CONTINUOUS PROFESSIONAL DEVELOPMENT Of TEACHERS WITH WEB PORTAL AND MOBILE APPLICATION

Abstract

It is generally observed that a teacher needs quality pre-service and in-service education to become more mature and confident to perform their task more efficiently and effectively. The cascade model of In-service Teacher training has a problem of information loss and speed of scaling to reach the mass. ICT plays a significant role in the continuous professional development of In-service teachers. The Curricula for ICT in Education (2012) broadly attempts to equip teachers with ICT competencies to strengthen their own professional capacities and to effectively use ICT tools and devices in their teaching-learning. The online courses teachers in the subject areas, pedagogical concerns and ICT hosted on various Web portals like ICT curriculum Website (http://ictcurriculum.gov.in/), NCERT Web portal for In-service Teacher Professional Development (ITPD) courses (http://itpd.ncert.gov.in/), SWAYAM portal (swayam.gov.in) for Massive Open Online Courses (MOOCs), DIKSHA Web portal (https://diksha.gov.in/) etc., and several Mobile Applications like ChalkL it, specially designed for teacher education and training, are solving the purpose of Teachers’ continuous professional development.  Recently, National Initiative for School Head’s and Teachers’ Holistic Advancements (NISHTHA), an integrated teacher training of nearly 42 lakh teachers in the country is almost completed. ICT supported the training by providing educational resources to teachers through a dedicated Web portal (nishtha.ncert.gov.in) and mobile app anytime anywhere and handhold the learning of teachers during training as well as monitored the complete training programme.