Woodlands Primary School (WDP) has been equipped with the infrastructure for successful ICT integration. All classrooms are equipped with PCs, projectors, visualisers and Promethean Activeboards. There are three computer labs with PCs, laptops and Macs for each student and internet access. There are computer terminals in common areas for students to use during their breaks, and before and after school.
WDP also places alot of emphasis on training its staff to keep abreast of technological advancements and to equip them with the skills required to conduct effective ICT lessons. Teachers undergo routine training on creating flipcharts and using the how to use the Activeboards in their classroom. Contact time is sometimes scheduled for ICT training and teachers come back during their holiday breaks for intensive training and refresher courses as well. There are ICT specialist teachers who provide assistance when asked and they also invite teachers into their classes to observe ICT lessons.
There have been numerous attempts to embed ICT into the curriculum and pedagogy, without just making it a superficial inclusion in the lesson plan. This embedding is done across many subject and all levels. Each year, students spend one term each on digital art lessons (using software such as Publisher Plus) and digital music (using Garage Band). The LEAD portal is used extensively for lessons, especially Science. Social Studies and Health Education are other subjects where lessons are largely conducted using videos, presentations and websites as teaching aides. One of the most impressive uses of ICT in WDP is the AudioBlog @ Woods project, an initiative to equip pupils with oracy skills and develop motivated and confident speakers. Teachers scaffolded the lessons for their classes at the beginning of the project, explaining desired lesson outcomes and what was expected of the students (students referred to oral rubrics to understand how they would grade their work). Students were given an mp3 player each and were tasked to record their readings of texts, picture conversations and oral conversations. They would then upload their audio recordings onto their blogs and their fellow classmates would provide constructive criticisms and suggestions on their work (through the LEAD portal discussion forum). Many students took ownership of their own learning and found this an effective way to understand better what was expected of them in the oral examination and were able to self-correct and improve their oracy skills. Oral practices, which usually took days to complete when the teacher had to individually meet with each student, could now be completed much faster as each child took ownership of his/her learning. Classes could go through more oral practices as there was more time. And most importantly, preliminary feedback from teachers suggests that students were indeed doing better, having been exposed to their own work and critiques.
It is my opinion that WDP is well in its way into entering Phase 3 of the ICT Masterplan. Assessment in WDP however, is still largely traditional i.e. written. Teachers are looking to see how to incorporate ICT holistically into their lessons but there is a concern that as long as national assessments i.e. PSLE are written, the schools will be unable to move too far away from training its students for written modes of assessment as well. The staff at WDP realise that there needs to be a fundamental overhaul in the way ICT is viewed, and this change must take place at all levels of education to be truly effective.
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