I read Mark Laity’s post Professional Experience – Week 2 and was quite surprised that his mentor has been reluctant to allow him to use ICTs in his lessons. Mark’s comment “the biggest barriers to the introduction of ICT’s into the vocational training arena is the possible fear of (using ICTs by) the teachers” I did not realise these barriers existed and I can only emphasise with Mark’s obvious frustration.
It is not so much fear that has limited my use of ICTs but the fact that all of my lessons have to be translated. Many apps do not lend themselves to translation so I am limited to what is available to me. I have created several screen casts and videos for my professional experience but these also need to be translated. This is time consuming for my supervisors as they have no experience using the software for creating screen casts or videos. So what I really need to do is teach my supervisors how to use the technology so they can make the screen casts and videos directly.
I have found it quite difficult to incorporate ICTs into my training modules because my training is very specific to the mine site I am working at. Lack of access to our site intranet means that I cannot download training to the intranet and have trainees access the material as they need it. But they would get little benefit from the material until it is translated anyway.
Anyhow I will continue to persevere and hopefully find some user friendly ICTs to incorporate into my training modules.
Bradheath1961 