Group Task: Chapter Four ---IT and Educational Policy-making

Country: U.S
Value given to education and IT:
American education is bolstered by IT education.
IT exposes students to a variety of perspectives and enhance students’ overall learning experience and their partnership.
At the same time, teachers, principals and administrators are able to better track student achievement and adjust instruction more effectively to individual needs.
Curricula can be individualized and adapted to students' specific learning styles.
Instructional technology has the power to enhance overall knowledge accumulation, instead of just focusing on content mastery.
Computer-aided learning is a lifelong learning procedure. It is expected to create the conditions for a creative and knowledge-based society.
Roles of teachers:
Facilitators or coaches // Translators and interpreters of policy
Resource manager // Editor
Planner // Guide
Organizer // Task-setter
Supervisor
Roles of students:
Learners // explorers
Active participants
Life-long learner
Open-minded learner
Collaborator
Creator
Developers in meeting the challenges of increasingly globalised markets
Roles of language and language learning:
Media of communication

Sources of information:
http://www.funderstanding.com/instructional_technology.cfm
http://www.ed.gov/index.jhtml

Posted by cheng yanping; liu ran; shao juan; tan dinghua

Coments on Bill Gates' perspective

A number of years have passed since the publication of Gates’ book. Concerning about my teaching situation, I am thinking of the following similarities and differences.

1. Similarities
a. Items like networks, multimedia presentation tools are now used in my teaching situation , but they are only limited in some particular courses.
b. We have school network in which teachers and students can share information and educational material to some extent.
c. IT makes learning and teaching more interesting and motivation and converts learners from passive to active learners.
d. When IT is used wisely, it can save teachers time and physical effort.
e. Some teachers use PPT to present their teaching materials and apply some of the on-line resources as teaching material in which the classroom is more learner-centered.

2. Differences
a. The majority of teachers and students are not psychologically and technologically ready for the changes ahead.
b. Some teachers just simply convert print-based resources into digital format.
c. Many teachers and students don’t know how to find and apply rich and useful e-resources in their teaching and learning.
d. Many teachers need training in exploiting and managing IT to its fullest.
e. For teachers and students, they are not aware of the Digital literacy which related to plagiarism.

questions

I have questions inIT-related topics