ICT's+in+the+classroom

 ** ICT’s are designed for today’s consumer, they therefore and generally highly visible and offer interactive opportunities. Jones (2003) claims that teachers can enhance student learning by using ICTs rather than the traditional face to face lesson delivery approach. Further benefits have been recognised including the possibility to overcome geographical seperation, being able to cater for very large numbers of students at once, eliminating the factor of time difference, and the ease of inexpensive updates to the content. Additionally, digital technology has led to the ability to easily store, update, and share data – all providing great time saving opportunities for teachers. Incorporating ICT’s in the classroom not only effects how teachers teach and how students learn, but they also affect the classroom environment and student behaviour. **
 * According to Australian Bureau of Statistics’ recent findings (2006-2007), 64% of Australian homes had Internet access and about 73% of the residents had access to a home PC. The world in which children are growing up in is rapidly changing. Mobile phones, the internet, gaming consoles, and digital cameras are all part-and-parcel of modern society. Yet, many schools and teachers still continue with the ‘chalk and talk’ approach to teaching. Sarason (as cited in Watson 2001, p.260) warned that there is an “unbridgeable gulf that separates the world of school and the outside world. Schools are uninteresting places in which the interests and questions of the children have no relevance to what they are required to learn in the classroom. Teachers continue to teach subject matter not children”. Watson suggests that technology has the potential to bridge that gap between the classroom and the ‘real world’. Teachers need to start using ICTs in the classroom to engage students with relevant content and a modern delivery approach. Furthermore, if teachers are innovative, they can develop and improve the current curriculum to ensure we teach tomorrow’s skills to today’s children. **


 * Prensky (2005) categorises students into three categories - self-motivated, those that go through the motions, and students who 'tune teachers out'. The last group are recognised as students that are convinced that school is totally devoid of interest and is irrelevant to their lives. These students are most likely to disrupt and act-out if they are not engaged by the lesson and curriculum present to them. Prensky notes there are continuous behaviour management problems for teachers as they inadequately try to teach the digitally savvy children of today with the bland, stale, and knowledge transfer approaches of yesteryear.

In essence, using ICTs in the classroom has the potential to improve student engagement, increase interactivity with students and teachers, modernising the curriculum, reduce poor classroom behaviour, utilising many of the students pre-existing skills and interests in ICT’s, and link school with the ‘outside world’. We are not suggesting that every lesson and every activity has to have an ICT component to it, merely that teachers should consider the possibilities and opportunities that ICT's present to actually improve some lessons and activities. A great example of how ICT’s can be integrated across a school is seen in the youtube link below, where Alwoodley Primary School in London has been identified in ICT excellence. http://www.youtube.com/v/lR0ddN57uKQ&hl=en_US&fs=1&rel=0"

REFERENCES

Jones, AJ 2003, 'ICT and Future Teahers: Are We Preparing For E-Learning?', Deparment of Science and Mathematics Education, The University of Melbourne, paper presented at IFIP - Melbourne 2003.

Prensky, M 2005, 'Enrage Me or Engage Me - What today's learners demand', Educause Septembr/October 2005, p. 60-64.

Watson, DM 2001, 'Pedagogy before Technology: Re-thinking the Relationship between ICT and Teaching', Education and Information Technologies, Kluwer Academic Publishers, p.251-266.**