Final Thoughts

Here we go, this looks to be the last post in this course.

It was one of the greatest courses I've attended despite the fact that it's contents are smaller than other courses.

The main reason which makes me getting this impression about the course is that it opened the gate to me to dig the possibilities of ICT in education.

We were introduced to some interesting topics like the webquest, using games in education, tutor, tutee, and tools. These can make the education more fun and fruitful and effective to the most extent if it's used applied intelligently.

Knowing these topics doesn't mean the education is a mechanical process between the teacher and the students; rather it's a knowledge combined with the emotions and humanity.

Last and big thing we were introduced to and used it is the blog as you read it, and I think it's the other side of what differentiate this course with other course.

I think Blogging in education turns the process to be more enjoyable and it let's the students thinks deeply and reflect what they learned. This helps in retaining and developing what the student learned.

Of course there many constraints facing applying blogging with the students, so it must be not mandatory rather a complementary way to achieve the educations goals.

My last point is: we must utilize the enormous existence of the new technological era in education while not forget the pros and cons of every thing we tend to use.

Games and Simulation

Computers can be used in ICT as tutor which means the teacher can select a software or ask the students to enter a site and explore the new topic in a computer directed mode.

What categories can the teacher use to help the students learn? There are many possibilities and two of them are using Games and Simulation.

Concept Mapping

The last week lecture was so insightful and full of rich information.

We learnt the concept maps which I heard and read about them before but didn't use nor apply them.

WebQuest

This is one of the most interesting lessons we've been introduced to in ICT2 course.

I admit it, this is the first time I heard about this terminology and I liked the idea to of WebQuest as it motivates the kids to discover new ideas of the lesson on their own.

It's not up to the kids how to get the information, but there are parts of WebQuest to generalize the process of digging to get the information.

Cybersafety

Do you know what may turn the internet to be a predator space?

Take this cartoon as a hint on the answer of the previous question. You may know a tiny subset of who you talk and interact with, but can't make certain who are the others for real.

Inquiry-Based learning

This week, we're assigned to reflect on the Inquiry-Based learning which utilizes the Student-Centered Learning education approach.

As implied in the previous post, the Student-Centered Learning makes sure the student constructs the information and it's the most effective way to learn and understand new ideas.

Student-Centered Learning

This our third week lesson, it's about the Student-Centered Learning (SCL) and I can emphasize that SCL is more effective in many areas compared with the other paradigm, Teacher-Centered Learning (TCL).

Personally, I applied it partially in my lessons before and realized how it's effective and motivating to the students.

a gradient
rectangle
in
MS Words

As an example, I showed the students a gradient rectangle in word and asked them to try to discover the way of how I did it in MS Word. The students take not-a-short time to find how to do this exercise, but they learn more than one thing on their way which are:

• How to draw a rectangle in MS Word.
• How to remove the border of the shape.
• How to fill the shape with a color.
• How to set gradient colors.

I could show how to achieve those points to the students then ask them to do the exercise which may needs an equal or shorter time.

But what about the level of understanding of all students in this case? I think the SCL is better for the students and for the teachers. It's clear to be better for the student as I stated before, and the teacher will get no hassle of explaining and will concentrate on how to make sure every student gets what he needs to be able to understand the lesson and do the task correctly.

I know SCL faces some critiques, and I think, as a part to resolve them, we need to apply a mixture between SCL and TCL and the ratio of them depends on the age of the students. So the instructor may use TCL as the first part of the lecture and SCL in the other part.

tutor, tools, and tutee in Learning

Before about six years, a colleague brought his students to my computer lab and gave them an E-Lesson. He created the lesson with Macromedia (Adobe) Director. He was a Science teacher and lesson was meant to be as a substitute of a lesson in the Science lab and showing them an experiment there.

The lesson was merely a show with some interactivity but without any questions/answers nor different levels. The students impression? they liked it so much and they understood the lesson.

I know this is not an ideal tutor in ICT, but it gives a glimpse on how using computing can turn learning to an attractive and effective way.
While there are so many obstacles in front of applying tutor-tools-tutee in learning, but with the right resources and time they can be applied differently depending on the level of the student.

One of the big problems is the needed flexibility of the tutor mode where the human teacher can beat it. Although I think with the advancement of Artificial Intelligence, we may have some adaptive tutors which teach the students depending on their level of the understanding.

About the tutee mode, I think it can be deployed to some extent on children since we must bear in mind this mod needs high level of understanding in children to deal with programming skills needed here which seems to be time consuming. And to solve this, I think the focus can be on building programming skills in the first levels in the school to use them effectively in the advanced and next levels.

Last one in these modes is the tools. It's used widely between teachers and students in the form of word processors and spreadsheets to get statistics and writing assignments and reports. This mode is less time and consuming in opinion as the tools a ready to use and need not to be programmed in most cases.

Who and Why

I'm S.Jaafar Neama Khalil, a father of two children. I was an IT teacher in Duraz Intermediate Boy's School in Bahrain.

After being a teacher for nine years in the school, I'm now a student as a candidate teacher (TC) in Bahrain Teacher's College (BTC) in Postgraduate Diploma in Education (PGDE) program funded by Ministry of Education in Bahrain. This program must last for a whole academic year.
In this blog, I'll write my reflections about the course Teaching and Learning Information and Communication Technology 2.

I like reading news on internet like mobile and IT and policy news, watching TV, and solving Maths problem. I'm a twitter addict :-).