ICT and 21st Century Education
Being able to use and learning technologies is a necessary skill for the 21st century. They can help us and our students to develop higher order thinking and problem solving skills, improve motivation, attitudes and arouse an interest in learning. Considering that we are in an Information Age, such skills regarding the use of ICT are practical and increasingly essential to our successes in the modern workforce.
It is our job as teachers to prepare our students, as best we can, for the future. we need to encourage our student's to use technology including computers, cameras and other devices on a daily basis within schools by providing them with the opportunity to participate in real, authentic tasks that are challenging and meaningful.
Integrating learning technologies into the classroom can help:
- Develop higher order thinking and problem solving skills
- Improve student motivation, attitude, and interest in learning
- Address the needs of low performing, at-risk, and learning disabled students
- prepare students for the workforce
- Develop necessary skill for an Information Age (21st Century)
In many cases when using ICT the learner is fully engaged in the learning process and are given the opportunity to learn in radically different ways to tradition classroom textbooks and blackboards.
Workshop Activities and Classroom Applications
Today’s workshop was dedicated to investigating Inspiration 8 IE, a piece of educational computer software that allows users to build various graphic organizers. After a brief tutorial on the features of the program I was encouraged to explore and experiment with its user friendly interface. After only a short while I was able to successfully create both a simple mind map and a concept map complete with graphics, links, labels and text boxes.
I created this mind-map by using both the graphics library within the program and importing images from the Internet. This mind map centers around the topic "people who help us in our community":
This concept map was also very simple to create. The programs start up menu has a variety of mapping options to choose from. The concept mapping option is valuable for exploring subjects in more depth. The one I created is centered on "Living Things":
This program is a valuable visual learning tool that inspires students to develop and organize their ideas. It supports a variety of visual thinking techniques including concept mapping, mind mapping and web development. Students could use this software to brainstorm, plan, organize, think about, outline and present various concepts across a variety of curriculum areas.
I had a look at the Inspiration website: http://www.inspiration.com. The 'EDUCATORS' page of the site outlines how to "Use Examples and Lesson Plans to Integrate Inspiration into Your Curriculum". The site also offers people a free thirty day trial of the software. I hope to utilize this trail at some point during my second practicum.
Some specific of how Inspiration 8IE could be used in an educational context include:
- Assist students in organizing information
- Defining new terms
- Introducing a new concept
- Note-taking organizer
- Showing relationships
- Comparison activities
- Present difficult material in a step by step manner
- Illustrating Cycles and systems
- Civic and Citizenship - illustrate a Local government diagram
- History - identify Historical cause and effect
- Language Arts - character descriptions, plot movement, storyboards
- Math-to teach algorithms (especially division)
More teacher specific applications might include:
- Assisting teachers in planning lessons/units/themes
- Showing the integration of different topics across the curriculum
- Assist cooperative groups in defining projects and dividing jobs
