Pre ESE Blog 3

Making Connection Between My ESE and the Masterplans for ICT in Education

In Woodgrove Secondary School, the school has definitely achieve the Masterplan 1 and 2 as ICT infrastructures are in placed where computer laboratories are made available to teachers to book for their daily lessons. Students and teachers go through different kinds of IT related courses where they are equipped with the basic IT knowledge.

IT has been widely used by both teachers and students in Woodgrove Secondary. The school has this TV messaging system whereby televisions have been installed at several locations (such as canteen and along walkways) where students can watch out for useful information. Thus, instead of making announcement, teachers will make sure of the TV messaging system and inform the students. Not only so, daily news and happenings are also shown on these televisions so that students are kept updated on what is happening around them in this world.

Tablet laptop, mobile phones and GPS tracking systems are used in the Science Heuristic Trails. During these science trails, students are assigned tasks where they will have to look for information that can be found within the school compound. The students will to make use of the IT products to take pictures and record what they have found. The students will have to work in groups in order to complete the trails. It is through these trails that students are expected to look for information on their own, instead of depending on their teachers for answers. It is a more self- directed learning method rather than teachers spoon feeding the students with answers. Not only so, these trails also allow the students to be trained as collaborative learners. The students will have to ensure that the whole group progresses together, on top of their personal progressions.

Not only did Woodgrove Secondary School uses ICT to teach students and help them develop as self- directed and collaborative learners, ICT is also use to ease the administrative jobs of teachers. For example, the biometric system that is put in place to replace the daily manual attendance taking done by teachers. The biometric system captures the daily attendance of the students and uploads the information to the school cockpit where teachers can generate out the daily attendance of each individual students. The teachers no longer have to manually update the daily attendance of each students one by one. The process is shortened and now, teachers will only have to update the reasons of the students’ absence.

Other than the ICT uses that are mentioned above, Woodgrove Secondary School incorporates many other uses of ICT tools, eg interactive board, touch screen desktop and etc. With the emergence of use of IT worldwide, there is a need for schools to move towards IT based teachings.

Pre ESE Blog 2

Masterplan for ICT in Education

With the emergence of the use of IT, it is now important for MOE to develop the 3 Master Plan for ICT in education. Gone are the days where everything are written on paper and sent through mail. The world is now connected through IT. As such, students and teachers must now be equipped with IT skills so as to stay connected with the world.

In the past, students used to memorise facts and not bringing what they have learnt into daily life. However, things have changed. Students can no longer depend on factual applications. Rather, the educational system now requires them to apply what they have learnt into daily life activities – conceptual application. Schools now require the students to make use of IT to present what they have learnt or done. In the 1990s, presentations of students’ work were mostly done on vanguard sheets or mahjong papers. Teachers used blackboard and overhead projector to teach students. In the 2000s, with the emergence of IT, students present their work using multimedia resource such as powerpoint slides and videos. Teachers become more IT savvy in which they started using computers, visualizer, interactive board, tablet laptop, touch screen desktop and phone to carry out their lessons. This has a great impact on learning as learning has been made more interactive and interesting.

With the introduction of the master plan for ICT in education, there is a need now for educators to transform students into self- directed learners and collaborative learners. No longer should the teachers provide detailed information to the students, like what the teachers do in the past. Now, students are given examples of where information can be found and using IT, the students will have to source for their own information. With the Internet so easily accessible, the students have to be trained to be self- directed learners whereby they will be the one solving the problem, looking for answers and solely responsible for their learning and progression. Secondly, students must also be trained into collaborative learners. As such, there is the need for more project work whereby the challenge is to cultivate these students into collaborative learners. The students will have to learn on how to ensure that as an individual, they are progressing. And at the same time, they must not leave their group mates behind. This will help to shape and develop their individual characters. They will have to ensure the progression of their group. Students who have been trained to be collaborative learners will gain to benefit when they step into the society as they are both a good team player as well as independent workers.

Pre ESE Blog 1

Enhanced School Experience: Classroom Observations of ICT Use

School Name: Woodgrove Secondary School

Class: Sec 3T1

Profile of class: Secondary 3 Normal Technical students, boys and girls aged 15 - 16

Subject: Physical Education

What ICT tools are used in the lesson?  
Mobile phones with camera video recording features and computer video clips.

Describe how ICT is used for teaching and learning in the lessons.

Students were practicing on their standing broad jump NAPFA stations.

Students were paired up and they were told to help each other find strengths and weaknesses of their partner’s jumps. In order to allow their partner to know how he/she did their jumps, partners were encouraged to take videos of their jumps and reviewed it after their jumps before they make their subsequent jumps.

These videos were kept and students will take videos of their partner’s jump during the next PE lessons. The students will then be able to compare and see the differences between their first jump and subsequent jumps.

A video of a very good jump made by their fellow classmates were taken and shared among the class. This video will allow the students to make a comparison between their own jump and that of the correct jump.

The video taking allows the students to know what their strengths and weaknesses are and these allowed them to improve on their weaknesses.

On top of the videos that the students have taken, students were also showed videos done by experts (through youtube). Using these youtube videos, students could compare it with those taken by themselves.

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.)

Woodgrove Secondary School makes use of a system called the Learning Management System (LMS), whereby teachers can upload assignments or notes for students and the students can access to these documents from home and at their own time. This system also allows the school to have e-learning day whereby the students need not come to school, but they will have to complete assignments set by their subject teachers for that particular day. This is especially helpful when the school has something important to conduct and is unable to have the students back in school. On top of that, the LMS also allows teachers to share resources with fellow school colleagues. This makes it accessible for teachers to source for information that they might need across different departments.
http://www.woodgrovesec.moe.edu.sg/wbn/slot/u1080/Department/ICT/Briefing_for_Students.ppt#256,1,Home-based Learning 2011

Other than the LMS system, the school also uses the biometric system for attendance taking. In the past, form teachers will have to manually take attendance of the students during flag raising and update the attendance in the cockpit. However, after the introduction of the biometric system, teachers need not update the attendance in the cockpit as attendance will automatically be updated. It ease the administrative work of the teachers and allows teacher to have more time for other stuff.