Using ICTs in Teaching and Learning: Reflections on Professional Development of Academic Staff

This paper provides a case-study description of the experiences of the course coordinator and an educational technologist in integrating Information and Communication Technologies (ICTs) into a professional development course for academic staff at Rhodes University, South Africa. The Technological Pedagogical Content Knowledge (TPCK) model is used as a basis for conceptualizing the changes brought about by the introduction of a learning management system (LMS) in the course. In addition, the paper reports on the perceptions of course participants on the value of the learning management system for their learning. The primary problem under discussion relates to an institutional culture that seems to perceive ICTs as separate from pedagogy and content. Mirroring practices in the wider South African Higher Education context, this separation was evident in the way that the use of ICTs in teaching and learning was covered as separate sessions in two of the four modules and as a separate elective module of the Postgraduate Diploma in Higher Education (PGDHE). Since this practice of dealing with ICTs in teaching and learning in isolation did not result in substantial uptake of ICTs by participants in their own courses, the PGDHE facilitators started to collaborate with the educational technologist with