Final Thoughts

ICT or Information and Communication Technology is the trend in education. I really benefitted a lot from this course since teachers now are required to be updated all the time. I think that knowing ICT concepts are very important to cope with the raapid development in technology. Making learning more interesting especially for hard-to-understand issues is our challenge as teacher, and I think that ICT is the thing that can help us to do so.

ICT as Tutor

ICT as a tutor means involving computers in teaching. Teachers can design or use existing materials in the internet or as software to enhance their teaching. Therefore, these ICT tools as tutor can be in form of drill and practice form, tutorial, simulation, and games. However, teachers need to be careful in choosing materials for their students from the internet, because not all of them in the same level of difficulty or have the same cultural value. Also, the language skills differ from resource to another. So, teacher needs to select the appropriate resources that its content is relevant to the course objectives.

In fact, using ICT programs as a tutor helps teachers in their lessons because these lessons become much enjoyable for students since that students are the one who look for the information in an interesting approach.

1- Tutorial software

This is a tutorial for computer software.

http://www.teach-ict.com/videohome.htm

2-Drill and Practice Software

This is drill and practice software.
http://manassas.k12.va.us/round/Technology/intermed1.htm

3- Games

This game is nice example for learning formatting tools for grade four and five.
http://www.quia.com/mc/276035.html

4- Simulation

This simulation software is for flying a plane.
http://www.microsoft.com/games/flightsimulatorx/flash/default.htm

ICT As MindTool

"Every generation has his ways and his style" this is an old say I used to hear it from my old-age relatives; especially, when they compare their lifestyle with the current. In fact, the same applies for teaching style and methods. In my school, I talked to experienced teachers about what style they prefer in teaching and I found out that they almost prefer the old traditional way of teaching. This cannot fit with the new generations who grown up with computer, internet, mobile, and play station. It's been obvious that such a way of teaching is going to decrease student's desires of learning. Therefore, teachers are encouraged to use Mind-tools like ICT tools to engage student's critical thinking and higher desire of learning.

Technologies have been used traditionally in schools to ‘teach’ students, much the same as teachers ‘teach’ students (tell students what they know and assess their recall and comprehension of what they were told). I do not believe that students learn from computers or teachers—which has been a traditional assumption of most schooling. Rather, students learn from thinking in meaningful ways. Thinking is engaged by activities, which can be fostered by computers or teachers. Thinking is engaged by representing what students know in the forms required by different MindTools.  MindTools, therefore, are computer applications that require students to think in meaningful ways in order to use the application to represent what they know.

A Web Quest

A Web Quest is an inquiry-oriented lesson format in which most or all the information that learners work with comes from the web. Web Quest is also one of the most recent activities that are used in educational work, which employs approved activities on the internet in the classroom. So in this paper I will reflect on what I have learned and read about web quest.

In fact, there are many goals for using the Web Quest. Web Quest gives students the functions and specific activities to enable them to use sources of knowledge available to solve the problems raised in addition to learning life skills such as discovery, reasoning and inference and generalization, so the responses when dealing with the knowledge is not specified in advance, but there is creativity and learning in an active and sustainable In addition, Web Quest is a modern and fantastic occupancy and activation of the students to explore knowledge in a planned and sequential through educational activities, methods of teaching education depends on information technology and work groups such as the methods of problem solving and active learning, which makes the student the center of the educational activity. Moreover, Web Quest allows students to explore specific issues and achieve self-knowledge, and achieve the building of his own knowledge and creativity of it, so the student can deal with the knowledge in a way that does not depend on the conservation and memorization.

Web Quest should be well suited to all levels of students, and  must also contains educational activities and develops the capacities of their different needs. It should also allows them to deal with the educational content and knowledge, and develops a balanced personality that stands for all the views and possible solutions to the issue of research.

There are six key elements to build a Web Quest:
• Introduction: Presentation on the lesson and the boot to raise students' motivation
• Tasks: The development of questions and activities including progressive elements of the lesson and the division of students.
• Procedure: To clarify the mechanisms and steps to accomplish the tasks
• Sources: Links to Internet sites to be used by students
• Assessment: to measure the skills and products that students will master through various activities
• Recommendations and the results are the summary of the lesson ideas and results of activities.

These are the most important ideas about the Web Quest, I defined the web quest, its goals, and its components. And I will try my best to apply this in my lessons.

Web Quest templates, Click here....

Inquiry-based Learning

As we all know that a good teacher always wants to improve his teaching methods and techniques, besides having mastery of his/her subject before anything else. In addition, as an elementary school teacher I can say that children have different strategies for learning and achieving their goals. In this paper I will talk about one of these learning strategies which is "Inquiry based learning".

According to what I have learned in the ICT2 class, I can define the inquiry-based learning, as that it is the approach where the students learn through asking questions, gathering information and ideas, examining relevant issues (big ideas), and making systematic attempts to answer the questions they have identified. The questions and possible answers may lead to possible actions.

Unfortunately, our traditional educational system has worked in a way that discourages the natural process of inquiry. Memorizing facts and information is not the most important skill in today's world. Through the process of inquiry, individuals construct much of their understanding of the natural and human-designed worlds. Inquiry based learning is not just asking questions, but it is a way of converting data and information into useful knowledge. A useful application of inquiry based learning involves many different factors, which are, a different level of questions, a focus for questions, a framework for questions, and a context for questions.

In conclusion, I can say that a good teacher's worksheet enables the student to increase its study skills by providing different ways of viewing the world, communicating with it, and successfully introducing new questions and issues of daily life and finding answers of them.

Student-Centered Learning (Advantages and Disadvantages on the Student)

In this reflection, I will continue talking about the student-centered concept. Student-centered learning has advantages and disadvantages for both students and teachers, but here I will discuss this issue from the student perspective. As we know, in this approach, the responsibility of learning is basically depends on the student. Student-centered learning focuses on how students learn, what they experience, what they bring to the classroom and how they engage.

There are many advantages for student-centered approach on the student. First of all, students learn how to learn through discovery, inquiry, and problem solving. Beside developing student learning, they also develop other skills that will help them through their life, such as: the communicational and team work skills, since they are cooperating, negotiating and working all together in the class. In addition, they develop tolerance, understanding and respect of other’s opinions by listening carefully to each other. Since all the students are involved in the learning process, they become more confident and independent.

In contrast, there are many disadvantages of this approach as well. The students might find the problem of misconception, when they prepare themselves for the class. They sometimes read some ideas or concepts and construct the wrong knowledge in their minds. This why, it would be better if the teacher explain the materials on the CD, or give the students the material in a clear and easy way. Moreover, some of the students do not like such way in learning, because they love to learn in alternative ways and styles like what the teacher does in the traditional classes. Furthermore, some students do not have the team work skills. This why, they may complain about being on teams. I suggest giving the student some session to teach them the team work skills at the beginning of the semester to overcome such problem.

 I think that the student centered learning can be really an opportunity for those students who love to be fully involved in the learning and teaching processes in the class.

Student Centered Approach (Advantages and Disadvantages on the Teacher)

Among the greatest of all services that can be rendered by men to Almighty God, is the education. The learning style is one of the important concepts that deserve to talk about deeply. The term student-centered learning became widely used in the teaching and learning literature. But most of people, especially here in Bahrain, still do not believe in this approach and its effectiveness. This why, they rarely use it. In this reflection I will talk about some advantages and problems that the teacher may encounter when using this approach according to what I have learned in ICT2 class.

First of all, the teacher will have less traditional work to do in the class, so the teacher focus will be on building the student confidence, self-esteem, and strong relationship with the student. In addition, complains about unfairness will absolutely decrease since everyone in the class is involved in the learning process. Furthermore, teaching will be more interesting and fun for the teacher, because it is not going to be only passing knowledge but also student and teacher experiences are exchanged. On the other hand, there might be some problems that the teacher may face when using this approach. One of the most important problems is that the teacher might not be trained to teach the students the team skills. In fact, it is not difficult to overcome such problem. There are a lot of programs, articles or books that can help the teacher to be better in teaching team skills. Moreover, there can be some disruption in the class since it is based on student cooperation. To avoid such problem, the teachers must have the class management skills. In fact, this can be easily acquired even by observing other experienced teachers.

This is what I wanted to explain briefly about the student-centered approach and its impact on the teacher.