Futuristic Classroom

"Could ICT replaces the role of teachers in the future"

That one simple statement got me thinking how much ICT has been involved in the classroom from the start of over head projector to computer and now smart-boards. I find it easier for teachers to teach their contents as they are able to visualize what they want to teach and children are able to see it and engage into learning much better. The interactivity of learning has increased with the multiple sensory learning, allowing the children to participate actively in their own learning, leaving the teacher behind to guide and to prompt them.

It came to mind how and what would happen when the teacher's role are taken over my machines. You going to see machines talking to students and teaching them, each child having an individual teaching robot or perhaps children learn from home from the comfort of their bed entering into the virtual classroom with avatars. How cool is that?

Put fantasies aside, actually that would not be a good idea and indeed will not happen as human intereaction is seemly important and must not be removed from education!

Classroom Management

Throughout the whole professional experience, I was facing difficulty in controlling the class. I have never been able to manage the class well or perhaps due to the short duration I am not able to get the kids to understand my expectation for them. Upon reflecting on it I came across Class Dojo on Lindy's blog which is a behavior management software. The software allows us to create an avatar for each of the child and earn rewards of points upon their completion of a task or perhaps their behavior in class. This is another type of ICT that can be integrated without the use of direct teaching. Sad thing is that I did not manage to try this software with the kids in my class.

Perhaps the next session when I am working with kids, I could use this software for managing the classroom, as compared to the traditional use of stickers or any physical rewards. 

What's ICT from today onwards?

The successful integration of ICT in lesson indeed made the lesson interesting and improve the quality of learning for the children, and of course there are failure times as well with the ICT. However what is it from here on-wards. As practical comes to an end quickly, and tomorrow being the last day in school. I was wondering what will I be doing with ICT, how will I use it to the max to integrate learning in the future. Along side with Neeno, we had implemented a few combined ICT lesson. She strikes out one important point of how ICT can be used in capturing attention before the class. With the guidance from the mentor, I come to see that ICT can indeed be used for

Capturing Attention

Retaining attention

Recap learning

Reinforce learning

Learn better things

and the list goes on......

Take a look from Miss Tan's blog reflection on how she carries ICT in class.

Toodles!!