Technology has become an enabler for transforming teaching and learning practices. However, consideration of contemporary educational issues should go hand in hand with technology integration. This study investigated the translation and transferability of contemporary learning theories and approaches to instruction as a guide for the effective use of technology in teaching and learning. Both primary and secondary data were collected through interviews, observation checklists and a desk review. The purposive sampling technique was used to select participants and documents. The sample included ten (10) educational institutions from which 22 instructors, 25 students and 4 education officers were recruited. The documents included institution policies and scholarly articles. Descriptive statistics were used to analyze nominal data collected from structured interviews while contents analysis was used to analyze secondary data.
The findings revealed that technological media and tools such as discussion forums, emails, Google Docs, and social media applications are used to support technological pedagogical practices that are group work based, such as brainstorming and role-playing and involve the use of case studies. The study also revealed that digital resources and tools such as the internet, video conferencing, mobile technology, artificial reality, virtual reality, artificial intelligence, games, digital libraries, social media, wikis, MOOCs and learning management systems are used to facilitate engagement, collaboration, creativity and innovation to improve problem solving and
communication skills.
Furthermore, the learner-centered approach and the authentic and transformation models were found to be appropriate approaches and models in digital learning. Besides this, the study found that insufficient technological resources, lack of competence among instructors, destructive use of technology by students and lack of technical experts to support technology use were among the limitations of the technological pedagogical application. Other barriers include the unavailability of relevant policies to guide technology application, instructors and parents’ beliefs and attitudes and the lack of appropriate governance structure for technology integration. Based on these findings, it is suggested that regular training be conducted on technological pedagogical knowledge for teachers; adopting an approach to minimizing the cost of technological resources; orienting and enforcing ethical practices when using technology; and establishing mentorship programs for awareness creation among instructors, students and parents.