Matching ICT Resources to Intended Learning

Principle 6

There should be no ICT applications that portray violence or stereotyping.

Principle 7

Practitioners should be aware of health and safety issues. This is mainly to do with the extended use of desktop computers by children. However, you can limit the time spent on computers and this should help you avoid some of these dangers for children.

Principle 8

There should be a partnership between the parents and the professionals – YOU! This leads to a better understanding and a more positive attitude by teachers and parents about each other’s role.

Matching ICT Resources to Intended Learning

In order to determine how ICT resources will be able to achieve learning objectives, you will need to consider the following.

What approach to take to learning in each phase of teaching?

The main approaches can be characterised as teacher-centred activity (where the teacher controls activity directly, usually from the front of the class) and learner-centred activity (where the children work on tasks, more or less at their own pace).

What tasks to set in order to enable children to bridge the learning gap between their current abilities and objectives?

There are three ways to choose from: • Instructive; • Constructive-directed and; • Constructive-creative.

What resources to employ, including the teacher’s exposition, questioning, and review; books and other traditional media; ICT and other equipment in order to support children’s activity?

is related to the earlier decisions. The availability and potential of ICT may mean that the best approach for the topic changes from a traditional teacher-centred exposition to learner-centred investigation.

How the teacher will orchestrate the use of resources? This may be done indirectly where the resources could be designed to adjust the support available to children automatically such as with an Integrate Learning System (ILS) or directly, where the teacher plans in advance to be proactive, or plan to respond to children’s actions.

What actions by learners are to be allowed? Which actions are to be supported if required? Which actions are to actively stimulated by the teacher? Where the ICT is to be used, what actions are allowed by the ICT, which are supported, and which are actually stimulated by ICT? (Kennewell, 2004, pp. 101-104)

Here are some examples: Drill and Practice programs

ICT Teaching resources

Instructional games

Problem-solving ICT resources Exercises for children in numeracy and literacy; Designed to work with children’s existing knowledge; May have competency levels to cater for diverse learners; Usually have an engaging format. Designed to lead children through a topic that new to them; Allow the child to progress by themselves and at their own pace; Use multiple presentations rather than just text; Assists children to become familiar to multiple literacies. Similar to drill and practice software but with an element of competition; Some can be programmed by the teacher to ensure that the focus is on relevant and current learning topics. Excellent for engaging students in higher order thinking; Require children to apply their knowledge in new contexts that require them to make connections; Great for developing ICT capability!