November 12, 2007 – 4:19 am
What does the Oxley staff think and feel about integrating ICTs?
I can see these challenges
- Integrating all the technology (laptops, projectors, IWBs, local network, wireless, etc.) will be a challenge. I hope it works out well and is doesn’t take a lot of time and fiddling with IT before we can focus on the learning activities.
- PD – It will be a challenge to train staff how to integrate ICTs. Time will be required to feel competent and make use of the resources.
- Some people felt their was a fine line between what students know and can already do with technology and what the teacher contributes to this. Do we stay ahead? Work with? Try to keep up? Others saw it as a fallacy that students were well-versed in technology use. This position saw a wide range of mixed abilities across the student population and that most skills that did exist were not related to learning so much as manipulating the technology.
- Some people sought a skills continuum (for staff and students) so that people could see where they are, what is helpful to be learned next and where all of it is leading to.
- It would be a challenge to track students’ progress at achieving outcomes and some felt that ICT use shouldn’t be an imperative as long as the outcomes are achieved. Others pointed to the syllabus requirements for ICT integration.
- Some lamented the decrease in skills that previous technologies have brought on. The example was the use of the calculator and how this has led to poorer computation skills. This same perspective questioned whether technology would be used simply because it’s there.
- Others saw the power of technology to engage students and provide relevance to content areas. A challenge in this area was the availability of access: the difficulty getting sustained time in a computer labs was referred to several times.
- The session ended with a passionate plea to not abandon books, but to promote a love of reading.
I’m feeling overwhelmed
I’m excited!
I have these suggestions…