Assessing Affordances of Selected Cloud Computing Tools for Language Teacher Education in Nigeria

Abstract

This paper reports part of a study that hoped to understand Teacher Educators’ (TE) assessment of the affordances of selected cloud computing tools ranked among the top 100 for the year 2010. Research has shown that ICT and by extension cloud computing has positive impacts on daily life and this informed the Nigerian government’s policy to integrate ICT into education with teachers playing critical roles in this enterprise. For teachers to effectively integrate cloud computing into education they must first be able to identify the uses of these tools. It becomes necessary to understand TE’s perceptions of the affordances of the newest ICT frontier for language teacher education. Participants in the study were randomly selected Nigerian TEs studying in the United Kingdom. They used the tools for various activities and their assessments measured against a checklist. They were also asked to think aloud while using the tools while the researcher took notes of what they said. Their assessments were classified according to thematic paradigms. The results indicate that TEs were able to correctly identify intended, perceived, unintended and false affordances. The implications for language teacher education include recognizing that enlightenment and training are critical for the integration of cloud computing tools into the classroom. Stakeholders should Consider Strategic development of basic ICT infrastructure.  It may be more effective to use a comprehensive approach to adoption. Moreover there is the need for further studies with a focus on other levels of education and cloud computing tools.

Keywords: Affordances, Cloud Computing, Language Teacher Education