"ICT for Education" course at Chalimbana University: Module 2 – Effective use of ICT

Introduction to the activity

This activity is about the investigation of the effective use of ICT, for instance exploring collaborative writing in primary and higher education. The activity uses “different-task group work” as a pedagogical strategy, where different groups work on different tasks.

We envisage that this activity would be conducted over a number of days, for instance every morning for a whole week (i.e. a total of 2.5 day).

In this activity, you (as the participants) will look at "learning to use ICT effectively" in two ways:

• You will use ICTs effectively for yourself as part of this task (in tertiary education), but you will also
• see and reflect on how ICT is used effectively in teaching and learning in primary and secondary education.

This task is carried out in groups (and you may want to look at OER4schools Unit 3 on group work for more information about the benefits of collaborative working). Groups can be formed in different ways (group work is covered in the OER4Schools professional learning resource Unit 3). The method we use here is forming groups randomly. Participants are assigned a letter from A to F randomly, and thus forms groups A to F. The lecturer should make sure that this really leads to well mixed groups, and that participants do not swap groups after groups have been allocated.

As participants you should note that we use similar ideas for carrying out this ask as you might use as a teacher in primary or secondary education. This is called modelling, and create linkages between the methods used at various levels of education. For instance, group formation, and also explicitly making sure that “Everybody understands”.

Having formed the groups, you now split into groups. Group A-C will be given be given the task of investigating the use of the ICT installation in a nearby primary school, while groups D-F will investigate a number of computer applications for use in education.

Note that we have a class size of about 30, and are forming six groups of 5 each. For different class sizes, we would form more groups.

Note also that the tasks below use an application called EtherPad, which is available locally on our network. Ideally each student will familiarise themselves Etherpad prior to this activity, or spend some additional time learning about EtherPad. Also see OER4schools materials on using Etherpad, included below.

Group work

As a first step, each group should plan how they will execute their task, including the development of a schedule for how they will use the allocated time.

TASK 1 (for groups A, B and C): Field trip to Chalimbana Basic School

The three groups A, B, and C will do a field trip to Chalimbana Basic School, a nearby school, where they will investigate the use of ICT in primary education.

(Note: If you would like to replicate this activity in a different context, you could choose to investigate the use of ICT at your own institution or another local education facility.)

Using interviews and questionnaires, the investigation includes these 5 topics:

1. ICT equipment (questionnaire, group A).
2. infrastructure (questionnaire, group A).
3. relationship between technical setup and classroom uses (questionnaire, group A)
4. applications of interactive pedagogy (structured interview, groups B and C)
5. interactive pedagogy without ICT (structured interview, groups B and C)

The plan for your task should include the following steps:

1. Before you go to the school, develop the structured interviews and questionnaires. Also assign different roles within your group, ensuring that everyone knows what they should do, so that the group can work, and all tasks are covered. (This is modelling group work in schools). You should think of what roles are needed, but might consider including roles such as time keeper, organiser, interviewer, note taker, moderator etc.
2. Trip to the school. You might want to consider sending your organiser ahead to make sure that e.g. the people you are planning to interview are available, etc. Bear in mind that you want to run your tasks as efficiently as possible, without wasting time.
3. Evaluation and presentation: Having returned from the school, you should evaluate your results, and then think about presenting your results. This process should include a mindmap and a report. Assign responsibilities within the group, for instance one person might have the responsibility for the mind map, somebody else for finalising the report, for the giving the presentation, etc. Here are some suggestions for this part of the task:
   1. The questionnaires and structured interviews could be evaluated using EtherPad, with everybody typing into the same document, in order to create a report.
   2. The presentation of your findings could take the form of a mind map: Create a single colour-coded mind map to summarise the findings and relationships between the topics. You can use concept mapping software if available, or another format, eg. drawing, sticking elements onto a board or manila paper sheets.
4. You could also make a poster presenting your findings.

TASK 2 (for groups D/E/F)

What makes ICT-based teaching interactive? Using the background material provided on interactive teaching make a summary of what makes ICT-based teaching interactive.

The plan for your task should include the following steps:

1. Read through the materials provided (see list of materials below) on interactive teaching and learning. (You should note that having guiding questions helps participants engage with a particular task.) Use the following guiding questions:
   1. What is interactive teaching?
   2. Can you give examples of interactive teaching?
   3. What is the role of the teacher in interactive teaching?
   4. How is ICT used in interactive teaching?
   5. What is the difference between interactive teaching (With interactive pedagogy) and purely ICT-based teaching?

1. Develop criteria for what makes the use of an ICT interactive or not. Develop these criteria as a group. You may want to use the following activities:
   1. Brainstorming
   2. Discussion
   3. Noting down ideas and recording outcomes in Etherpad or in a mindmap

1. Exploration of applications and use-cases. Choose three applications from the list below, and develop some use-cases for how these applications could be used for interactive teaching. Use the following guiding questions:
   1. Sort the uses of ICTs (not the ICTs themselves) into Interactive and Non interactive
   2. Explore each application in depth, identify and document examples of use, trial these
   3. Identify the pitfalls of ICTs
   4. Repeat the process the second and third application. You are expected to spend several hours on investigating each application.

1. Evaluation and presentation. Evaluation and presentation: Having returned from the school, you should evaluate your results, and then think about presenting your results. This process should include a mindmap and a report. Assign responsibilities within the group, for instance one person might have the responsibility for the mind map, somebody else for finalising the report, for the giving the presentation, etc. Here are some suggestions for this part of the task:
   1. The evaluations of questionnaires and structured interviews