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
In terms of infrastructure, Chua Chu Kang Secondary School has an available and operating intranet system that enables their teachers to share their ICT resources online.This online portal is known as 'asknlearn' which is professionally developed and maintained by external vendors.
Under the Masterplan 2, the school has successfully developed the capability to autonomously take charge of its own ICT initiatives with the appointment of their own HOD in charge of ICT. This is evident in the setting aside of the e-learning day for lower secondary students where students are instructed to use the online portal to learn and submit their assignments from personal computers in their own homes, and such efforts are performed independently from the Ministry.
In one lesson observation, an attempt at self-directed learning is made where the students were exposed to the animated materials available on the online portal for their physics lesson on 'work, energy and power'. This, however, was conducted with full supervision by their teacher.
In conclusion, several objectives of the Masterplan were met. However, there are many areas of opportunity for the school to bridge the gap between Masterplan intent and Masterplan implementation.
Monday, August 1, 2011
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?
It is important for MOE to develop the three Masterplans for ICT so that the usage of information technology as a teaching aid and learning tool can be developed and implemented steadily, hence resulting in effective diffusion. This usage in education, on the other hand, is important so that teachers in national schools can effectively tap on the rich sources of information available on the internet as well as attract the interest of students who have been using information technology and the internet for their personal and recreational purposes.
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).
I do acknowledge that the launch of Masterplan 1 coincided with my upper primary school education and lower secondary education where the usage of ICT in English Lessons were introduced. Both in primary school and secondary school, I was required to compose a story based on a given theme. Using the software tools available, I was instructed to narrate that story using my recorded voice and animations. As such, the ICT lesson did attract my attention quite a bit because it gave me the opportunity to express myself creatively as opposed to the conventional composition-essay writing in class. In the process a storyboard or plot would be required along with a script, and this tested me not just on my mastery over the language but also the logical flow of the story and the entertainment element required to capture the attention of my viewers.
Based on your enhanced school experience, how do you think the current Masterplan 3 may affect your role(s) as a beginning teacher ?
Masterplan 3 would force me to think of education in a different way. I used to think of the education process as one which is centred on the teacher playing a sage-like role and a disciplinarian tasked at chasing homework. With the introduction of Masterplan 3, the responsibility of learning is shared between the student and the teacher as a result of a shift towards more self-directed learning. The learning process is now a partnership, but this partnership can only exist when basic discipline and submission to the authority of the teacher in discipline matters is observed properly. At the same time, this also means that there is an expectation for me to conduct creative lessons using ICT as a tool; this may or may not be positive if argued from different perspectives, especially when realities of a teacher's workload sinks in.
It is important for MOE to develop the three Masterplans for ICT so that the usage of information technology as a teaching aid and learning tool can be developed and implemented steadily, hence resulting in effective diffusion. This usage in education, on the other hand, is important so that teachers in national schools can effectively tap on the rich sources of information available on the internet as well as attract the interest of students who have been using information technology and the internet for their personal and recreational purposes.
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).
I do acknowledge that the launch of Masterplan 1 coincided with my upper primary school education and lower secondary education where the usage of ICT in English Lessons were introduced. Both in primary school and secondary school, I was required to compose a story based on a given theme. Using the software tools available, I was instructed to narrate that story using my recorded voice and animations. As such, the ICT lesson did attract my attention quite a bit because it gave me the opportunity to express myself creatively as opposed to the conventional composition-essay writing in class. In the process a storyboard or plot would be required along with a script, and this tested me not just on my mastery over the language but also the logical flow of the story and the entertainment element required to capture the attention of my viewers.
Based on your enhanced school experience, how do you think the current Masterplan 3 may affect your role(s) as a beginning teacher ?
Masterplan 3 would force me to think of education in a different way. I used to think of the education process as one which is centred on the teacher playing a sage-like role and a disciplinarian tasked at chasing homework. With the introduction of Masterplan 3, the responsibility of learning is shared between the student and the teacher as a result of a shift towards more self-directed learning. The learning process is now a partnership, but this partnership can only exist when basic discipline and submission to the authority of the teacher in discipline matters is observed properly. At the same time, this also means that there is an expectation for me to conduct creative lessons using ICT as a tool; this may or may not be positive if argued from different perspectives, especially when realities of a teacher's workload sinks in.
Enhanced School Experience: Classroom Observations of ICT Use
Enhanced School Experience: Classroom Observations of ICT Use
(I) Specific Observations
School Name: Chua Chu Kang Secondary School
Class: 3/5
Profile of the class:
(For e.g., the students’ academic abilities, stream and other characteristics)
According to their Physics Teacher Mr David Lau, class 3/5 is an EXPRESS stream class of moderate ability. It is made up of students that can follow lessons diligently but may have trouble in understanding some concepts and definitions if it is not clarified properly and repeated again for recalling. Therefore, lessons would have to be structured such that recalling and defining becomes the essence in their learning.
The class is made up of 25 well-mannered students. There are some students who diligently follow the lessons and ask good and important questions required for sound understanding of physics concepts.
Subject: Physics
What ICT tools are used in the lesson?
The ICT used in one Physics lesson I observed is their online portal called ‘asknlearn’ which is developed by an external vendor for the school as a teaching aid. Uploaded on this online portal are teacher resources and teaching aids such as illustrations and video animations complete with a voice that explain what is happening in the animations.
Describe how ICT is used for teaching and learning in the lesson.
In the lesson in which the teacher introduces the concept of ‘Work, Energy and Power’, audio-visual-video aids uploaded on the online portal were used to illustrate the concept of potential energy and kinetic energy. Since concepts such as energy are concepts that are very abstract in nature, with the video animations uploaded, students were able to ‘see’ energy and hence properly understand what is meant by potential energy and its conversion to kinetic energy. The explanations are scaffolded such that a step-by-step explanation by the voice in the animation is inherent.
For instance, the animation of a falling boulder implored the students to calculate the kinetic energy and potential energy at different heights from the ground. As such, students are able to see for themselves the conversion of potential energy to kinetic energy as the boulder falls, and that the total sum of these energies are always constant in accordance to the Principle of Energy Conservation of closed systems.
The teaching aids were complemented by further explanations and clarifications by the teacher using an ideal pendulum example where the teacher, in a similar fashion to the animation, implored the students to calculate the potential and kinetic energy of the pendulum bob at different positions of the pendulum. This reinforces the concept of the Principle of Energy Conservation. At the same time the teacher also introduced additional concepts using a non-ideal pendulum example where he clarifies why a real pendulum does not swing to eternity and would eventually come to a stop.
(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.)
In general, the usage of ICT is limited to a few teachers of certain teaching subjects. This is because some subjects, such as Mathematics, are perceived to be better taught using traditional methods (whiteboard and marker).
Most teachers are hesitant to use ICT because they find such lessons counter-productive to the class progress, especially when classroom management is difficult for some classes. Additionally, the usage of ICT is perceived as ‘more work’ for them since they have to come up with their own resources to conduct them. This is perhaps due to the lack of available resources for them to tap on, and because of them, using ICT would require them to ‘start from scratch’.
The school also is poorly equipped to carry out ICT lessons. Basic ICT infrastructure such as computers in individual classes and visualizers are absent.
Although the school does set aside an e-learning day to ensure that students learn through ICT, this practice does not involve the upper secondary students. It is observed that there is still a sizable number of students who instead of doing work from home computers, returned to school to do their work in the computer labs. This means that there are some students who do not own personal computers, making the implementation of the ICT Masterplan a challenging task.
(I) Specific Observations
School Name: Chua Chu Kang Secondary School
Class: 3/5
Profile of the class:
(For e.g., the students’ academic abilities, stream and other characteristics)
According to their Physics Teacher Mr David Lau, class 3/5 is an EXPRESS stream class of moderate ability. It is made up of students that can follow lessons diligently but may have trouble in understanding some concepts and definitions if it is not clarified properly and repeated again for recalling. Therefore, lessons would have to be structured such that recalling and defining becomes the essence in their learning.
The class is made up of 25 well-mannered students. There are some students who diligently follow the lessons and ask good and important questions required for sound understanding of physics concepts.
Subject: Physics
What ICT tools are used in the lesson?
The ICT used in one Physics lesson I observed is their online portal called ‘asknlearn’ which is developed by an external vendor for the school as a teaching aid. Uploaded on this online portal are teacher resources and teaching aids such as illustrations and video animations complete with a voice that explain what is happening in the animations.
Describe how ICT is used for teaching and learning in the lesson.
In the lesson in which the teacher introduces the concept of ‘Work, Energy and Power’, audio-visual-video aids uploaded on the online portal were used to illustrate the concept of potential energy and kinetic energy. Since concepts such as energy are concepts that are very abstract in nature, with the video animations uploaded, students were able to ‘see’ energy and hence properly understand what is meant by potential energy and its conversion to kinetic energy. The explanations are scaffolded such that a step-by-step explanation by the voice in the animation is inherent.
For instance, the animation of a falling boulder implored the students to calculate the kinetic energy and potential energy at different heights from the ground. As such, students are able to see for themselves the conversion of potential energy to kinetic energy as the boulder falls, and that the total sum of these energies are always constant in accordance to the Principle of Energy Conservation of closed systems.
The teaching aids were complemented by further explanations and clarifications by the teacher using an ideal pendulum example where the teacher, in a similar fashion to the animation, implored the students to calculate the potential and kinetic energy of the pendulum bob at different positions of the pendulum. This reinforces the concept of the Principle of Energy Conservation. At the same time the teacher also introduced additional concepts using a non-ideal pendulum example where he clarifies why a real pendulum does not swing to eternity and would eventually come to a stop.
(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.)
In general, the usage of ICT is limited to a few teachers of certain teaching subjects. This is because some subjects, such as Mathematics, are perceived to be better taught using traditional methods (whiteboard and marker).
Most teachers are hesitant to use ICT because they find such lessons counter-productive to the class progress, especially when classroom management is difficult for some classes. Additionally, the usage of ICT is perceived as ‘more work’ for them since they have to come up with their own resources to conduct them. This is perhaps due to the lack of available resources for them to tap on, and because of them, using ICT would require them to ‘start from scratch’.
The school also is poorly equipped to carry out ICT lessons. Basic ICT infrastructure such as computers in individual classes and visualizers are absent.
Although the school does set aside an e-learning day to ensure that students learn through ICT, this practice does not involve the upper secondary students. It is observed that there is still a sizable number of students who instead of doing work from home computers, returned to school to do their work in the computer labs. This means that there are some students who do not own personal computers, making the implementation of the ICT Masterplan a challenging task.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)