Abstract

MARTINEZ, Rosana; LEITE, Carlinda  and  MONTEIRO, Angélica. ICT and Initial Teacher Training: students’ views on opportunities and problems. Cuad. Investig. Educ. [online]. 2016, vol.7, n.1, pp.69-92. ISSN 1510-2432.

Recognising that the role of future basic education teachers is vital to implement ICT integration policies, and that in this respect it is essential that future teachers have undergone experiences that give sense to their use in education, the present article is aimed at describing the importance of ICT in such training and in the initiation of the teaching practices for future basic education teachers in a Uruguayan institution, and at identifying existing opportunities and problems in the pedagogical use of ICT. To this end, the following information was collected: documents on the regulatory framework of ICT integration policies applied in Uruguay, the Basic Education Teacher Training Plan, and Syllabuses related to Didactics and Technologies; and opinions gathered from student teachers through a focused group discussion. Both the contents of the documents and the students’ discussions were processed using content analysis (Bardin, 2004). This analysis confirms the contribution of ICT to social and economic development, thus validating its presence in basic education, supported by a structured political agenda. Although the Initial Teacher Training Plan includes hours for ICT training, according to the interviewed students the contents fail to meet their needs. Although these students acknowledge the existence of ICT skill training instances, they deem such insufficient to provide secure practices, for progress in terms of infrastructure and availability of technological devices call for changes in initial training of basic education teachers.

Keywords : initial training of basic education teachers; ICT; teaching practices; pedagogical use of ICT; policies.

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