After observing classes and talking to teachers/HOD in Xinmin Secondary School, I can see that the school is embracing the masterplan 3 for ICT. As mentioned in the earlier blog, the guiding principle for Xinmin Secondary School's IT department is "24/7 identity". The aim of this vision is to allow learning for students to take place any time and any where. Not only this, the school has also provided a lot of infrastructures and tools for the "24/7 identity" to be embraced by students. They also leverage on ICT to develop students towards a self-directed learning.
Xinmin Secondary School is very blessed to have infrastructures such as Xinnovate laboratory, Xincast and a variety of other tools to help students to learn better. As I mentioned in my first blog, the Xinnovate laboratory is a place where smart boards are placed around the room. The tables and chairs are movable so that students can arrange their seating arrangments for maximised learning. With the smart boards, teachers can easily flash the students' work onto the main screen and allow the other students read their fellow classmates work. In this way, students confidence are built when teachers commend on their good work with the class. Additionally, with the Xinnovate lab's setting, students do not only learn from their teachers but are also able to learn from their peers. Personally, I really like the setting of the Xinnovate lab. It really provides a very conducive environment for learning. It will be good for schools to have more of such labs. Eventually, I hope this is the model that the future classrooms will model after.
Another highlight of Xinmin Secondary School is that they have a broadcasting platform known as "Xincast", which provides students a platform for practising their public speaking skills. The Xincast has equipments which allow students to record their speech like how a broadcaster does. After they record their speech, they can also upload their videos onto the Xintube, which is something similar to Youtube.
Not only does the school provides infrastructures to enhance students' learning, they also provide ICT classes to the lower secondary students to help them to explore the different softwares and programmes. Even though the students are only taught the fundamentals, they are allowed to take on projects where they can do more indepth study, if they are interested in a particular software. In this way, I feel that it is good because Xinmin Secondary School believes in not just training the students. They believe in providing a platform for students to produce their works. Without production, students are not able to publish their works.
Overall, I see that Xinmin Secondary School has achieved a lot through the different ICT masterplans. Not only has their academic results improve due to the more creative and interesting lessons, the students are taking up more roles in making sure that their education is not only directed by teachers. Through the use of ICT, it is evident that students in Xinmin Secondary School have work towards a self-directed learning route.
Thursday, 21 July 2011
Tuesday, 5 July 2011
Masterplans for ICT in Education
As I mentioned in the earlier post, it is important for MOE to develop masterplans for ICT in education because the Info-Communications Technology industry is a thriving industry in today's society. In order not to let our students be left behind, we need to develop their interests and skills in this field when they are young and the best place to do it is in schools. Schools are the best place for students to practice the up to date technologies as not every family can offer their kids with the latest technologies. After all, schools is the place where it prepares students for the workforce.
Personally, I have been through the ICT masterplan 1 and 2 when I was studying. As media and technology grows in Singapore, I was delighted that some of my lessons were no longer classroom based. I remembered when I was in Primary School, my teacher often brought us to the computer labs and let us learn the subjects through the different interactive software. Learning through interactive media and audio really makes lessons more interesting. I feel that through these, my attention span in class was longer. Also, when I was in Secondary School, I attended many enrichment programmes which taught me the different computer softwares such as "adobe photoshop, microsoft office and flash". These programmes were very useful as they aided me throughout my education in things such as project work and presentation. However, I feel that not all schools have provided the platforms for students to put into use their learnt skills. As a results, many students forget the skills that they have learnt. As for me, I do not remember how to use the "flash" programme if you would ask me now. It is because such skills need to be constantly put into use in order for us to remember it.
It is true that with the implementation of ICT, many students feel more engaged during lesson when their teachers leverage on technology. It develops our thinking skills and instill a form of social learning. However, teachers do need to use ICT effectively in order to carry out an efficient lesson. When I was a student, I feel that some teachers are merely tapping on the surface of what technologies can offer. For examples, many teachers used powerpoint slides that are wordy to teach. Yes, it is not purely textbook but the concept is still similar to teaching through a text. Students still sit in front of the screen and take down notes based on the powerpoint slides. Moreover, during some of the e-learning sessions, we were made to download a set of powerpoint slides that the teacher had prepared and do a worksheet after that. I do not feel that this method is very effective in engaging the student's mind because the e-learning is not interative enough. Even though my school had a platform for students to participate in forum chats regarding the e-learning, we as students do not really participate in the forums because we were not trained to ask questions during lesson time.
As a beginning teacher to be, I feel that it is important for us to master the necessary ICT skills before we can transform leaders during ICT enhanced lessons. Being in Xinmin Secondary School during my ESE, I am pleased to realise that schools are providing many infrastructures for teachers to use during their lesson time but I'm also sad to know that not all teachers are equipped with the necessary skills. ICT can indeed allow students to gain the 21st century competencies such as self-directed learning. However, the teachers must first move out of the old methodology of teaching and embrace the new teachnologies too.
Personally, I have been through the ICT masterplan 1 and 2 when I was studying. As media and technology grows in Singapore, I was delighted that some of my lessons were no longer classroom based. I remembered when I was in Primary School, my teacher often brought us to the computer labs and let us learn the subjects through the different interactive software. Learning through interactive media and audio really makes lessons more interesting. I feel that through these, my attention span in class was longer. Also, when I was in Secondary School, I attended many enrichment programmes which taught me the different computer softwares such as "adobe photoshop, microsoft office and flash". These programmes were very useful as they aided me throughout my education in things such as project work and presentation. However, I feel that not all schools have provided the platforms for students to put into use their learnt skills. As a results, many students forget the skills that they have learnt. As for me, I do not remember how to use the "flash" programme if you would ask me now. It is because such skills need to be constantly put into use in order for us to remember it.
It is true that with the implementation of ICT, many students feel more engaged during lesson when their teachers leverage on technology. It develops our thinking skills and instill a form of social learning. However, teachers do need to use ICT effectively in order to carry out an efficient lesson. When I was a student, I feel that some teachers are merely tapping on the surface of what technologies can offer. For examples, many teachers used powerpoint slides that are wordy to teach. Yes, it is not purely textbook but the concept is still similar to teaching through a text. Students still sit in front of the screen and take down notes based on the powerpoint slides. Moreover, during some of the e-learning sessions, we were made to download a set of powerpoint slides that the teacher had prepared and do a worksheet after that. I do not feel that this method is very effective in engaging the student's mind because the e-learning is not interative enough. Even though my school had a platform for students to participate in forum chats regarding the e-learning, we as students do not really participate in the forums because we were not trained to ask questions during lesson time.
As a beginning teacher to be, I feel that it is important for us to master the necessary ICT skills before we can transform leaders during ICT enhanced lessons. Being in Xinmin Secondary School during my ESE, I am pleased to realise that schools are providing many infrastructures for teachers to use during their lesson time but I'm also sad to know that not all teachers are equipped with the necessary skills. ICT can indeed allow students to gain the 21st century competencies such as self-directed learning. However, the teachers must first move out of the old methodology of teaching and embrace the new teachnologies too.
Monday, 4 July 2011
My Enhanced School Experience (ESE)
Classroom Observations of ICT Use
1. Specific Observations:
School Name: Xinmin Secondary School
Class: 206
Profile of Class: Secondary 2 Normal Academic class. The students behaved a little rowdy at the beginning of the lesson but after they settled down, they were very receptive to learn.
Subject: Language Arts
What ICT tools are used in the lesson?
Smart boards and power point slides were used in this lesson.
Describe how ICT is used for teaching and learning in the lesson.
I really enjoyed observing this lesson because the teacher used ICT to make the lesson very enjoyable for the students to learn. The lesson was conducted in the Xinnovate laboratory where there are smart boards around the lab. Students sat in groups of 4-5 near a smart board and a white board.
The teacher taught sentence varieties during that lesson. After explaining the different types of sentences to the students, she conducted a game for the students to work as a group and also for them to put to use what they have learnt.
As each group of students had a smart board to themselves, the students were able to focus on the task. The task that the students had was to form as many sentences as they could by using a variety of sentences. They were all eager to participate in the game and during the game, I saw that many of the students contributed to their groups. In addition, by allowing each group of students to have their own white board, they students were excited about writing out their sentences.
The fusing of a good and interesting lesson plan together with the help of technology have enabled the teacher to carry out a great lesson where the students really learnt a lot. The smart boards allow the students to stay focus on their tasks because by screening the power point slides on the screen, only the students sitting in the front rows would be able to give their best attention. The smart boards bring students closer to learning.
Furthermore, as the students wrote their answers on their group’s white board, the teacher was able to correct and explain to them their mistakes upon seeing them. With the fast corrections, students understand better as the work is still fresh in their minds. In addition, the students were told to move around the class to read each others sentences and do peer learning after the teacher has corrected their work. In this way, they do not only learn from their own group members and teacher, they also learn from the collective knowledge of the class.
Indeed, ICT have allowed teachers to conduct lessons in a more interesting way where students can make the best out of their learning.
2. General Observations:
How do teachers in the school feel about the use of ICT for teaching and learning?
With the advent of technology in the 21st century, teaching and learning is no longer confined to a teacher teaching with the textbooks in a classroom. Neither is interesting teaching based on teachers using simple IT tools such as Microsoft Powerpoint.
Xinmin Secondary School embraced the 21st IT competency by using “24/7 identity” as their vision in approaching the technology-savvy students. The HOD of ICT, Mr Lee Foo Yong, believes that learning should not only take place in a classroom. He believes that students have the abilities to learn anytime and anywhere as long as they have the resources. The implementation of ICT masterplans in schools has helped students move towards a self-directed learning.
ICT has enabled teachers in Xinmin Secondary School to teach beyond the syllabus. Students not only gain content knowledge but they also picked up many skills as they are being exposed to a vareity of technologies. On the one hand, it may be taxing on the part of teachers as we have to constantly upgrade ourselves to make sure that we are competent in using those infrastructures before teaching them to our students. On the other hand, if teachers are to use these technologies to its fullest potential, then learning will be very enjoyable as these technologies really help to engage the students in learning.
All in all, ICT has been a great implementation for teachers to teach and students to learn. However, teachers still need to understand the needs of their students before tweaking the different ICT tools to enhance the learning of the students.
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