NEWS: ICT in the classroom begins with teachers

FINDINGS from a recent evaluation report on the school adoption scheme by the Education Ministry should augur well for the future of information and communications technology (ICT) programmes in schools.

Apart from the observation that many students are fast adjusting to the new mode of learning through technology tools such as PCs and the Internet, the report highlighted that the majority of teachers agree that they need to bring themselves up to speed on digital literacy skills, mainly to build their confidence in integrating technology into their lesson plans.

This is encouraging and important too, as teachers play a vital role in ensuring the success of ICT programmes in schools. Teachers need to keep pace with the latest ICT developments and incorporate them into their teaching delivery.

For example, with Web 2.0 technology, teachers can create collaborative platforms to manage and share teaching and learning resources.

The Education Ministry also needs to have an effective support system to constantly expose teachers to innovative teaching and learning methods that are based on ICT. These include continuous support to enhance teachers’ digital literacy skills through training in the use of multimedia computing and Internet-based pedagogies. Such efforts will further drive greater ICT competence among teachers and knowledge creation among students.

Lending support to this push is a recent move by the education authorities in the United Kingdom to set the bar higher for those aspiring to become teachers.

A report by the Institute for Learning, with support of the Department for Innovation, Universities and Skills, Lifelong Learning UK and Standards Verification UK, says ICT ability will be one of the personal skills required for teachers to be granted licensed practitioner status. It states that all providers of teaching training must make sure that they work to develop important personal skills, including ICT, in their students.

Looks like only those who are committed to teaching and adopting ICT are given the trust to integrate ICT successfully into classroom practice.