Online Learning to Enhance Teacher Professional Development

Abstract

The dramatic changes in the information and communication technologies (ICTs) over the last few decades have had significant implications for new teaching and learning approaches. Modern educational technologies offer the potential for drastic changes in teachers’ roles, aiming at improving the quality of teaching-learning process. Teachers of today face many new challenges in order to cater for students who grow up with the emerging technologies. The inadequacies in the conventional approaches in teacher education to meet the complex demands thrust upon the teaching profession has led to increased use of open and distance learning methods in teacher professional development programs. Continuing professional development of teachers, especially in the use of ICTs to support teaching and learning, has currently become a crucial need. // The Faculty of Education of the Open University of Sri Lanka (OUSL) offers several professional development programs of study using ODL techniques, aiming at expanding opportunities for personnel in the field of education to enhance their professional competencies. “Teacher Educator as an Educational Technologist” is one of the courses in a practitioner-oriented professional development program for teacher educators, Master of Arts in Teacher Education- International (MATE-I) program. This course was developed as a fully online course, using the learning management system (LMS) Moodle. This is offered as a stand-alone course to practicing teachers and teacher educators who desire to develop their competencies in the use of educational technology (ET). The duration of this course is six months, and the participants are awarded a certificate after successful completion of it. // Paper ID 298