ICT provides a rich and flexible learner-centred environment in which students can experiment and take risks when developing new understanding.
The advantages of using ICT in the classroom are that it allows students to have more freedom in expressing their ideas and understanding in a creative and meaningful way. Students are able to use a wide variety of resources to inform and facilitate their own learning such as search engines like Google, and Wikipedia, which students are able to use to find information that is appropriate for their level of understanding and ability.
“The English and Information and Communication Technology (ICT) domains are interwoven in the curriculum. Students can create their own texts in English using the range of ICT tools and data types to visualise their thinking, locate, select and process information and data, and communicate their ideas and information to their audience in various ways.”
In English students are able to use ICT to have a deeper understanding and higher engagement with the topic or text as they can interact more closely with the information through a variety of formats from reading information to watching videos and YouTube clips, creating their own videos or multimedia projects. This requires students to consider the information and how they can express or imagine the topic in a new and creative way. Through this exploration of text using ICT students are able to experiment with different viewpoints and ways of expression.
Students are able to use ICT to make their thinking visible, through the sequencing and production of learning activities that are required in using ICT such as when making a video on an issue students must first do research, then create a storyboard than film and edit the images and sound before producing a whole finished project. This allows students to have a structure to scaffold them while giving them the flexibility of the topic, style and tone of the project and they are able to set their own pace. Students can also modify this work to suit their skill level. ICT allows the student to take charge and drive their own learning. This is because students can decide what types of information they will use and how they will implement that information. This is helpful in differentiating students learning, as they know what is appropriate for them and ICT allows them to work at their level and pace.
I found your thoughts on ICT making student's thinking visible very interesting and I had not thought of that myself but I can see how the steps involved in producing work in an ICT format allows for visible thinking. Furthermore, by making student's thinking visible it also makes it easier to informally assess students' learning and abilities allowing for better, more effective teaching.
ReplyDeleteYou also make a good point about the scaffolding nature of ICT as well given the way in which ICT tasks are generally structured in a sequenced manner. This makes tasks more accessible for students to reach higher levels of thinking and ability which is vital to students' learning.