BLOG 3: MAKING CONNECTION BETWEEN YOUR ESE AND THE MASTERPLANS FOR ICT IN EDUCATION

For your third post, describe which achievement(s) of the three masterplans for ICT in education are evident in the school/classes that you are attached to for your ESE. You may want to refer to your blog post about your ESE.

There are great opportunities for teachers to use IT to innovate teaching processes in class. Many tools are made available by the school leaders and IT HOD. The entire school is wirelessly connected and this eliminated the boundaries of connectivity to a certain environment. Students are constantly encouraged to do research online for topics which they do not understand, and are recommended to share their findings with the class.

The students are constantly reminded of Cyberwellness skills to help them grow and learn in a connected world and learning environment and to develop social responsibilities and values and a young age. They learn the correct behaviours needed when interacting online in forums and chats.

Students are initiated early in life to use a myriad of ICT tools in communicating with their peers and teachers and to harness the power of the Internet in their daily learning. Students use the email to collaborate with teachers and group members in their assigned projects.

The school regularly conducts internal sharing sessions on the use of ICT in their classes and IT resources are regularly shared among teachers to help improve the ICT usage in classrooms.

BLOG 2: MASTERPLANS FOR ICT IN EDUCATION

•           In your opinion, why do you think it is important for MOE to develop the three Masterplans for ICT in education?

There was increased connectivity on the Internet around the world. There was a growing need for the education system in Singapore to keep updated on the latest technological advances and to train the students to better equip themselves for a more connected world and to harness the power of the IT in the lives.

•           Has any of the Masterplans impacted you as a student? Share your experience of how ICT had been used in the classes you attended as a student (if applicable).

As a student, the first IT Masterplan was implemented when I was in Secondary School. I was very fortunate to be the pioneer members of the newly formed Computer Club CCA.

I also got to participate in regional IT projects which demonstrated one of the goals of the IT Masterplan which was to enhance linkages between the school and the world around it.

•           Based on your enhanced school experience, how do you think the current Masterplan 3 may affect your role(s) as a beginning teacher?

I believe with the Masterplan 3, as a beginning teacher, I would be seeing that learning will come to a point where it will never stop just in schools and the relationships between students and a teacher will reach a point of collaborative learning where teacher and students will be helping each other to pursue knowledge to become life-long learners in the ever-evolving environment caused by the connectedness brought about by the help of technology.

BLOG 1: ENHANCED SCHOOL EXPERIENCE: PREPARATORY TASK FOR ICT FOR MEANINGFUL LEARNING

Enhanced School Experience: Classroom Observations of ICT Use

(I)     Specific Observations

School Name:  Ai Tong School

Class: 1K

Profile of the class: (For e.g., the students’ academic abilities,  stream and other characteristics) Primary 1, mixed ability, not streamed.

Subject: Mathematics – P1 Graphical Representation (Picture Graphs)

What ICT tools are used in the lesson? Interactive White Board (IWB). Student Response/Voting System

Describe how ICT is used for teaching and learning in the lesson. First, coloured ribbons are randomly arranged and projected on the screen. The students are then told to guess which colour of ribbons is in the most abundance. This is to get students to experience for themselves the difficulties of retrieving data when there is no visual aid of tables or pictorial graphs. The students are then given a table to fill in the no of ribbons of each colour on the IWB. After the data is filled up, students will then see data presented in a tabular form which they are familiar with. Next, the students are referred back to the randomly placed ribbons again and given another big table on the IWB. This time, student volunteers are then called up to help arrange the coloured ribbons into the table, however when the ribbons are first placed messily into the table, the teacher then asks the class if the current table helps in determining which coloured ribbon is in the most abundance. They are then asked to brain-storm for ideas to solve the problem with immediate feedback readily given by the teacher. Students then came up with the idea to line up the ribbons in the table into a pictorial graph form. The aim of the lesson of introducing picture graphs to the students with the students taking part to craft the picture graph. This activity with the class engages both visual and kinaesthetic learners. With the IWB, students are able to experience real life problems first-hand and reinforces practices with collaborative efforts in class. The students help each other to identify and correct mistakes on the interactive whiteboard. When the students are accustomed to reading the picture graph, the teacher then uses the classroom response system to get the students to answer some simple questions based on the picture graphs to re-enforce their learning.

(II)   General Observation:

How do teachers in the school feel about the use of ICT for teaching and learning? (For this question, you may want to speak to the HOD/ICT and other teachers you know in the school.)

The teachers in school feel that there is a lot of support given by the school to help in the implementation of IT in lessons.

Many technological gadgets like the classroom response system and ipod touch are available for teachers to engage students meaningfully. The mobile laptops are available if teachers want to engage students in online activity outside of a computer laboratory setting. The entire school is wirelessly connected to facilitate this usage.

There are many teachers who are the ICT mentors who conduct courses to guide teachers who are less inclined in IT skills.

Of course with such an IT-infused environment, there are still teachers who have a strong resistance to the usage of IT in class. These are usually the older teachers who had very little knowledge and usage of IT in their earlier years, the reasons given range from the unfamiliarity to the long hours needed to prepare a single ICT-infused lesson. However there are also older teachers who spend a lot of effort in the usage in fear of being stranded in the IT void and instead emerge as one of the top IT users in the school but are still very humble.