Assess Its Advantages and Disadvantages free essay sample

IT 2000 and Internet for education The vision of the IT 2000 plan is that Singapore will be an intelligent island with an advanced nationwide information infrastructure in the 21st century. This vision will bring about new national competitive advantages and enhancements in the quality of life of the people of Singapore. In order for Singaporeans to cope with and derive new capabilities in the information-driven world, it was imperative that MOE strategically plan for the prevalence of information technology (IT) in our mainstream education.The effectiveness of IT in boosting pupils learning, pupils readiness for workforce skills, teachers productivity and cost effectiveness are some of the prime concerns being addressed. The key to the development of these new capabilities is the global network, the Internet. The vast amount of resources available almost instantly from all over the world via the Internet will enrich the curriculum content and the instructional approaches of teachers. This mode of learning will also evolve to one that is independent and engaged through an interactive and generative multimedia environment. The motivation to learn will drive students to excel in the higher-order thinking skills that are required by workers in the global information era of the 21st century. Approaches While our present didactic approach to teaching has the strength of providing students with a good grounding in the basics, it was recognized that there should be greater emphasis on open-ended inquiry and higher-order thinking and process skills. STW is a strategic project between MOE and NCB aimed at using IT to enhance teaching and learning. It is targeted to equip students with relevant skills for tomorrows workplace and provide the impetus for the growth of the local courseware development industry. The pilot covers the sciences for all secondary one students in six schools. A total of 2,400 students are currently involved in this pilot. The pilot was originally targeted to end in December 1996, but it has been extended to December 1997 to allow a more detailed study of the impact of the pilot as the students move into secondary two.Under STW, the Internet has been identified as a major educational resource. Internet access was made available to students on a mass basis. This is another landmark decision as Internet access was then primarily provided for teachers only. With this networked resource made available to students, a whole new approach toward information handling and learning complements was generated. As such, a total approach to training that covered both technical and pedagogical aspects was designed and carried out. Accelerated IT for Primary SchoolsAt the same time, MOE and NCB initiated another project, named Accelerated IT for Primary Schools. This project was also aimed at enhancing the use of IT as a learning and teaching tool in primary education through the use of multimedia PCs and educational CD-ROMs. The present configuration is basically standalone multimedia PC. Network implementation is planned; and when that is completed, the computers will also be linked to the Internet. With this linkup, the pool of educational resources will be greatly enhanced. Collaborative projectsIn the current economic situation in Singapore, it is important that her citizens learn to work in groups both within and outside our physical borders. Student collaborative projects are seen as a good way to prepare our students for tomorrows challenges. Hence, NCB has also initiated some collaborative projects with schools. From a technology point of view, NCB also wanted to study the feasibility of various collaborative tools and their impact on students activities. These tools include applications that support voice and video communication.These projects have also helped to formulate guidelines to assist schools and teachers in integrating such projects into the curriculum. Being a very small country, Singapore is not constrained by physical boundaries. Hence, collaboration with overseas schools will be more meaningful. Our telecommunication infrastructure is prevalent, thus making local collaboration through the Internet irrelevant. A number of lessons were learned in our overseas collaboration. Using tools like CU-SeeMe and Internet Phone require that the parties be online at the same time. However, this is not always possible.In the case of the United States, the time difference is at least 12 hours. Hence, when our students are at school, their counterparts in the United States are still in bed. Collaborating with Australia was a little easier, as we shared similar time zones. Alternatively, collaboration with schools with vast time differences can still be carried out using e-mail. For student collaboration to take place, teachers must first be involved in the collaborative process themselves. This important component, which is often overlooked, is being addressed by looking into ways to help teachers collaborate among themselves.Trials are being carried out between two schools. The collaboration between Crescent Girls School (Singapore) and Peter Lalor Secondary College (Australia) involves the pairing up of teachers who teach the same subjects at similar levels. The basis of pairing activity is twofold: to give teachers a purpose for using the Internet, and to identify the common elements of a subject. The spillover effect is that the teachers will want to involve their students in similar exchanges through collaborative projects. Internet awareness seminar In March 1996, an Internet awareness seminar was held for all principals.