Investigating pre-service and in-service teachers' views of the effectiveness of the IT modules in their teacher education programmes

The present paper aims to find out the views of 26 pre-service and 8 in-service teachers about the IT modules in their teacher education programmes. The instruments used to collect their views in this study included questionnaires and semi-structured interviews. The findings of the study show that while both software applications and technology integration in teaching are highlighted in the module outline, the module instructor focused more on the application aspect, with the technology integration being less emphasised. It is suggested that in order to prepare the pre-service and in-service teachers to use IT in their teaching more effectively, they should be provided with opportunities to practice using IT into teaching. Activities such as micro-teaching should be included in the module. One encouraging result discovered in this study is that after finishing the investigated IT modules, the teachers did not just use PowerPoint for presentations but also tried to use other applications such as WebQuest to develop students’ higher-order thinking skills. Copyright © 2010 AACE.