Information and communication technologies in schools: a ...

More documents

Recommendations

Info

124 ICT IN SCHOOLS A HANDBOOK FOR TEACHERS Immediate oral communication Lecture Let us start with an important general example of a traditional mode of teaching-learning – a lecture. In the classical model, the teacher speaks and students listen. As in other cases of oral communication, the teacher relies heavily on such extra-verbal components as the tempo of speech, voice dynamics, facial expression, gesticulation, and body movements. These tools of rhetoric are used to express something, to transfer information (including emotional and aesthetic), to hold the attention of students, to impress and to engage them. Teachers control the situation by looking directly at students, tracking signs of interest or absence and other emotions, and using this (mostly non-verbal) feedback to tune up their part of the communication. Feedback from students can be oral or written (in the form of notes handed up to teachers). Depending on the teacher’s rules, students have a chance to speak during a lecture or at the end of the lecture only. This communication is usually limited in time and form; students mostly ask short questions. Teachers can also pose questions to the students, sometimes expecting a non-verbal clearly visible response from all of them such as “Raise your hands, please, if you know who Newton is”. What makes the lecture an important and useful mode of learning and teaching are the following: • One teacher addresses many students and this is economical for providing modern schooling to the whole population, not a selected elite only. • Teachers can react to students’ behaviour in a limited way by adjusting their talk, and individually in a more limited way, by addressing a short message to a specific person and giving other kinds of feedback.
• Within limits, students can solve problems of misunderstanding and unsuccessful communication by asking questions. The disadvantages of the lecture model are that it: • encourages passive learning; • affords limited individualization; and • allows limited extra-verbal communication with a limited use of the senses and channels of human perception. What technologies are involved in the traditional lecture? And what extensions of these do we have, or can we expect in the future? The major information channel for the lecture is the aural one. Of course there is human voice technology – you can be trained to project your voice to an audience of 100-200 people, or more. A special design of the auditorium can contribute to a lecture. Microphones, amplifiers, and other equipment can improve loudness and even acoustic quality of human speech. Students can also use microphones while asking questions. Installing audio equipment for a lecture in a large room or hall can be a sophisticated task that requires a professional. One of the important issues here is to place loudspeakers (the sources of sound) in a way that students get the impression the sound is coming from the lecturer – to amplify mutually two different channels of information, not to confuse them. Using a microphone requires proper positioning – not too far so you cannot be heard, and not so close that your voice is distorted. Surprisingly few people today manage to use a microphone properly, and so good sound in lectures is not so common. Radio microphones are useful when it is desirable to move around in a room or to pass the microphone between discussion participants. An option of using small and light wearable microphones simplifies the problem of proper positioning but also requires simple technical knowledge. The loudspeaker is not the only option for amplification. We can supply every student (and the teacher, if needed) with headphones. Signals to headphones can come via wires or a wireless network. A popular application of headphones is in simultaneous translation, which is not widely used in schools, although often encountered at international meetings of researchers and others, and could be imitated in schools. ICT in Learning and Teaching 125
Page 1 and 2: 3 SCHOOLS IN TRANSITION TEACHERS AN
Page 3 and 4: 2 Communication is an exchange of m
Page 5 and 6: Observation, reflection, imitation
Page 7 and 8: a field of science in order to gras
Page 9 and 10: much to the resolution of the vario
Page 11 and 12: Through this millennial old legacy,
Page 13 and 14: • Teachers draw or use ready-made
Page 15 and 16: Institution for teaching only Becau
Page 17 and 18: to proliferate the same pattern in
Page 19 and 20: Eventually, all these tests, rather
Page 21 and 22: Unfortunately, as Gardner and Paper
Page 23 and 24: the context, meaning, and gestalt o
Page 25 and 26: As a kind of modelling, visualizati
Page 27 and 28: mission of particular knowledge and
Page 29 and 30: What does this mean, functionally,
Page 31 and 32: prose and poetry via a word process
Page 33 and 34: 4 ICT IN LEARNING AND TEACHING The
Page 35: already doing?” By their very nat
Page 39 and 40: This technology allows for clearer
Page 41 and 42: course, the number of actively part
Page 43 and 44: Modern electronic digital media suc
Page 45 and 46: In the traditional school, the stud
Page 47 and 48: Cooperation and sharing Students si
Page 49 and 50: Teachers’ notes Notes can help te
Page 51 and 52: For another example, the concept of
Page 53 and 54: In solving algebraic equations, stu
Page 55 and 56: into existence, and then revitalize
Page 57 and 58: MORE COMPLEX EDUCATIONAL EVENTS In
Page 59 and 60: At the same time, modern children a
Page 61 and 62: When it comes to evaluate their pro
Page 63 and 64: ability to have written, and, somet
Page 65 and 66: An Agent is capable of performing a
Page 67 and 68: items of the standard mathematics c
Page 69 and 70: oriented approach influences the wa
Page 71 and 72: • contacting experts, group discu
Page 73 and 74: All these decisions and changes sho
Page 75 and 76: • access to individualized curric

Information and communication technologies in schools: a ...

Create successful ePaper yourself

Delete template?

Save as template?