Lesson 12: Information Technology in Support of Student- Centered Learning

THE TRADITIONAL CLASSROOM

            Traditional classrooms are arranged with neat columns and rows of student chairs while the teacher stands in front of the classroom or sits behind his/her desk. This arrangement is needed to maintain the classroom discipline and control the activities to be done every day by the students. 
  

THE SCL CLASSROOM

          John Dewey has described traditional learning as a process in which teacher are the all in providing information. This is called direct instruction.

THE NEW CLASSROOM ENVIRONMENT

·         Performing computer word processing for text or graph presentations.

·         Preparing power- point presentation

·         Searching for information on the internet

·         Brainstorming on ideas, problems and project plans as needed, the teacher facilitating instruction, also gives individualized instruction to serve individual's needs.

Lesson 11: The Computer as a Teacher’s Tool

Constructivist and Social Constructivist

Constructivist: Introduced by Piaget and Bruner. They gave stress to knowledge discovery of new meaning/concepts/principles in the learning process.

Social Constructivist: An effort to show that the construction of knowledge is governed by social, historical and cultural contexts. Lev Vygotsky stressed that learning is affected by social influences. For John Dewey human learning is interacting with one another.

Framework:

1.   Knowledge is constructed by the individual while in social constructivist; knowledge is constructed within a social context.

2.   Students build their own learning while in social constructivist; they build knowledge influenced by the social context

3.   They gather unorganized information to create new concept/principle while in social constructivist they share and exchange ideas, form to stimulate thinking.

4.   They discover knowledge individually while in social constructivist they discuss and discover things socially.

The teacher can employ the computer as:

·         Information tool- provides vast amounts of information in various forms

·         Communication tool- talks to students in online world

·         Constructive tool- used for manipulating information, visualizing one’s understanding and building new knowledge

·         Co- constructive tool- students can work cooperatively and construct a shared understanding of new knowledge.

·         Situating tool- by means of virtual reality extension systems, the computer can create 3-D images or display to give user the feeling that are situated in a real environment.

Lesson 10: The Computer as a Tutor

CAI (Computer Assisted Instruction)

The teacher must be sure that his/her learners have the knowledge and skills for any computer activity, decide the appropriate learning objectives, plan the sequential and structural activities to achieve objectives and evaluate the student’s achievement by ways of tests the specific expected outcomes.

 

Students in CAI play their roles as learners as they receive information, understand instructions for the computer activity, retain in mind the information and rules for the computer activity, and apply knowledge and rules during the process of computer learning.

The computer too, plays its roles as it acts as a sort of tutor, provides learning environment, delivers learning instruction, reinforces learning through drill-and-practice, and provides feedback. 

Simulation programs:

-          Instructional games

-          Problem Solving Software

-          Multimedia Encyclopaedia and Electronic Books

Lesson 9: Computers as Information and Communication Technology

Computer-assisted instruction (CAI) refers to instruction or remediation presented on a computer. Many educational computer programs are available online and from computer stores and textbook companies. They enhance teacher instruction in several ways.

The Personal Computer (PC) as ICT

Instructional media consists of audio- visual aids that served to enhance and enrich the teaching- learning process. 

Educational media comprise the media communication to audiences including learners using the print, film, radio, and television or satellite means of communication.

Programs installed in an ordinary modern PC:

-          Microsoft Office

-          Power point

-          Excel

-          Internet Explorer

-          Yahoo or Google

-          Adobe Reader

-          MSN

-          Windows Media Player

-          Cyber Power

-          Gamehouse

Lesson 8: Higher Thinking Skills through IT- Based Projects

There are 4 types of IT- Based Projects namely:

1.      Resource- based projects

2.      Simple creations

3.      Guided hypermedia projects

4.      Web- based projects

Resource- Based Projects

The teacher steps out of traditional way and become now the facilitator and guide. The students now find their own facts and information. The students use their own skills and the teachers, being the facilitator facilitates the classroom and her/his students. These students/ learners, relies or have a variety of resources not just the book, but they have now their modern library, the internet.

Simple Creations

            Students are also assigned to work on their software material. In developing software, creativity as an outcome should not be equated with ingenuity or high intelligence rather it is more constant with planning, making, assembling, designing, or building. 

Skills:

1.      Analysing

2.      Synthesizing

3.      Promoting 

To develop creativity, the following 5 key tasks may be recommended:

1.      Define the task

2.      Brainstorm

3.      Judge the ideas

4.      Act and;

5.      Adopt flexibility

Guided Hypermedia Project

            The production of self- made multimedia projects can be approached into different ways; 1. Instructive tool and 2. Communication tools.

 

Web- based Project

            Students can be made to create and post web pages on a given topic. It allows the students in the internet to post in web pages and definitely a wider audience. Even if it is a single web page, the creativity of the students should be seen.