Masterplans in ICT for Education

In your opinion, why do you think it is important for MOE to develop the three Masterplans for ICT in education?

Technology in society is gaining importance at an unprecedented rate, and as such the integration of IT into students’ curriculum is crucial. By being able to master at least the Baseline ICTs, it will help in the acquiring of more complex skills later on. Also, in case of any emergency that requires schools to close for a period of time, students are still able to continue their education through e-learning which can take place anywhere else and not just in school. On the teachers’ end, by integrating ICT into lessons, it makes the content taught more interesting and can help to maintain student attention. Besides that, especially for subjects like science, by showing videos the students would be able to grasp the content more easily.

Has any of the Masterplans impacted you as a student? Share your experience of how ICT had been used in the classes you attended as a student (if applicable).

As a secondary school student, I remember a Math lesson in which my teacher brought my class to the lab. By using the software provided, we were able to learn more effectively about angles because we could manipulate the shapes on the screen and see how they were formed. In this way, I think ICT really helped in enabling us to retain what we had learnt more effectively, such as in that I can still remember this lesson quite clearly even though it has been many years ago.

Based on your enhanced school experience, how do you think the current Masterplan 3 may affect your role(s) as a beginning teacher?

I think that the current Masterplan 3 would require me as a beginning teacher to create more resources which are ICT based. Besides this, my lessons would need to be created in such a manner that students would be able to do self-directed learning and investigate an issue on their own, rather than me just telling them what to do. As such, it is very important that I guide them on how to use the internet safely and responsibly. Also, I need to take group tasks in mind as well when I give them resources so that students would be able to learn from each other. I would also need to set some time aside for myself so that I can upgrade myself on the tools required for ICT learning, so that I can facilitate the ICT sessions efficiently for them to learn effectively.