Lecturer's experience of intergrating information and communication technology (ICT) into teaching at a college of education.

Abstract

In 2005, the Lesotho Information and Communication Technology (ICT) policy introduction prescribed that all educational institutions for formal learning must play a major role in the improvement of teaching and learning mechanisms that develop a society that is ICT literate and capable of producing ICT products and services. This policy is part of the motivation for this study. The study's focus is to explore the extent to which ICT has been integrated in teaching and learning in one of the Lesotho higher education institutions. Its fundamental aim is to understand the ways in which the Lesotho College of Education (LCE) integrates ICT in teaching and learning environments. My study adopted the mixed method approach which based fact on an interpretive paradigm, with lecturer's interpretations regarding ICT integration in the college collected through structured questionnaires which were hand-distributed to purposefully selected lecturers as study participants. These questionnaires served as the basis and guide for face-to-face individual interviews of lecturers from the Computer studies and Agricultural/Environmental studies departments who were interviewed at their respective offices. Two sessions of sixty minutes, non-participatory observation of thirty computer studies students were also conducted. This study was guided by the activity theory/model based on the construction of real social change for pedagogy in a college. The concepts of the theory/model have been used to analyse the findings of this research. The findings of this study indicate that ICT integration creates opportunities in teaching and learning, where learning is focused on learners, and educators are only facilitators. Despite the opportunities that ICT has in learning, obstacles such as lecturers' lack of skills and incompetence in ICT literacy, limited resources and the infrastructure were found to be major factors hindering ICT integration in the college of education in Lesotho. The recommendations are that staff development and financial support should be considered a priority in ICT integration in this context. Also that ICT integration should include internal and external partners who can donate funds that will help in the implementation of ICT in teaching and learning at Lesotho's institutions of higher education.