Integrating ICT into the CurriculumTeacher ICT Training November 20th 2013

What do we want to do with ICT?

We want to create and support 21st Century Learners/Learning

What characterizes the 21st Century Learner?

How is the environment created to support 21st Century Learning?

How Do You Define 21st-Century

Learning?http://www.edweek.org/tsb/articles/2010/10/12/01panel.h04.html

The term "21st-century skills" is generally used to refer to certain core competencies such as collaboration, digital literacy, critical thinking, and problem-solving that advocates believe schools need to teach to help students thrive in today's world.

The idea of what learning in the 21st century should look like is still open to interpretation—and controversy.

Perspectives on 21st Century Learning

I cannot understand why classrooms have whiteboards but no classroom libraries.

The research, to date, has provided no evidence that having either computers or whiteboards in schools has any positive effect on students’ reading and writing proficiencies.

But school and classroom libraries are well established as essential if we plan to develop a literate citizenry.

Perspectives on 21st Century Learning

Twenty-first-century learning means that students master content while producing, synthesizing, and evaluating information from a wide variety of subjects and sources with an understanding of and respect for diverse cultures.

Students demonstrate the 3 Rs, but also the 4 Cs: critical thinking, creativity, communication, and collaboration.

They demonstrate digital literacy as well as civic responsibility.

Learning of this nature demands well-prepared teachers who draw on advances in cognitive science and are strategically organized in teams, in and out of cyberspace.

Perspectives on 21st Century Learning

Success in the 21st century requires knowing how to learn.

Students today will likely have several careers in their lifetime. They must develop strong critical thinking and interpersonal communication skills in order to be successful in an increasingly fluid, interconnected, and complex world.

Technology allows for 24/7 access to information, constant social interaction, and easily created and shared digital content.

Perspectives on 21st Century Learning

In this setting, educators can leverage technology to create an engaging and personalized environment to meet the emerging educational needs of this generation.

No longer does learning have to be one-size-fits-all or confined to the classroom.

The opportunities afforded by technology should be used to re-imagine 21st-century education, focusing on preparing students to be learners for life.

Perspectives on 21st Century Learning

But being able to Google is no substitute for true understanding. Students still need to know and deeply understand...

They need to be able to … to speak a language besides their mother tongue.

According to most 21st-century skills’ advocates, students needn’t actually walk around with such knowledge in their heads, they need only to have the skills to find it. I disagree.

Twenty-first-century technology should be seen as an opportunity to acquire more knowledge, not an excuse to know less.

11 Characteristics Of 21st Century

Learning1. Learner-centered 

2. Media-driven (this doesn’t have to mean digital media)

3. Personalized

4. Transfer-by-Design

5. Visibly Relevant

6. Data-Rich

11 Characteristics Of 21st Century

Learning7. Adaptable

8. Interdependent

9. Diverse

10. Opportunity to play, develop passion, find purpose, to be creative and innovative

11. Equality

Limits and Challenges of Technology - Insecurity

…There is a constant insecurity that someone somewhere is doing it better–faster, smarter, for less money, with better results. The trouble is that the data for these “other people” that are undoubtedly “doing it better” is usually scant:

The desire to maintain, keep up, and “embrace,” it is possible to run roughshod over common sense and planning–and miss the why the technology does or does not work.

Without this careful attention to the ins and outs of pedagogy and how people learn, such adoption becomes a me-too contest that works with the precision of a grenade.

Limits and Challenges of Technology – Blind Adoption

For technology to be effective beyond cursory notions of “engagement” or publicity, it must be holistically married to curriculum, instruction, and assessment.

Very little coverage actually delves into the cognitive, emotional, or cultural mechanisms that are enacted by great technology. It may be a relative lack of pedagogical expertise, too little experience with instructional design, or that there is simply little perceived interest in how it all works.

Technology is expensive, ages fast, and can be irrationally frustrating when it doesn’t do what it’s supposed to do. This can lead to disillusionment by users–learners and educators–a misplaced anger that can deter future adoption on shaky logical grounds.

Limits and Challenges of Technology – Blind Adoption

Aggressive technology adoption is a recipe for waste.

Widespread implementation of anything that is hoped to literally transform learning needs to be done with a macro view of the entire learning ecology, not an insecure notion of keeping up with the Jones’.

Understanding why technology works also helps us understand its limits, not simply to inform future tech evolution, but to more accurately re-evaluate the role of teachers, curriculum experts, app developers, and most critically the communities that technology should ultimately serve.

How can ICT support?

ICTs should be used to effectively marry Content with Skills.

We already have the content;

So what are 21st Century learning SKILLS?

Problem Solving

Critical Thinking

Communication

Collaboration

Creativity

Self-Directed Learning

Information & Media Literacy

Accountability & Adaptability

Social Responsibility

A framework for 21st Century Learning

Framework

ICT Objectives

We want learners to learn and practice these skills while using technology

The acquisition of those skills will help reveal the relevance of the content

The skilled learner will master the acquisition of content and the application of knowledge

A model for Integrating ICT

Integration of ICT into the curriculum requires an understanding of how ICT could be integrated into the smaller components of the curriculum.

Thus we must think about:ICT integration into a topic, and

ICT integration into a lesson

That takes planning!!

Systematic Planning for ICT Integration in Topic Learning

Systematic Planning for ICT Integration in Topic Learning

Qiyun Wang and Huay Lit Woo

2007

End of Presentation

Check out

http://www.teachthought.com/technology/12-powerful-new-ideas-for-21st-century-learning/