some of the courses are offered in part as distance learning courses. The distance learning courses in ICT are mostly in closed course-ware like WebCT- which is becoming the most common web-learning environment in Iceland. The participant can find learning instructions there, what to read and when to deliver their assignments. They can download educational material, print them or read them on-line. They can communicate and collaborate with other participants by using , participate in discussion forums and chat in real time.
Kristín Helga Guðmundsdóttir

13. How initial teacher training is carried out using ICT tools...
Distance learning programme
Learning tasks
Distance learning programs
The norm for the distance learning programme for pre-primary and compulsory school teachers trainees is two weeks on campus in the beginning of each semester (August and January) and then the rest of the time teaching and learning via the Internet. A web course is set up either a closed course-ware like WebCT, Its-learning or open websites. The system is similar in the others universities. Two universities use videoconference to send out their lectures.
Learning tasks
In the general course descriptions one usually finds comments about which learning tasks distance students are supposed to perform on the web. This would most commonly be discussion about the learning material and publishing of the result of their studies become more and more common. This is most often in form of text documents or PowerPoint presentations. Teachers would also publish their lectures’ on the web in various forms, word documents, PowerPoint presentations being most common and some experiments with PowerPoint with talk.
The distance students are in many courses asked to write a log book to map their learning process and enhance their meta-cognition as students. Few teachers have made experiments to use open blog-sites (web-log) on the web for that purpose. This can also be looked upon as enhancing the feeling of being part of a learning community as you can follow your fellow students´ learning logs (Þuríður Jóna Jóhannsdóttir, 2003).
Geysir
Kristín Helga Guðmundsdóttir

14. How initial teacher training is carried out using ICT tools...
On-campus
The three universities mentioned before have similar systems and teacher methods. ICT- related courses have their own websites where students get information about the course, instructions from the teacher, electronic lectures and talk-presentations.
On-campus
The On-campus norm for pre-primary and compulsory school teachers trainees beginning of each semester in September and finishing the semester in May. The ICT courses are usually carried out in a computer-classroom where each student works at his computer or his own laptop. In addition with traditional teaching methods on-campus many teachers use distance learning environment like WebCT for communication and discussions about the learning subjects. The assignments are both individual and cooperative which the teacher administers.
Goðafoss
Kristín Helga Guðmundsdóttir