Abstract:

The authors in this paper present their many years of experience in preparing future teachers for the use of modern educational technologies.Teacher training study programs in Slovak Republic include subjects that prepare students to master modern learning technologies, and guide them how to use ICT and other digital technologies in teaching practice. At the same time, they do not only serve digital devices and effectively use standard didactic software, but learn how to create their own applications and gain practical experience. Not only in the study program of secondary school teacher but also in the study program of students in the field of pre-school and elementary school education there are several subjects that are aimed at acquiring theoretical knowledge and practical skills necessary for successful integration of ICT in education. These subjects also prepare future teachers to evaluate the use of each technology tool for the chosen thematic unit, with the learning objectives to be achieved. These subjects create space for students to learn about current trends in educational technologies and thus to complement and expand their knowledge in modern pedagogy. During the course, the future teachers will not only acquire the necessary theoretical knowledge and practical experience in using hardware and software, but they will also acquire sufficient skills to create complete didactic applications. In order to correctly determine the content of this subjects, we examined the technical equipment of schools, what kind of didactic software was available to teachers, what kind of educational software teachers generally used and if teachers were able to create their own didactic software applications. We were interested in what resources and environments they used to create educational applications. For exploration, we used questionnaire methods. Then, methods of descriptive statistics were used for the evaluation of questionnaires.

Keywords:

ICT in education, teacher training, learning technologies, educating the educators.