Information and communication technologies in schools: a ...

MORE COMPLEX EDUCATIONAL EVENTS
In this section, we consider more complex educational events and how ICT can
be used as successful learning tools for these.
Approaching the new literacy
Literacy is the ability to vocalize a written text, or, conversely, transcribe an oral
text. This skill is overvalued in the same manner as mechanical numeracy – the
ability to do calculations mentally or with a pen and paper – because often we
measure overall learning success of students by the speed of their oral reading or
mental calculations. ICT can do these operations much more quickly and with
better quality anyway. At the same time, higher-level competences are becoming
more and more important. Priorities are changing. The new literacy – the system
of basic linguistic, logico-computational, and communicative skills and competencies,
needed to deal with internal and external technology – is a latchkey
that opens the doors of subsequent stages of organized teaching and learning. An
introduction of ICT in schools gives students an impetus to learn, unlocking
many doors of perception and cognition.
We now discuss the roads by which young learners can approach the new
literacy and the role of ICT.
Oral language learning
The first, and in many cases the best, teacher is a child’s mother and other family
members. Different processes are involved in learning the mother tongue,
like imitating, asking questions and claiming help. A child also learns a lot just
by moving, seeing, listening, smelling, and falling. An adult’s presence and interaction
is not always critical. Interaction with the physical world, observing and
imitating an adult’s behaviour, can sometimes be enough. Usually a computer
cannot add much to, or substitute for, the development of this process of understanding
physical reality. However, it can provide a considerable part of what an
adult does in connection with a child’s learning activity. Every object on a screen,
for example, can pronounce its own name when touched. If an action or an event
is occurring on the screen, the participants can explain what they are doing.
Today’s computers can even ask questions, hear and correct answers.
ICT in Learning and Teaching
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