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Professional Development of Teachers on Technology Integration: Teacher PreferencesThis paper intends to reveal the results of a study that examined the teacher expectations on professional development for technology integration into classrooms. It would not be wrong to state that professional development has never been as crucial as current teachers due to the fact that characteristics and needs of learners are changing very fast, and that amount and variety of knowledge is doubling almost every minute. Teachers should not only develop themselves in their subject-matter areas but also in many other areas, such as management skills, use of technology, developmental psychology, and so forth (Camphell & Neil, 1992; Orey, Moore, Hardy, Serrano, 1998). Especially increasing access to information via technology and need for preparing young generations to technology-driven knowledge society as well as many other trends force teachers to integrate technology into their teaching-learning practices (Harvey & Purnell, 1995). As a result, more and more teachers ask or need more professional development on technology integration (Brand, 1997). Similary, Severin and Capota (2011) investigated the large-scale technology integration projects in Latin American and some other countries, and found out that teacher training is one of the main success factors. Although in almost all countries authorities try to provide professional development while they initiate a technology integration project. However, many could not succeeded because they fail to use teachers beliefs, preferences, expectations, and needs as the base for the professional development initiatives (Loucks-Horley, Love, Stiles, Mundry, & Hewson, 2003). In other words, it is necessary to analyze teachers’ expectations or preferences prior to initiate a professional development project (Chval, Abell, Pareja, Musikul, & Ritzka, 2007) in order to build an effective, efficient, engaging and enduring (4e) professional development.Turkey has initiated a multi-million technology integration project, entitled as FATIH (stands for the Movement of Enhancing Opportunities and Improving Technology), in 2010. According the Ministry of National Education (MoNE), the project intends to equip all the classrooms in the country with information and communication technology (ICT) and to realize effective technology-based instruction by the end of 2013. FATIH is developed to meet the requirements of the Information Society Strategic Plan, a document that covers the actions to be taken in order to achieve the goals of a larger state project, entitled as e-Transformation Turkey, that promotes easy transformation of the Turkish society into a information society (MoNE, 2012). MoNE would like to build an infrastructure that connects all the schools and related institutions with each other, equip the classrooms, teachers and students with appropriate technology, improve the ICT skills of the teachers and the students, and develop national curriculum that includes effective use of ICT for learning.Additionally, MoNE sees the FATIH as a means to accomplish some of the goals listed in the Information Society Strategy that proposes transformation of Turkish society into an information society. These goals are:Lifelong learning approach, development of the proper structures in which all individuals can improve themselves through e-learning, and development of the e-content.All students that graduate from secondary education should have the ability to use the basic information and communication technologies.One of the three individuals in society should benefit from e-education facilities through the effective usage of Internet.Providing equal opportunities to everybody on learning and usage of the information and communication technologies.One of the two individuals in society should be Internet userInternet should be made reliable for societyMoNE is the management body of the project but the Ministry of Transport, Maritime Affairs and Communications provides the finance via its the universal service obligation funds. According to officials the Ministry of Transport will be spending around $800000 for the project but some experts estimate that the Project will cost between 8 million US dollars.Scope of the project covers five main components: Providing hardware and software structure (Infrastructure)Providing educational e-content and management of e-content (Digitized content)Effective integration of ICT in the curriculum (Curriculum revision)In-service training of the teachers (Teacher training)Conscious, reliable, manageable and measurable ICT Usage (Safe Internet Use)Teacher training was regarded as the most crucial success factor of the FATIH Project. The scope of the teacher training was stated in the Project Web site as providing first basic computer and Internet training to help teachers acquire basic ICT skills and then effective technology integration into classrooms training. It required design and delivery of a series of computer literacy training by the MoNE’s local master teachers in every province to the teachers who have not taken any computer literacy training before or who feel shortage in their basic ICT skills. Due to large number of teachers needed training in a short time, a videoconference-based teacher training approach was also deployed. However, in an evaluation study it was explored that the content of the training was technology use in classroom in general. Several teachers particularly reported that the content was not specifically designed for the FATIH Project and rather was too general and vague. This finding supported the evaluators’ conclusion that the initiative was not a part of a larger strategic plan and lacked clear objectives. Because there were no clear objectives for the project, the training program was also ill planned and not tailor-made for the purpose. One of the key components of the project, tablets, was not included in the training. Along with the interactive white board, tablet is the main tool, however information regarding how to use tablets effectively in a class was not covered in the training program. Several participants suggested that universities should have been included in the design process. Several teachers reported that classroom management in one-to-one classrooms should also be included in the training. Particularly older teachers can easily loose the control of the classroom where every child has a screen in front of them. Regarding that some classrooms have more than 40 students, classroom management in a technology-rich classroom can be a serious issue for even the most capable teachers. Another issue raise by teacher was the level of training. Teachers suggested that the training content should be designed and delivered in different levels such as Beginners, Intermediate, and Advanced. Furthermore, teachers reported that they need more structured support both technically and pedagogically. Even if they are trained to use laptops and interactive boards, they would still need content and strategies like lesson plans, activities, and presentations to teach in a one-to-one classrooms. In all, teacher training seems to be the major obstacle for successful technology integration in the classroom. The purpose of this exploratory case study was to determine teacher preferences for professional development regarding technology integration into classrooms. An online survey was developed to collect data on participant teachers’ preferences and their various characteristics, such as demographics, access to technology, content areas, teaching experiences, etc. Total 671 teachers from various provinces of the country voluntarily answered all the questions in the survey instrument. Findings indicated that almost all teachers prefers to access ready to use presentations (usually PowerPoint presentations) and drawings, images or video that can be easily embedded into presentations during the professional development activities. Also, the study revealed that very few teachers preferred investigating academic studies on successful technology integration. All the findings were discussed in the light of literature and the context of the country. ................
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