Abstract
The 21st century has clearly shown that information technology provides unforeseen opportunities that enable multifaceted growth and development. Social, economical and technological advances in the last few decades have made teacher education and training more crucial and signigficant than ever. New technoloigies are used to create new educational frameworks for learning that go beyond the standard teaching paradigm. Yet, teacher education is struggling to afford educational opportunities, to provide their students with the necessary knowledge and skills for evolving market places and sophisticated living environments, and to prepare citizens for lifelong learning. Information and Communication technology, being one such possibility offers great potential for enhancing teaching learning outcomes. New ICT tools have fundamentally changed the way people communicate and do business. They have produced significant transformation in various fields of transaction. They also have the potential to transform the very nature of education. For education to harvest full benefits of ICTs in learning, it is essential that pre-service and in-service teachers have basic ICT skills and competencies. Teacher education institutions and programmes must provide leadership for pre-service and in-service teachers and model the new pedagogies and tools for learning. They must also provide leadership and accountability in determining how the new technologies can best be used in the context of the culture, needs, and economic conditions within the country. Teacher education institutions also need to develop strategies and plans to enhance the teaching-learning process within teacher education programmes and to assure that all future teachers are well prepared to use the new tools for learning. The present paper tries to focus more on this aspect of ICT inclusion into teacher education, in terms of developing a framework, and offering strategies for its practical inclusion. This paper also attempts to study and understand different methodologies and strategies for implementing ICT and how these technoloigies can change the teaching-learning experiences in the field of teacher training that benefits all stakeholders of the society.
Keywords: Teacher Education, ICT, Learning.
[1] Senior Assistant Professor, Dept. of Education & Training, MANUU, Hyderabad