8/5/2008, 4:51:02 PM, evancheerio to lynn : u started a blog with lynn@NIE! haha
8/5/2008, 4:51:18 PM, evancheerio to lynn : just happen to chance upon it when i went to see your profile for fun...
...so now I guess I now have to be more.. well.. HelLOW Weizhen!I still feel abit like an alien who has landed on Planet Education so my fellow aliens from Planet Design (and etc.) kinda like to poke and prod to see what kind of mysterious rituals they hold at Planet Education.
Weizhen, by the way, I am not supposed to be writing about such things but am supposed to be diligently reviewing my work because my professor reads this (see comment in the previous entry). And so here's presenting to you, fellow aliens from Planet Etc, this is "what I learnt this week".
First things first, I finally found out the ICT stands for Info Comm Technology. Call me slow but I was really wondering why nobody bothered to spell it out at all. Like, I get the gist of it and I know what it's supposed to mean.. but I really didn't know what it stood for exactly.
Secondly, there's alot of talk about ICT in Education, according to the recent news. And more and more discussions on how to make classes more engaging, more pupil-oriented and the many concepts on self and experiential-learning. On that note, I do understand the importance of it as I have witnessed the D&T Department returning $10 000 of the $13 000 budget they were given for upgrading, as they were all still satisfied with their blackboards, cramped and stuffy class conditions, and old machines and tools. And a student getting traumatized as she was badly scolded into not being allowed to color her work in a gradient shade via mixing of colors, but that everything had to be in flat color as that was considered so much nicer according to the engineer teaching design.
Last lesson, we were given this wonderful class management framework of engaging students first in group work, allowing for breadth of work before zooming in to individual work so that there is enough material for each person to work with. Things that provide opportunities for Collaboration, Authentic activities/environments, Scaffolding and Evaluation formative/meaningful (CASE). All about exploiting teamwork to push out the best in an individual. And then I think back to the D&T lessons where the teacher just drew an isometric drawing from start to finish really clumsily as he doesn't really know how to operate MS PowerPoint and talking to himself with students talking, sleeping and doing 101 other things (and this is in a girls school that doesn't really have any discipline problems as all students come in with a PSLE score of more than 260). And my brain just gets stuck in the thought of.. Okay, ICT is really cool and I can see this big beautiful picture MOE has for teachers and all these ideas of teacher-student collaborations, teamwork and fun-learning. And then I see this scenario in school. And I just wonder what happened in between? Suddenly everything you hear about the Masterplan II and III, RSS etc. all becomes just a bunch of mambo jumbo..
I think the "death" of a teacher occurs when enthusiasm about life dies, and the need to constantly keep up with the rest of the world in order to stay relevant disappears through being too absorbed in School life, which probably gives one of the reasons why its difficult for teachers to be employed in other sectors after that as well. And which is probably why many of us have interesting stories to tell of teachers who seemed abit less normal perhaps.
I don't know. Looking at how it is so very important to use ICT and all, and looking at the examples given, I think a general vivaciousness and optimism results in a much better application. I say this because I too get irritated on behalf of the students when they have to use some irrelevant software, or do something irrelevant to their learning as ICT had to be used for the sake of using ICT. Especially when the student realised she could teach her teacher how to use the software she was teaching her and even recommend a more relevant software..
In that sense, seeing the 2 extremes, I'm kinda glad we have ICT classes at NIE to at least give us that kick in the butt, removing the wool over our eyes and really gearing us for teaching in the "Modern World of Technology"...
I think I can just summarize my general feelings to just these few points: I know what is expected, and I know what are the steps that need to be taken. Optimism too is a key survival tool. But the question to myself is how to ensure that this fight for life, doesn't die in this hustle bustle on earth?
Last lesson, we were given this wonderful class management framework of engaging students first in group work, allowing for breadth of work before zooming in to individual work so that there is enough material for each person to work with. Things that provide opportunities for Collaboration, Authentic activities/environments, Scaffolding and Evaluation formative/meaningful (CASE). All about exploiting teamwork to push out the best in an individual. And then I think back to the D&T lessons where the teacher just drew an isometric drawing from start to finish really clumsily as he doesn't really know how to operate MS PowerPoint and talking to himself with students talking, sleeping and doing 101 other things (and this is in a girls school that doesn't really have any discipline problems as all students come in with a PSLE score of more than 260). And my brain just gets stuck in the thought of.. Okay, ICT is really cool and I can see this big beautiful picture MOE has for teachers and all these ideas of teacher-student collaborations, teamwork and fun-learning. And then I see this scenario in school. And I just wonder what happened in between? Suddenly everything you hear about the Masterplan II and III, RSS etc. all becomes just a bunch of mambo jumbo..
I think the "death" of a teacher occurs when enthusiasm about life dies, and the need to constantly keep up with the rest of the world in order to stay relevant disappears through being too absorbed in School life, which probably gives one of the reasons why its difficult for teachers to be employed in other sectors after that as well. And which is probably why many of us have interesting stories to tell of teachers who seemed abit less normal perhaps.
I don't know. Looking at how it is so very important to use ICT and all, and looking at the examples given, I think a general vivaciousness and optimism results in a much better application. I say this because I too get irritated on behalf of the students when they have to use some irrelevant software, or do something irrelevant to their learning as ICT had to be used for the sake of using ICT. Especially when the student realised she could teach her teacher how to use the software she was teaching her and even recommend a more relevant software..
In that sense, seeing the 2 extremes, I'm kinda glad we have ICT classes at NIE to at least give us that kick in the butt, removing the wool over our eyes and really gearing us for teaching in the "Modern World of Technology"...I think I can just summarize my general feelings to just these few points: I know what is expected, and I know what are the steps that need to be taken. Optimism too is a key survival tool. But the question to myself is how to ensure that this fight for life, doesn't die in this hustle bustle on earth?
1 comment:
Yes, I do read all your blogs. And so can everyone else. Therein lies the beauty and danger of maintaining blogs: The audience is wide and they can provide a range of perspectives!
So while those more or less outside the realm of education may be reading your blog, you never know what impact they might have on you and you on them.
Dr Tan
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