Design+of+appropriate+Professional+Development+models

Teachers have the greatest impact on the quality of technology use in educational contexts (Levin and Wadmany 2008). It clearly follows that teachers need to be involved in extensive learning in order to provide for students with regard to new literacy and teaching in the 21st century.
 * DESIGN OF APPROPRIATE PD MODELS **

Funding bodies need to recognize the relevance and importance of professional development programs in accompanying physical resources and all parties must develop an awareness that state of the art technological resources offer very little without a workforce suitably prepared to utilise them to their full potential.

An awareness of attitudes that teachers hold towards the use of ICT will be vital in providing positive and appropriate professional development opportunities.

Following is a collection of teacher attitudes found by some researchers (Levin and Wadmany 2008) to impact on the adoption and integration of ICT: · teacher confidence; · awareness of the advantages of ICT (Scrimshaw, 2004); · beliefs and views of ICT (Norton, McRobbie, & Cooper, 2000); · a general resistance to change (Jones, 2004); · willingness to change longstanding pedagogical practices (Snoeyink & Ertmer, 2001); · willingness to change longstanding classroom roles (Hardy, 1998); · teachers’ confidence to incorporate innovation and their commitment to the innovation (Dawson & Rakes, 2003); · teachers ability to integrate technology (Kent & McNergney, 1999); · prior negative experiences of using technology as a productivity tool (Snoeyink & Ertmer); · feelings of intimidation if they sense students know more than them (Fryer, 2003); “ · teachers’ extrinsic and intrinsic motivation(Papa, 2003); · teachers need to improve computer technology skills and knowledge (Papa, 2003).

Affordances of appropriate PD models