Achievement(s) of the 3 masterplans for ICT in educaton in YPS

For the third post, describe which achievement(s) of the three masterplans for ICT in education are evident in the school/classes that you are attached to for your ESE. You may want to refer to your blog post about your ESE.

This is going to be a relatively shorter post because most of the content can be found in my first and second blog entries. 

During my ESE, I observed various use of ICT tools in teaching and learning. The principal, vice-principals and teachers are generally receptive to integrating ICT into the school curriculum despite the large amount of effort and time they have to put into the preparation of ICT-based lessons. Integration of ICT into the school curriculum can be seen through the preparation of powerpoint slides to explain certain concepts in class, looking for interesting videos to reinforce these concepts and even learning trails outside schools using iPod Touch to arouse the interest of students in learning. As they become more interested in the various topics learnt, they will want to learn more and may even do their own research on the topic by themselves, hence developing them into independent learners, one objective of the three masterplans. In addition, the school had also hold an e-learning day during my one month stay. The students were expected to watch the online lecture and do an online assignment to check their understanding after that.  

Masterplans for ICT in education

For your second post, share what you think about the following:

·          In your opinion, why do you think it is important for MOE to develop the three Masterplans for ICT in education?

·          Has any of the Masterplans impacted you as a student? Share your experience of how ICT had been used in the classes you attended as a student (if applicable)

·          Based on your enhanced school experience, how do you think the current Masterplan 3 may affect your role(s) as a beginning teacher?

MOE has developed three Masterplans for ICT in education to keep up with the technological advances over these years. The first Materplan (MP1) was introduced in April 1997 and was adopted by the schools up till 2002. According to RADM Teo Chee Hean, the minister for education then, MP1 was aimed to provide an IT-based teaching and learning environment in every school and this would help the students to think creatively, to learn independently and to communicate effectively. By the end of MP1, all schools in Singapore had integrated ICT into their curriculum in one way or another. All schools had the essential physical and ICT infrastructure for ICT-based teaching and learning. For instance, the student to computer ratio of 6.6:1 and 5:1 is achieved in primary and secondary/JC respectively. In addition, trainings and upgrading courses are given to teachers to allow them to have the basic skills in integrating ICT into the curriculum.

The second Masterplan (MP2) was introduced in July 2002 and was adopted by the schools up till 2008. According to MrTharman Shanmugaratnam, the minister for education then, MP2 was aimed to integrate curriculum, assessment, instruction, professional development and the culture of the school altogether. By the end of MP2, it was expected that the students would be able use ICT for active learning; teachers would be able to use ICT effectively for professional and personal growth and schools would have a greater capacity and autonomy in the use of ICT for school improvement as a whole.

The third Masterplan (MP3) was introduced in August 2008 and is adopted by the schools today. It will be adopted by the schools up till 2014. According to Dr Ng Eng Hen, the minister for education then, MP3 was aimed to continue the vision of MP1 and MP2 and also to enrich and transform the learning environments of our students so as to allow them to be global competitive and to succeed in today’s world  

In 1997, many countries, especially developed countries have introduced plans to integrate IT into the school curriculum. According to ASCD Report in January 1997, the United States has established a $200 million Technology Literacy Challenge Fund which will give American students access to computers and more than 6000 schools will be linked. To remain global competitive, Singapore saw the need to come up with a comprehensive Masterplan to harness ICT for education so as to groom students to be comfortable with new technologies and able to use technology to think innovatively and creatively.

Next, it was evident that ICT had improved the way we worked, learnt and played in 1997. MOE has great foresight in believing that the next century will witness the increased use of ICT in our everyday lives. Not only aiming to prepare the younger generations to be comfortable with new technologies and remain global competitive, MOE also wished to integrate ICT in administrative and management areas so that the education system in Singapore continued to remain top-notched in the world.

In 2002, Singapore saw a need to renew MP1 and launch MP2. As the world is rapidly changing, plans have to be revised and modified to achieve the objectives and goals in a more effective and efficient manner. It was important to launch MP2 which built on the achievements of MP1. More training was given to teachers to not only improve on their ICT skills, but also to use the ICT skills in everyday classroom teaching. Using ICT tools as an aid to help the students learn better is the ultimate aim of the Masterplans.

I was in the upper primary and lower secondary when the MP1 was introduced. I was given the chance to go for basic Microsoft Word processing and Microsoft Powerpoint workshop when I was in Primary 3 and 4 respectively. I learnt to use the computer keypad to type in simple letters and learnt to create my personalized name card through the Microsoft Word processing workshop. As for the Microsoft Powerpoint workshop in Primary 4, I learnt to create simple powerpoint slides with visual and audio animations. Unfortunately, there were no more such workshops organized for us as we were busy with Co-curriculum activities (CCA) and core subjects’ curriculum to prepare us for the Primary School Leaving Examination (PSLE). In my lower secondary school days, ICT was not integrated into the school curriculum and we were not given any chance to go for any ICT workshops (at least not in my memory).

When MP2 was introduced, I was in upper secondary and junior college. In secondary 3, when SARS caused a worldwide frantic, we did e-learning for a week or two as the school was closed. An online portal was created for us and we had to do independent learning. After watching the video uploaded by our various teachers and reading up the textbooks, we had to do online assignment to test on our understanding for the topic learnt by ourselves. It was then when we realized the importance of e-learning, especially in times of emergencies and disease outbreaks such as SARS. And so in subsequent years in my education life, there will always be e-learning week in a year. In college year 1, we had to do a project work. During project work lessons, our teacher will bring us to the computer labs to ease our completion of the project.

In YPS, I have observed that students tend to enjoy more during lessons in which their teachers have made use of the ICT tools. Despite the ICT tool used is just a simple laptop with powerpoint slides prepared to teach certain concepts, the students tend to pay more attention and ask more questions. Some of the visual and audio animations in the powerpoint slides capture their attention. In my opinion, I feel that using videos to reinforce the main idea of the lesson is a great way of making the students learn and remember them clearly. In addition, whenever I was doing relief in YPS, most of my classes would ask me whether I will bring them to the computer lab. And whenever I said I will bring them to the computer lab if they behave themselves, they will be really well-behaved throughout the entire day. This carrot-and-stick approach I have used and the general observations on classroom teaching by the experienced teachers in YPS have proven to me that most of the children love to have ICT- based lesson.   

Based on my enhanced school experience (ESE) in Yishun Primary School (YPS), I think that the current Masterplan 3 (MP3) is going to affect my role as a beginning teacher in many different ways.

Firstly, I will need to constantly upgrade myself with not only the knowledge in my school curriculum, but also knowledge outside it. I will need to read widely, get in touch with the world news and made use of various ICT tools so as to expand and enrich the learning environment of my students. Due to the advanced social media and technology improvements, students are now exposed to a lot more things than in the past and are perhaps more IT-savvy than teachers do, as a role of a beginning teacher, I will have to constantly keep up with the latest technologies and news so as to engage my students better.

Secondly, I must not be afraid to learn from my students as well. Some IT-savvy students can really know more things than teachers do. After all, teachers learn from the students as well. As quoted by John Cotton Dana, who dares to teach must never cease to learn.

Thirdly, I hope, as a beginning teacher, through the various ICT tools available, I can make my teaching more interesting to students and make them want to learn more. Perhaps, with time, I can even come up with new teaching ICT tools to instill my students to think creatively and innovatively, which is one of the ultimate goal in which all the Masterplans will want to achieve.

   

The start of an end...

My Commencement last month marked the end of my University life. At the same time, it is also the start of my new phase of life- in the Teaching Fraternity. I'm really excited to embark on this new learning journey. I started this new learning journey with a short one month attachment (Enhanced School Experience a.k.a ESE) at Yishun Primary School.

With no prior classroom teaching experience, this ESE program allows me to step into a school as a teacher for the first time. It was an interesting and brand new experience. In my short one month stay in Yishun Primary School, I was given more opportunities to do relief teaching rather than observing lessons conducted by the experienced teachers. Out of the (only) three lessons that I have observed, I would like to highlight one lesson with the class 5-Perserverance. Students in 5-Perserverance are of average caliber in terms of their academic abilities. It was a Science lesson on the human respiratory system conducted by their Science teacher- Miss Nisha. Throughout the one hour observation in the class, the students left me a wonderful impression in terms of their personalities. They were respectful and responsive towards Miss Nisha and me.

Miss Nisha started the lesson by giving her students five minutes to do a short revision on the concepts being taught in the previous lesson. Then she specifically pin-point students to answer on the questions based on the concepts taught earlier. After the revision, she used her laptop to show her students a video on the new concept (the mechanism of respiratory system) in which she would like to teach her students. The video was taken from the LEAD Portal, which is an online portal widely used by the school especially so for e-learning purposes. She paused the video as deemed appropriate, to reinforce and emphasize on the ideas and knowledge conveyed by the video. The Science textbook was not used throughout the explanation of the new concepts. Students seemed to be interested and were paying attention to the video shown. In my opinion, using the video instead of the textbook seems to have a positive impact in students’ learning by arousing their interests on the topic taught. After showing the video and explaining the concepts and before ending the lesson, Miss Nisha did an experiment in class. The objective of the experiment was to find out the volume of air exhaled. Miss Nisha used the visualizer to show the experiment to the class. The apparatus required were a container of water, a plastic bottle and a straw. Due to time and space constraints, Miss Nisha was not able to allow each and every individual student to do the experiment. Hence, a student was called up to be the representative for the experiment. The student was asked to exhale the air from his nose into the straw which is connected to the inverted plastic bottle placed in the container of water. The class was then asked to observe the air bubbles in the plastic bottle and the drop in water level in the plastic bottle.

Moving away from the specific observations made during the Science lesson with 5-Perserverance, I have talked to some teachers in the school about their opinions and feelings on the use of ICT for teaching and learning. In particular, I would like to highlight on the conversation with Mr. Leong, the Subject Head (SH) of ICT in YPS.

As technology advances so rapidly these days, ICT becomes an essential component in everyone’s life. To prepare students for that, the school has set up an ICT department and incorporates the use of ICT in the school curriculum. Approximately 20% of the students’ time in school revolves around the use of ICT. The ICT department’s vision is to create an IT-enriched learning environment where students acquire knowledge and skills for self-directed learning (SDL) and collaborative learning (COL). There are several goals in the ICT department and they include integrating the objectives of the MasterPlan3 into the curriculum and equipping pupils with baseline ICT skills. More details can be found on the school website http://www.yishunpri.moe.edu.sg/Departments_NONCore_ICT.html.

Laptops, computers and visualizers are the most common ICT tools used for all levels in the school. There are three computer labs in YPS and teachers are encouraged to bring their students to the computer labs for e-learning purposes. A ‘Mobile Cart’ which contains 15-20 laptops will be ready by the end of September 2011. This ‘Mobile Cart’ can be borrowed by the teachers for classroom teaching and learning, allowing a ratio of 2 students to 1 laptop. I find this pretty useful as it will allow teachers to have more opportunities to integrate subject curriculum into ICT learning for students, even in classroom.

There are two key ICT Programmes in YPS. Firstly, they have the iPod Touch Programme. This programme is targeted mainly for lower-middle primary students (Primary 1-4) and is aimed at giving students’ a head start in technology, as well as making learning fun and engaging for them. Upper primary students seem to be less involved due to their busy schedules in remedial and extra supplementary lessons in preparation for the Primary School Leaving Exam (PSLE). During one of the assembly session in the hall, I observed one of the teachers in YPS introduced iPod Touch to all the Primary 1 students, teaching them how to switch on and off, from the visualizer. I could see that the students were really excited about it from their delightful expressions when they see the iPod Touch on their teacher’s hands. I was told that the Primary 1-4 children have the opportunities to go on a learning trail out of school using the iPod Touch. The school has organized field trips to the Zoological Gardens for Primary 1 and 2 students, Botanical Gardens for Primary 3 students and Sungei Buloh Wetland Reserve for Primary 4 students. Unfortunately, during my one month stay in YPS, I was not given the chance to tag along any class for the field trips. In their learning journeys to different places, they will be using the iPod Touch to learn about the facts of animals in the Zoological Gardens, the plants in the Botanical Gardens and the wildlife in the Sungei Buloh Wetland Reserve. They have to do online assessment quizzes and even create podcasts on the things they have learnt. In my opinion, I feel that this iPod Touch Programme is awesome and really arouse the students’ interest in learning about many interesting and new things that would not have been made possible in the daily routine classroom teaching and learning.

Secondly, the school has computer skills training programme for all levels. The main objective of this programme is to equip pupils with the necessary information and ICT literacy skills. For example, in primary 1, the ICT skills taught are iPod touch. They will also learn simple touch typing, basic operations and basic Microsoft Word. When the students progress up to primary 6, they will be learning more advanced ICT skills such as the Microsoft Excel, iMovie and iPhoto.  

In conclusion, the teachers in YPS welcome the use of ICT for teaching and learning from the effort they made for the students of all levels in the school. Problems faced by the teachers in incorporating ICT into subject curriculum such as the lack of time (for example, not enough time to complete the syllabus) and sometimes resources (for example, not enough computers) are inevitable. However, I believe that these problems would eventually be eliminated given enough determination.