I believe ICT provides a rich and flexible learner-centred environment in which students can experiment and take risks when developing new understanding. Being given the opportunity to teach IT is an excellent but challenging experience, It is very rewarding to see students succeed and even surpass expectations, learners can at times have more knowledge than the teacher, as even the most ‘seasoned’ IT teachers would attest to! It’s important that both beginning and established teachers identify the exceptional opportunities that ICT provides for teachers in delivering content to learners as well as aiding students in developing knowledge. From a pedagogical theory view, the use of ICT is a superb method of promoting constructivist learning principles in students, allowing students to construct knowledge through technology-based means.
While completing my pre-service teaching rounds through the University of Melbourne, my classes of focus has been the Business Management streams (Business Management, Economics, Legal Studies, Accounting, Industry & Enterprise), This Blog is devoted to providing teachers and parents with Business Management related teaching resources. In teaching my secondary field of I.T. for the Year 9 level class, we focused on the study of creating websites with the use of basic HTML coding. As primarily a business teacher, I took the opportunity to ‘inject’ some business and economics related aspects, implementing cross-curricula content and learning and development.
When designing their personal websites and delivering theory behind HTML coding, I suggested students research other websites which they believed were in the same industry, or closely related with their own website they would develop. This presented a great opportunity to introduce the notion of (in the business world) Enterprise and Entrepreneurial leaders will research the needs of their business idea, gaining an insight into current market trends and identifying targets markets which their business idea will be able to capitalise on. This is a direct focus on Level 6 of VELS Civics and Citizenship:
Learning Focus:
“Students explore what it means to be a leader, considering different leadership styles and learn how they can lead by example. Students are provided with opportunities to participate in leadership activities and projects that contribute to the wellbeing of others and which may have a local, national or global focus”.
Standards (Community engagement):
“At Level 6, students draw on a range of resources, including the mass media to articulate and defend their own opinions about political, social and environmental issues in national and global contexts”
The students were able to identify wants and needs of society and able to apply them in an enterprising or entrepreneurial sense. Some students were also able to use their website as a means to promote a Not-For-Profit or charity cause, this lead to discussions on societal changes, environmental concern and other humanitarian issues.
Another area of cross curricula implementation, which I was able to focus on, was in the demographic make up of different races within the school. This particular school has a very wide range of cultural make-up, student backgrounds including Afghan, Chinese, West-African, Indian and Sub Continent as well as students with Pacific Island decent. This provided another excellent chance to consider areas of target markets and the study of different cultures, using the VELS level 6 Information Technology,
Learning focus:
“Students accept and respect differences in others’ approaches to using ICT for solving problems and designing products, and respect cultural diversity among users of ICT”.
(Cultural acceptance)
“Students use ICT techniques to make their information products accessible to a wide audience, taking into account special needs”.
(Defining target markets for product)
Being able to deliver precise content knowledge within a unit area as well as incorporating cross-curriculum content is an essential skill to possess for any beginning or established teacher!
_______________________________________
References
Victorian Essential Learning Standards Website (2011) Viewed 24th Aug 2011. http://vels.vcaa.vic.edu.au/vels/level6.html
No comments:
Post a Comment