Being at Beacon Primary was a golden opportunity in itself. I was able to observe fellow colleagues design curriculum around ICT to better engage the students.
At Beacon Primary School, Primary 4 students are strongly encouraged to purchase their own notebook computer (referred to as a "Personal Learning Device" or PLD). Students would be able to purchase their own PLDs at a heavily discounted rate from the vendor along with additional software and insurance.
Using their PLDs, students are able to further enhance their skills in working as a team. Teachers would cater their lessons around these PLDs, delivering a lesson as necessary and students would thus go straight to their PLDs for further assignments or research. With the PLD at their fingertips, students are able to pursue any form of research at any time they are free (recess, before or after school) to aid in their learning.
By a plain observation, what can be observed in a Future School environment, is that teachers are able to apply ICT to a great extent. To the best of a teacher's ability, teachers are able to maximize the use of ICT in the classroom. However, as mentioned, how much ICT can do, is based on the teacher's ability. Hence, the environment of the school strongly encourages professional development and upgrading, especially in the field of ICT. Upgrading in the field of ICT has become a core component that upgrading in terms of pedagogy also means upgrading in ICT skills. With upgrading, teachers are sharing their techniques and allowing other teachers to develop in their pedagogy.
As I mentioned in my second post, with teachers vying to develop themselves, they impart this same spirit to their students. This has come to a point that students seek to do more things with their PLDs and though held back by the lack of ICT skills, they become resourceful enough to search for solutions and even workarounds. They eventually share these solutions with their teachers and it becomes a cycle for learning. The teachers facilitate the learning of the students and the students share their knowledge with the teacher.
In conclusion, ICT in the schools is playing an important role. Teachers are able to develop themselves as professionals and students are driven to learn.
