#1. My Enhanced School Experience

Enhanced School Experience: Classroom Observations of ICT Use

School Name: Peicai Secondary School

Class: Secondary 3 Express

Profile of the class: Class is generally chatty but on-task and cooperative. Because they are in the Express stream, they have the ability to grasp concepts relatively better than the other streams.

Subject: Social Studies

What ICT tools were used in the lesson?

• powerpoint slides
• Internet
• YouTube

Describe how ICT is used for teaching and learning in the lesson.

In order to capture the students' attention and interest as well as to engage them, the teacher used mainstream media such as YouTube. For example, because the topic was on the causes & consequences of the conflict in Northern Ireland, the teacher inserted YouTube links and played the videos either before or after elaborating the issues concerned - depending on whether there was a need for the students to address some questions pertaining to the contents & objectives of the videos, or reflecting upon the pressing issues after having viewed the videos.

There was also active engagement and participative discussion amongst the students when the teacher used the platform of 'thinkpad' - an online writing pad that enables everyone to view & share their thinking processes and answers simultaneously while typing them out.

Also, many political cartoons were inserted in the powerpoint slides as a way to prod the students into thinking and answering any source-based questions hence sharpening this required skill.

How do teachers in the school feel about the use of ICT for teaching and learning? (For this question, you may want to speak to the HOD/ICT and other teachers you know in the school.)
The teachers feel that the traditional way of droning on & on throughout the pages as well as writing on the board no longer works for both teachers and students - the students will definitely get bored and restless or choose to 'switch off' their thinking caps, and because of these teachers may get frustrated. The traditional way no longer serves both parties well. And because students these days seem to be visually-inclined, any form of medium that they can feast their eyes on has the capacity to pique their interest in the subject/topic. Certainly, they are able to remember the concepts well because of the graphics or even the entertaining contents of the medium. However, it is undeniable that because of this use of ICT in teaching and learning, teachers have to go the extra mile to prepare the lessons as well as come up with interactive resources. This equates to having to do more work. But the effort pays off because the students will enjoy the lesson and leave the classroom with something to remember.