WHAT KIND OF ICT TRAINING DO UNIVERSITY TEACHERS NEED? FROM OFFICE TOOLS TO MORE ADVANCED SKILLS FOR ONLINE EDUCATION

One of the factors for implementation of information and communication technology (ICT) at higher education institutions (HEI) is an adequate level of digital skills - not just among students, but teachers as well. University Computing Centre University of Zagreb (SRCE) as an institution with a long tradition in implementation of ICT at HEI in Croatia and as a centre for education and support in the area of ICT has prepared and conducted a survey among teachers at the University of Zagreb. The aim of the survey was to determine the current level of usage of 21 chosen ICT tools and to collect data about their future needs in the following two years, in order to ensure a variety of training courses for teachers and to be up to date with their real needs. In total, 551 teachers completed the survey.

The results demonstrated that teachers predominantly use office tools in their daily work, but also other tools/services, such as cloud storage services, social networks and collaboration tools. At the University of Zagreb, like in many modern universities, Learning Management System (LMS) is used to support online activities. Survey’s results support this fact.

Teachers expressed the need to either start learning or improve existing knowledge and competences connected to usage of LMS and multimedia tools (video editing, animations and graphics). This confirms that teachers recognize the importance of ICT in educational process and want to contribute equally.

Concerning the preferred mode of content delivery, teachers gave a small priority to blended learning compared to online and face-to-face learning, but overall there is no significant difference between those three modes.

The results of this survey will help SRCE select appropriate ICT training for teachers at University of Zagreb, but can also serve as guidance to other institutions that are developing ICT training for university teachers.