Blog 3: Achievements

During my ESE at Yusof Ishak Secondary School , I had often observed classes where the teachers made extensive use of ICT tools to have an effective session with the students. Majority of the classes, that I followed, were conducted using ICT tools viz Power Point, Videos and other audio-visual gadgets. The process definitely yielded results and much in the line of the achievements laid down in the masterplan.

1) The students acquired the basic knowledge regarding MS Office and also Internet. Often I have seen they handed over projects that were thoroughly researched and presented with aplomb. The Holiday Home works regarding poems were so beautiful as the students actually read and researched about various genres of poetry and selected their favourite and along with the poet’s background and the theme, that they searched out from the net, the presented soft copies of them to the teachers. That was quite an effective learning in an interesting way, I believe.

2) The above achievement tallies with one of the MP3 outcomes that states that the students ought to learn “beyond the curriculum”. So for doing their projects they had to go through a lot more things that have ultimately enriched their knowledge. In no way onle the narrow scope of a text book could have served the purpose.

3) The Facebbok community method adopted by the mathematics teacher was quite popular and fruitful, I found. The teachers used videos to solve problems and uploaded them in the community for the students to see. Also the community gave the students a clear platform for group activities. Many students logging in at the same time could talk and discuss a problem and consequently arrive at the solution. The best part was, it was happening under the surveillance of the teacher who can guide the kids at any point, if needed. That in a way opened up the class from the four walls and definitely that’s a fantastic way to engage students into studies, much in line with the concept of ‘self-directed learning’ . It also blended the desired outcome of ‘collaborative learning’.

4) The Oral prelims and practice sessions were also very useful for the students. The teachers role in the collaborative study was evident here as the students had to record their reading aloud sections and also picture reading sections and those were mailed to their respective tutors. The teacher then guided them through so that they can achieve better in their national examinations.

Blog 2 : Regarding the 3 Masterplans

Former Minister of Education, Govt. of Singapore, Mr. Tharman Shanmugaratnam had said regarding the ICT marsterplan 2, “Our goal is ultimately not about the use of technology but about changing the culture of classroom and school to support and motivate thinking and independent learning among our pupils…”

To achieve this goal, the old school traditional method of text books and lecture are not enough. Therefore there had to be an attempt to bring in the whole world within the corpus of a class of an hour or so. But talking about the internet and the opportunities that it provides regarding resources and research, the vastness can eventually land a teacher in a sense of deep helplessness. A teacher may find it too difficult to fit in the vast materials available in the internet and that would ultimately lead to utter damage. A clueless programme can only jeopardize the intended goal. And herein lies the vitality of the masterplans, structured by the ministry of education, meticulously on the basis of need so that the whole procedure can act within a sort of frame work and therefore the country as a whole can gain from the new endeavor.

Regarding the necessity of the master plans:--

● It provides a frame work to the teachers to have a clear idea of exactly what is wanted and therefore they can plan their lesson in accordance to the need.

● It provides better perspectives on the part of the students as they are no longer confined within the narrow scope of the text books and now have the sea of information, thanks to the use of internet. More and more innovative views comes out when the student has an access to all sorts of information and perspectives required for a wholesome education.

● The ‘achievement’ section of the masterplan 2 itself states that the students became more “competent in using basic ICT tools” and also teachers found more “productivity” in lessons done aided with ICT tools.

● The introduction of graphic calculators at A level and data Loggers for science practical assessments are of great help. The Video shows how 3D structures and videos are used to teach biology at River Valley School. These can be of great help for the students as they get vivid idea about the topic they are doing in the class.

● Also, it has become easier for the teachers across the country to share their resources and planning, thanks to endeavors like iShare. The education as a whole had gained a lot, therefore from the well thought out planning and these master plans are a great guide for the educators and the pupils that enhance their abilities, helps them learn more effectively and make the whole process of using ICT tools more fruitful than mere introduction of IT things in education. Singapore’s remarkable achievement internationally bears testimony of this fact.

As a student, I ready was not lucky enough to have such great access to ICT tools for learning. I come from India, a developing nation coping up with the challenge of population boom. Also due to its vastness and intricate multicultural, multi lingual diversity, it was difficult for the government to come up with an all pervasive planning. Yet, some of the lectures that I attended were aided with powerpoint presentation. At an higher level, better ICT tools were used, During my Post-Graduation days, films based on the novels in the curriculum or something related to the themes were used and often a debate followed. Also, to prepare our papers we had to delve deeper into the world of internet to come up with more and more points and vies, of course accompanied with our own views.

As a beginning teacher, the biggest role that I think I can play with the usage of ICT tools is, I can ignite the interest of proper research regarding one topic. The biggest challenge is to make the teenager understand the utility of the ICT tools in his/her education. The internet opens up both positive and negative avenues and for an adolescent the later often seems more interesting. There lies my actual challenge, to make him/her use the net and other tools properly for his/her own benefit.

Secondly, it will help me to reach to my students beyond the class room. With more of hands-on projects and use of the net me along with my students can go for an effective group learning and that will be a learning process for myself too.

Blog 1: My ESE

ENHANCED SCHOOL EXPERIENCE:

PREPARATORY TASK FOR ICT FOR MEANINGFUL LEARNING

Enhanced School Experience: Classroom Observations of ICT Use

(I) Specific Observations

School Name: Yusof Ishak Secondary School

Class: Secondary 2 Normal Academic

Profile of the class: (For e.g., the students’ academic abilities, stream and other characteristics) It was a Secondary 2 class, in the Normal Academic stream. Some of the students were quite competent and was able to pick up any skill quite fast. But a large number of the students were generally slow learner and had problems in concentrating to a lesson or lecture for long. Unless they are provided with some hands-on activities as a part of their learning process, generally the class remains noisy. Most of the times they needed visual aids to accompany the topic they were supposed to learn. That in its turn kept them engaged to the day’s activity and also served the purpose of imparting the knowledge that was ought to be imparted.

Subject:

What ICT tools are used in the lesson? The Literature classes tend to get boring if only text books and lecture method is adopted. For the Secondary 2 NA class that I observed, use of ICT tools was an absolute necessity for an effective session. So the particular class that I observed my buddy teacher Salina Yusof Mohammad used Youtube Video, Power Point Presentation to serve the purpose. The video was introduced to familiarize the students with the general theme of the lesson that was followed by a general discussion and debate. In this context the use of Visualiser was also crucial. The Power Point presentation was also effective to draw the attention of the students and keep them engaged to the day’s lesson. Both the visualizer and the power Point presentation were used along with the white screen. The method paid off as at the end of the lesson the students could work out the work sheets quite satisfactorily.

Describe how ICT is used for teaching and learning in the lesson. A poem related to ‘Life in 21st Century’ was to be taught in the class and my buddy teacher Salina zeroed upon a poem named “Poison Talk”. The poem was basically in the structure of a dialogue between the poet and the polluting agents. To initiate the class Salina showed them a video, downloaded from you tube, related to pollution and the harmful effects of it. The students were really attentive at that time and watched the video minutely. The portrayal of the harmful effects extracted quite a strong reaction from them and before even starting the lesson that had already formed a clear opinion about pollution and the harmful effects of it. The teacher then divided the class into groups and discussed the general views about pollution and jotted down the comments and observations of the students on a white paper. Here she used the visualizer. The students could clearly see what the teacher was jotting down on the paper on the white screen. The work sheet was planned accordingly and they followed the teacher and copied the views themselves. They even contradicted if they thought otherwise regarding any views. Then the power Point presentation was used. The teacher made the slides containing one stanza of the poem in each slide. While she selected one student to read out one stanza from the screen, she called another to point out the key words that was related to the theme by highlighting the key words in her laptop itself. So the students could see the emboldened words that related the poem with the main theme and the video and that was more easier a strategy to make the ideas clear to them. This was followed until the poem was completed and then the students were asked to complete the worksheets. The teacher guided the students to solve the worksheets using the visualizer one more time. That was helpful for the students to follow the instructions and understand what he/she was exactly required to do

(I) 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

Teachers at Yusof Ishak Secondary School were quite conversant with the use of ICT tools for their class room teaching and they always acknowledged the inevitability of the ICT tools for more effective teachings. Hardly ever I have observed any class where an ICT tool was not used—be it the visualizer or the power point presentations. Mdm Azwiza Ahmad, Head of the Deptt. English Language and Literature used to stress on the fact that colours and visualization worked wonder with the kids. The teachers were competent enough for this. Even during the PLCs, that were held on Tuesdays, using ICT tools were stressed upon. Mr Daryl, a teacher at YISS, once showed how he used Facebook community to discuss mathematics with his students and also mentioned that yielded better results than just class room teaching. He mentioned that the kids asked questions while their fellows answered them quite efficiently. So even if some one lost out one lesson he/she had a good chance to cope up with the class even sitting at home. Even as a preparation to the Oral test, the students were allowed to record their reading aloud passages and also their picture reading and then they uploaded them or e-mailed them to their respective teachers for further guidance. That really worked and it showed in the results. Ms. Clarisse Ng and Mdm Widya Zukassim Burnwall, both teachers of the EL Deptt conducted this whole procedure.

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