Lesson 8

 Thinking Skills through IT-Based Projects

              Resource-based Projects

In these projects, the teacher steps out the traditional role of being an context expert and information provider, and instead lets the students find their own facts and information. Only when necessary for the active learning process does the teacher the step in to supply data or information. The general flow of events in resource-based projects are:

1.      The teacher determines the topic for the examination of the class.

2.      The teacher represents the problem to the class.

3.      The students find information on the problem/questions.

4. Students organized their information in response to the problem/question.

  

A Webquest- is am inquiry-oriented activity in which most or all of thei information used by he learners are drawn from the web.

       I.            Simple Creations

                               Students can also be assigned to create their software materials to supplement the need for the relevant and effective materials

                             In developing software, creativity as an outcome should not be equated with ingenuity of high intelligence. Creating si more constant with planning, making, assembling, designing, or building. Creativity is said to be combine in three kind of skill/abilities.

               Analyzing- distinguishing similarities and differences/ seeing the project as a problem to be solved

            Synthesizing- Making spontaneous connections among ideas, thus generating interesting or new ideas. 

                     Promoting- selling of new ideas to allow the public to tet ideas themselves   

             The Five Key Task

               Define the task- clarify the goal of the completed project to the stude

                                 Brainstorm- The students themselves will be allowed to generate their own ideas on the project.
                                  Judge the idea- The students themselves make an appraisal for or against any idea.
               Act- The students do their own work with the teacher a facilitator.
                        Adopt flexibility -the students should allow to shift gears and not follow an action path rigidly.

     II.            Guide Hypermedia Projects

The production of self-made multimedia projects can be approached in two different ways:

1.     As an instructive tool, such as in the production by students of power-point presentation of a selected topic.

2.     As a communication tool, such as when students do a multimedia presentation (with text, graphs, photos, audio narration, interviews, video clips, etc. to simulated a television news show.

  III.            Web-based Projects

Students can be made to create and post webpages on a given topic. But creating webpages, even single page webpage, may be too sophisticated and time consuming for the average students.
                                 

Lesson 7

Evaluation of Technology Learning

           

             The standard student evaluation of learning must change. This is justified by the fact that not only has the new generation changed into digital learners, but the traditional world has metamorphosed  into a digital world.

            

              Assessment needs to conform, not with literacy of the past century but the new literacy in 21^st century. This literacy uses digital tools in preparing students to face  high-tech world.

            The comparison is made with the Swiss watch-makers which failed to adapt digital watch-making. The Swiss watch lost its prime position in less than 2 years of neglect to the need to go digital.  

            Evaluation must be geared to assessment of essential knowledge and skills so that learners can function effectively, productively and creativity in a new world.

            It must us evaluative tools that measure the new basic skills of the 21^st century digital culture namely:

•       solution fluency

•       information fluency

•       collaboration fluency

•      creative fluency

•       media fluency and

•       digital citizenship

            For example: In reading, single text becomes less important compared with empowerment  process of being imbibed by varied informative, educational and recreational literature-textual, audiovisual, digital. Apart from form reading, learners are asked to engage in the process of writing reports, essays, articles, stories, power-point presentations, video scripts, drama skills, etc. The standard paper tests will prove inadequate in assessing new learning.

            As students engage in the problem solving process, assessment will also need to focus on 4 Ds (define, design, do, debrief) that empower students to solve problems using higher-level theoretical and practical thinking. 

       As product-outcome learning changes from verbal-textual to textual to digital expressions (research-based outputs in various forms such as audio, video, power-point, multimedia, etc.) evaluation must also changed.

Mass Amateurization

            A term which implies a mass reach of student outputs. The personal and group creative activities in school should aim in bridging the gap between amateur creators of outputs to professional creators of future outcomes and products in the real world.