Introducing learning design and LAMS to Pre-service Education students

Information and Communication Technologies (ICTs) for teaching and learning are continually changing and being replaced by the newest “must have” technologies, so how valuable are skills-based technology courses in the long-term to pre-service teachers? While pre-service teachers need to be competent and confident users of technology (Cowie & Jones 2005), the universities also need to provide them with knowledge about attitudes, values and pedagogical understanding in respect to ICTs (Cameron 2007). These pre-service teachers need to develop a fundamental understanding about the nature of technological change and their own abilities to confront this change (Phelps & Ellis 2003). It has also been determined that ICT-based courses will hold more long-term value for the pre-service teachers if they promote generic technology skills involving authentic, reflective activities that assist them in their continued learning throughout their careers (Herrington, Oliver & Herrington 1999). Therefore, rather than simply provide and deliver specific skills-based information, the lecturer’s principal function has shifted to create a collaborative, challenging and supportive learning environment within which students were introduced to a broad range of philosophical and pedagogical issues that arise from the integration of a variety of technologies in today’s classrooms (Herrington & Oliver 2002).