Blog 3

Blog 3: The Impact of the Master plan

When I was a student, my teachers did not use ICT much at all. This led to classes falling into the same routine and being pretty boring for the students. There was once, an NIE trainee who took over the lesson. He did something very different that I still remember today. While we were doing our worksheet, he suddenly played soft but audible classical music. At first, that created a lot of uproar and chatting amongst everyone in class. However, in the end, it resulted in each of us keeping quiet and completing the task efficiently. Little did we realize, that because of the music, we eventually all kept silent. It was not because we wanted to hear the music, but somehow it demanded attention and we gave it its needed respect. He also made the lesson different by bringing us to the AVA room to watch a mini lecture on Julius Cesar (the text we studied for Literature). It is because he broke the routine of the normal classroom, that I still remember his lesson.

Although what he did benefited the class in many ways, the possible pitfall of an increased use of ICT in the classroom would be that the school would constantly need to search for bigger and better ways to break the routined nature of lessons. If every lesson involved ICT or most, then that would become a expected norm and will be taken for granted by the students.

Based on my ESE experience, I feel very encouraged to use ICT in the classroom. As most of the teachers in Jurongville were amiable and friendly, they were easy to talk to and I got an idea of the ease with which ICT can be incorporated in the classroom. They all use ICT regularly and are very comfortable using it. This makes me feel a greater sense of responsibility to use ICT in the classroom to not only educate but inspire as well.

Blog 2

Blog 2: Importance of the 3 Masterplans for ICT in Education

The 3 Masterplans for ICT in education is important for the benefit of both the teachers and the students. This will ensure that students are educated in a manner that stimulates their interest. Generally we live in a society that is very advanced in terms of technology and more and more young people, especially teenagers are becoming more IT savy. Through the incorporation of ICT in education, it will create a more direct platform for students to study and learn. The web is a huge pool of resource that is waiting to be tampered and used. By starting this desire and independence to research at the class level, we will be creating independent learners who are not afraid to ask questions and venture on their own.

ICT also creates greater convenience for teachers as it is easy to access and use. The only arduous task is teaching and training people. Once that is done successfully, ICT will indeed provide greater convenience for teachers and the school in the long run. It allows for easy reference and for sharing of resources among teachers. This is already done in almost all the schools in Singapore through the sharing folders. It will lessen the workload of the teachers and lessens wastage in terms of paper resources. Currently there is still a lot of data that is preserved through the written medium. Through tapping on ICT this will lessen and more information can be stored virtually that will benefit the environment as well.

What ICT really does for the student is very beneficial. It prepares the student for the future. It allows them to be exposed to the various means and mechanisms of approaching anything. It shows them how things can be done faster through technology and also shows them the pitfalls of it through the wastage of time that occurs in searching for specific information via the web. It also shows how through technology there is a greater chance to be distracted and strayed from the actual focus. The visual and auditory senses of both the students and the teachers can be stimulated through ICT and this leads to a better remembering of the content in a subject. 

Blog 1

Blog 1: My Enhanced School Experience

The school values of Jurongville Secondary School are P.R.I.D.E (Pride, Respect, Integrity, Discipline and Excellence). These are constantly enforced and inculcated in the lessons by the teachers. This school is pretty focused on using technology in classes and they have a very student centred approach to lessons. In the very first contact time itself, it was an ICT sharing by various teachers of various subjects. The objective was to share how the various departments have tried to incorporate ICT in their lessons during the first semester. Teachers in this school collaborate well with each other and often share resources and ideas for ICT as a department. This truly helps the students themselves as they are often very much engaged during lessons and have fun learning via this method.

At the time when I arrived to do my ESE, school just started and most of the teachers gave holiday assignments based on ICT lessons conducted in the first half of the semester. Thus, I was not able to see all the teachers using ICT during lessons, but I was able to see one lesson that was done through ICT and an assignment based on ICT.

My observation is based on Mrs Yvonne Poh’s class. She teaches English to Secondary 2 Express. The class I observed was 2D and they are the last express class for that level. This class has one student with ADHD and they have a shorter concentration span compared to other classes in 2 express. They respond well with group work but are rather reserved to speak in front of the class. The ICT tools used in this class were videos, radio, internet search engines and social networking sites.

The lesson was on news reporting. Prior to this lesson, the students were given an introduction to various types of news from Channel News Asia and BBC of what a news report consists of. They were exposed to the terms tagline, symbol, characteristic music, by line and many more. First the students are given a worksheet to fill in while watching a video. Then, the students watch two video clips of five minutes each of an actual news report from BBC and are supposed to identify the various components in a news feature. This allowed the students are more real experience of the news broadcast. Finally, the homework for that day was for each and every student to watch the news featured on channel 5 for at least the first 15 minutes.

The homework given was a shock to me as it was very different. Even the students were shocked by the task they had to do. However, instead of resisting or protesting against it, they were actually engaged and excited to participate in the task.

In addition to this, the next lesson that I observed, the students were instructed to take a video of them either using a phone or a camera, as a news anchor reading the news. The articles chosen for this task were news articles published in the Straits Times the day before. They were given one week to complete this task. The objective behind this task was to allow the students to practise their oral communication skills. The teacher used the social networking platform of facebook as a base to contain the videos. They were to upload their videos on a common facebook group account.  By the end of the week, almost all students handed it on time.  They were not allowed to jeer each entry but were encouraged to give constructive comments on their peers videos. The teacher vetted the comments in case something rude or nasty was said. This also allowed the students to do a peer evaluation which they generally were interested in.

I felt this lesson conducted was an excellent way of incorporating ICT in the classroom. Indeed the entire class was engaged and pretty much involved. This made the students realise how the English language is a part of their everyday lives through the newspaper and the news on television.

In Jurongville the teachers actively use ICT in the classroom and are very receptive towards this incorporation. Even the chemistry teacher, who shared his lesson during contact time, used youtube as a platform to study chemistry. His students were instructed to create a video of a topic in chemistry and perform a song. They were marked based on the lyrics of the songs they created. This was an assignment given during the June holidays. Each group was given a different topic and had a month to finish the assignment. The school loaned all the equipment they would need for this project. I had the priviledge to view some of the entries. They were creative, insightful and funny. What it showed was not only the ability of the students to express themselves creatively, but it also showcased how much of the lesson they really understood.

All the various departments in this school actively use and help each other use ICT. Through this ESE, I have learnt a lot from this school, especially how to incorporate ICT in the classroom.