Fifty Information Communication Technology (ICT) Coordinators and Training Officers of the Ghana Education Service (GES) have undergone four-day training on digital literacy.
The trainer of trainees’ workshop was to empower the teachers with the prerequisite skills to effectively integrate ICT into Senior High Schools (SHSs) and to advance the study of the subject.
It also aimed at equipping the ICT coordinators and training officers with the skills to utilize digital tools efficiently and effectively and further facilitate teaching and learning through the use of those tools.
The training was organised by the GES, with support from the National Teaching Council (NTC), Center for National Distance Learning and Open Schooling (CENDLOS), Transforming Teaching Education and Learning (T-TEL), and technical support from the Ghana Society for Education and Technology (GSET).
In an interview with the Ghana News Agency (GNA) on the side-lines of the training held at Fiapre in the Sunyani West Municipality, Mr Bernard Kuug, the Acting Director for Research, NTC, explained the trainees were expected to pass on the skills and knowledge they had acquired to other teachers in their respective schools.
He said integrating ICT into other subjects would enhance learning experiences of students, saying “NTC’s development of a learning management system consists of modules that are uploaded for teachers to access”.
Through these modules teachers could engage with interactive content and improve their ICT skills, he stated, indicating that those modules were designed to test teachers’ understanding and ensure their active participation.
Familiarising themselves with the content, teachers could effectively integrate ICT into their lessons and enhance the overall learning experiences for students.
Mr Kuug acknowledged the progress of the nation’s educational system in adopting ICT so far, saying though the country might have started later than others, significant strides had been made.
He said there was still more room for improvement in integrating ICT into education, stressing “We are not there yet, but we are making progress”.
The Reverend Alex Koranteng, the Eastern Regional Training Officer of the GES underlined the need for teachers to possess necessary skills to incorporate ICT into their lessons.
“In today’s educational landscape, students are increasingly glued to technology, making it essential for educators to adapt, accordingly,” Rev Koranteng stated, and added the need for teachers to be well-versed in ICT, to engage students effectively and to facilitate better understanding.
Mr William Pious Akakpo, a Staff of GSET, and a Technical Advisor for the Digital Literacy and ICT Integration Programme, said teachers’ benefiting from ICT skills would empower them to participate fully in the digital space and bridge the digital divide too.
That could be achieved through enhancing teachers’ capacity and skills and better equipped them to utilize available resources effectively.
Mrs Millicent Asempapa, a Computing Teacher and a member of the Technical Working Team, explained that handouts that highlighted policies and ethics related to ICT, and other ICT resources were provided to the beneficiary.
“Research shows that many teachers struggled to use basic ICT tools to educate students,” she stated, indicating that the current SHS curriculum emphasised skill development, collaboration between teachers and students’ collaboration as well as utilisation of ICT tools in lesson delivery.
The participants were introduced to the NTC Learning Management System portal, digital literacy, and ICT integration for innovative change management processes as well as innovative teaching methods, effective training facilitation, computing modules on the NTC LMS portal, and approaches to data collection for ICT integration.
