Step 7. Get post-use feedback: After software is purchased and used with students, it is important for the teacher to determine the conformance or discrepancy between all of the
2.16 Appraisal of Literature Reviewed
The literature reviewed showed that the use of technologies are very effective for teaching and learning and can increase students‘ achievement in learning. Innovative pre-service technology integration efforts are especially critical if we expect enlightened
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practices to ultimately emerge in classrooms .Pre-service teacher education has been both criticized for failing to transform traditional practices and lauded as the key to changing those traditions. To develop the skills needed to integrate technology into everyday pedagogy, pre-service teachers need exposure to examples of curricular and classroom use of technology that enhance teaching and learning beyond what the traditional methods allow. Pre-service teachers need to use technology in non-trivial ways, providing higher level learning opportunities that address authentic pedagogical problems.
During the past decade, WebQuests have been widely used by teachers to integrate technology, especially computers and Internet, into learning and teaching.
Under the guidance of teacher educators, pre-service teachers have recently applied the WebQuest model to develop technology integration skills akin to those used in everyday schools. However, in Nigeria, though there is National Policy on Computer Education which is the policy statement for the implementation of computer education in Nigeria.
Also computers are gradually finding their ways into the Nigerian classrooms. Yet, computers are not being used the way they should be used in the classrooms. How do we use technology in Nigerian classrooms? There is very little literature on the integration and use of computer in the Nigerian classrooms. This could be attributed to the fact that few studies have been carried out in the area of training of teachers to integrate technology in their classrooms. This study therefore intends to fill this gap.
55 OVERVIEW
CHAPTER THREE METHODOLOGY 3.1 Research Design
This study is in two phases. In the first phase, the researcher designed and developed a WebQuests on Agriculture. Agriculture was chosen because it is a prominent topic in secondary school social studies curriculum. The researcher did this because there are no known WebQuests in Nigeria and the researcher had to come up with one that is relevant to the Nigerian secondary school social studies curriculum. This first phase of the Study was guided by WebQuests design model. The model was developed by Dodge (1995) and was adopted by the researcher.
3.1.1 Phase One
WEBQUEST DESIGN MODEL
Describe the lesson
Specify content area
Specify objectives
List resources needed
What are the guiding questions that students need to keep in mind in order to accomplish their tasks?
What is the tasks that the student(s) must undertake?
Why is the job necessary
What are the circumstances surrounding that task?
Assign various roles to students
Write introduction that will give students some background about the topic
Include general information like pictures and audio file
QUEST(IONS) AND THE TASK INTRODUCTION
STAGES ACTIVITIES THE DESIGN
56 CONCLUSION
Fig 3.1: WebQuests Design Model. Source: Dodge (1995)
Identify other resources students may use to complete their task.
Power Point software to develop an informative slide show
Any URL link provided in this section
Classroom encyclopedias
RESOURCES
EVALUATION
Explain to students how the conclusion will offer the opportunity to engage in further analysis. For example.
Ask students how their roles could have been interpreted in a different light?
Provide students with clear understanding of the grading criteria which will be used to evaluate their efforts
PROCESS
Explain that students who have similar roles may work together.
Students may continue to pursue their role individually until the conflict generated by the original guiding question forces them to resolve the issue with the entire group.
Group work should result in a consensus document
Provide options for how students may present their information to the group: flowcharts, webpage, multimedia presentation, concept maps
57 3.1.2 Phase Two
The second phase of the study which is the quantitative part employed case study research design. Case study is not intended as a study of the entire organization, rather is intended to focus on a particular issue, feature or unit of analysis. Case study is useful in order to understand and examine the processes of training activities in organizations (Anderson, 1993). The use of case study to probe an area of interest in depth is particularly appropriate as described by Patton (1987). Case studies become particularly useful where one needs to understand some particular problem or situation in great-depth. The stages involved in conducting case study research as postulated by Noor (2008) is shown in fig 3.2.
Preliminary Stage Field work and Analysis Conclusion Stage Stage
Fig. 3.2: Stages involved in conducting case study. Source: Noor (2008)
Formulate theory: From the literatures and general observation, the researcher discovered that teachers are not using technologies the way it should be used in the classrooms. This is as a result of the fact that teachers are not trained to use technologies. Therefore, there is need to train teachers to use technologies.
Select case: The researcher used few of the pre-service teachers studying Social Studies in two colleges of education in Southwestern Nigeria.
Design research questions: Seven research questions and five hypotheses were formulated to guide this research
W ri ti n g C a s e s
Writing Cases
Design research questions
Formulate Tthery
Select Case
Conduct Case Study
Data Analysis
Cross case analysis
Draw conclusion Modify theory
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Conduct case study: In this phase, the researcher trained the pre-service teachers to develop WebQuests. This training was however in two parts. In the first part, which is the training on design and development of WebQuests, the researcher trained the pre-service teachers to develop WebQuests. Here, the WebQuests that has already been designed and developed by the researcher served as a guide that was followed. In other words, the researcher used the WebQuests he had already designed and developed to train the pre-service teachers.
In the second part of the training, the pre-service teachers in one of the colleges of education worked as individuals and in the other college of education, the pre-service teachers worked in cooperative learning groups. Four pre-service teachers worked together in the cooperative learning group. They were put into groups based on their gender and previous knowledge of computer use. In this second part of the training, the pre-service teachers designed and develop their WebQuests, choosing any topic in Social Studies curriculum of the secondary school, without the interference of the researcher. The WebQuests designed and developed by the pre-service teachers were assessed by the researcher and another trained research assistant.
Data analysis: Data generated from the training was analyzed using simple percentages, t-test and ANOVA
Writing cases: From the results of the data analyzed, the researcher presented his discussions and implications of the result for technology integration in teacher education programme.
Draw Conclusion: Based on the results of the study, the researcher made conclusions and certain recommendations were also made.