Connecting the MP Dots

The days ahead are exciting ones. The EL HOD I spoke to at HS shared with me that the school is looking towards supplying laptops to the students during specific lessons. This is an extension of merely providing the basic infrastructure for ICT in schools. In his words,

“Bringing students to the computer labs is not efficient as they waste a lot of time walking there, settling down and getting started. We are looking towards bringing laptops into the classrooms and letting students work in pairs so that they can participate more. Teachers will also have greater ease in observing the students. Classroom learning can be more spontaneous and interactive.”

He also shared with me that for oral practice, the students have to make podcasts and send it to their teachers, who will then be able to evaluate and give them feedback on specific parts of their speech or diction that need to be improved on. I think this is a wonderful (albeit slightly tedious) way of assessment and evaluation as students will be able to receive personalized feedback on the areas they succeed in or need improvement. Students are also involved in electronic storybooks in which they integrate digital media into the short stories that they write. This not only facilitates sharing but also allows for greater development of the novel. It also exemplifies self-directed learning as students have the creative freedom and initiative to choose their mode of presentation.

That being said, it seems like many teachers still seem restricted by the notion that ICT simply means PowerPoint slides. Based on my observations, much as students benefit from visual aids, they are not engaged in the lesson if it merely involves the teacher reading off the screen. However, it was heartening to see that many of the NIE trainee teachers were incorporating interesting tools like “Fling the Teacher” in their classrooms. One of them even played “Who Wants to be a Geographer” with her class, which they enjoyed a lot. Hence, just like how technology has evolved, I believe we have moved past the era of simple PowerPoints to capitalize on technology in a way that will enhance student participation and involvement. Our next step would be to further involve students in self-directed learning in a way that challenges them to search for and share resources with their classmates through platforms such as Google Sites. Similarly, teachers also need to be constantly updated and aware of new technologies that could enhance their lessons. I believe the SciTecHuMatics Fair was a good example of capacity building and a platform for teachers from different disciplines to collaborate and share their resources.

Thoughts on the Masterplans;

I was a little surprised to read that the MOE Masterplans for ICT had been initiated since 1997. In retrospect, I do not remember having much technology-integrated lessons in my secondary and JC years. In fact, my JC tutors seemed to be Luddites who were bent on training us to take copious, handwritten notes. One of my tutors would even manually cut and paste excerpts from history books and then photostat these notes for us. They clearly did not give a hoot about ICT, but that could also have been because they were British.

Nevertheless, I remember that both my secondary school and JC had adequate computer facilities at the time. Students were often encouraged to come up with PowerPoint presentations and teachers frequently adopted this modus operandi for their lessons as well. E-Learning was only adopted when SARS struck our country and we were all forced to be quarantined for 2 weeks. At that time, the focus on self-directed learning was not apparent as the teachers were scrambling to come up with e-learning classes with the sudden advent of the epidemic.

In the short span of 9 years, however, the technological advancements that have been made have far surpassed the ICT Masterplans 1 & 2 of simply supplying the basic infrastructure in schools. As much as the MasterPlans sought to replicate the pervasiveness of technology in our classrooms, MP1 and 2 are no longer sufficient in meeting the technological standards today. However, MP3 shows a lot of promise in its vision to inculcate self-directed learners that involve both students and teachers. As students are constantly aware of the latest technological developments (perhaps even more so than teachers), it will require a collaborative effort on both parties to fully maximise the potential for engagement and learning that technology has. Hence, I believe there should be a platform where students can also share interesting websites and learning tools that the teachers can then employ, or even videos/internet resources that intrigue or inspire them.

As teachers, the onus also lies on us to demonstrate self-directed learning by keeping ourselves updated with the latest technological developments and resources. However, it is also important to remember that technology should complement the lesson and inspire the ideas that we would want students to think about. Fancy slides with little content still make for a poor lesson if the students are only engaged in the blinking words and moving pictures.

SciTechHuMatics at Hougang Secondary School

This observation was done at the SciTechHuMatics Fair in Hougang Secondary School. I was the facilitator at the Geography Station and was in charge of briefing the teams on their tasks. All the participants were Secondary 3 students and they came from the Express, Normal (Academic) and Normal (Technical) streams. Students represented their classes in groups of 5 and these groups were further categorized into different teams so as to facilitate movement around the different stations. The aim of the fair was to integrate ICT into an multidisciplinary experience as they travelled to different stations and explored the theme of environmental conservation. Students were generally technologically-competent. Most of them had smartphones and were allowed to use them during the fair.

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At the Geography station, students had to log into a WordPress account based on their classes. They then had to use the compass application on the HTC phone they were given (or any smartphone that they had) to navigate themselves to the next station, where they had to read an article on water conservation on WordPress and then answer a question. If they answered the question correctly, they were then given a password which they could use to unlock the next WordPress entry and get directions to the next clue. There were a total of 4 stations to navigate to and the students were told that these were related to water resources that could be found around the school. Thus, the students were able to use technology to navigate themselves as well as learn about water conservation methods in an innovative and engaging manner. However, most of the groups were not able to complete all 4 stations as they only had about 20 minutes.

At the Math Station, students were also told to pen their thoughts on why there was a need to show respect for the environment on the SciTecHuMatics Facebook page. At the Art station, students had to create multimedia posters with Glogster. The teams came up with very creative posters on environmental conservation that included pictures and videos.


More posters can be viewed here.

The SciTecHuMatics Fair was a great hit as the students really enjoyed learning about environmental conservation through different disciplines and platforms. It succeeded in getting the students engaged in this topic with the use of technology and games.

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Teachers in Hougang Secondary School are generally quite open to the use of ICT for teaching and learning. Most of the lessons that I observed were conducted with the use of either powerpoint slides or the visualizer, hence ensuring that the students had visual aids in their learning. The English Department, in particular, has made significant efforts in integrating ICT into lessons. Students are encouraged to develop their short stories into e-storybooks with the use of videos, illustrations and animations. They also receive personalized feedback on their narrative skills as they have to record podcasts whilst practicing for their oral examinations. The school is also preparing for the acquisition of more laptops that can be brought to class instead of having the students work in the computer lab. They believe that this will allow lessons to be more efficient and also interactive. Hence, ICT is increasingly gaining prominence in HS and becoming an integral part of lessons.