ICT Integration in Agriculture Education: A Perspective of College Principals Pandey D.K.1*, De H.K.2, Kumar Prabhat3 1College of Horticulture and Forestry, Central Agricultural University (Imphal), Pasighat, Arunachal Pradesh 2ICAR-Central Institute of Freshwater Aquaculture, Bhubaneswar, Odisha 3ICAR-Division of Agricultural Education, KAB-II, New Delhi *Corresponding author email id: dkpextension@gmail.com
Abstract Leadership plays a key role in ICT integration in education. Many teacher or student initiated ICT projects have failed to sustain owing to lack of support from leaders. For ICT integration programs to be effective and s ustainable, administrators themselves must be competent in the use of the technology, and they must have a broad understanding of the technical, curricular, administrative, financial, and social dimensions of ICT use in education. The study involved the use of individual one to one semi structured interviews with a selection of 5 agricultural colleges’ principals in the north east region. Following analysis of the interview data, a focus group interview with five principals was conducted to validate and explore the issues that emerged from the one to one interviews. Principals had welcomed the National ICT in agricultural colleges’ initiative of ICAR however, they indicated that it had significantly added to their responsibilities. While the lack of up to date resources, poor levels of technical support and time were identified as the main impediments, a lack of familiarity of ways in which the technology could be integrated across the curriculum affected the quality of pedagogical leadership provided by them. Top Keywords Information and Communication Technology (ICT), Technology integration, Student administration, Technology leaders, Organizational change. Top |