ICT & Learning

I was at the library the other day and found an amazing book, perhaps a life saver for this semester. It is called “Oversold and Underused” by Larry Cuban. In this book there are a lot of examples of how ICT can be used in school to get the most out of classes. There’s a lot of obvious examples that I didn’t even consider before I read about them although I knew of them. Anyway, I want to give you some examples that I found of value, if you are writing about the same as I am, ICT and Learning.

Remember the Spanish class the other day? Well, I don’t know about you guys, but although we didn’t get the most of it, it was pretty fun (at least I though so). Why? Because instead of the same old boring “listening-to-a-dull-teacher-class” we got to play a certain role, which made it all a bit more interesting and exciting. Since some of the characters were supposed to ruin the Spanish lesson for others, the whole lesson kind of “went down the drain”. I don’t think we were supposed to learn Spanish that day, but something more abstract and complicated which I haven’t figured out yet. Never mind that now.

I think everyone that were present that day agrees with me when I say that the final part of the session was the most fun (when we listened to the words and sentences using the head set). That is one good example of introducing ICT in the learning process. Think about all the lectures you have attended (or not :p ) during your time at the University. Which ones were most interesting? If you look back at the most interesting ones, I bet you picked those specific ones (at least some of you) because maybe the Lecturer used a computer program to not only tell you about the subject, but also illustrate it, using pictures and flashes etc. I especially remember the lecture Kjeldsen in PRAKTINF held about Picture analysis and Jo’s lecture about his research project in the Atlantic Ocean. Why were these lectures more interesting than others? Not necessarily because of the subjects they were talking about , but because of the way they used ICT during their Lectures.

ICT in Learning!

There are several other examples as well. Kids playing simple platform games similar to such as super Mario, only instead of defeating bosses to get to the next level, you must e.g. solve math problems etc. These types of learning techniques are getting more and more common in todays schools. The import of ICT to learning arenas such as schools. I hope this helped someone define what ICT in Learning really is. It can be everything from complex video-games and flash-presentations to simple overhead-presentations. At least that is my understanding of it.

A good tip might be to think about your own education, how did the different professors get through to you? What techniques were used? For instance the MOO we use in HUIN102 now. It is ICT in learning, but it doesn’t necessarily have to be positive and good way of learning, but you can still mention it in your paper, e.g. why doesn’t it work the way you hoped it would? What could be done to improve this etc.