Uiit assessment item 2&3

UIIT Assessment item 2

According to my teaching philosophy, in order to help students in learning, teachers
need to enhance their motivation in learning. In order to do so, we need to aim at
stimulate students interests in learning.
After several weeks of teaching practice in a band 3 secondary school, I found that the
concentration spans of students in this type of school are particularly short and thus
they need a variety of sources, media and tasks to keep them focus in class. The
traditional use of blackboard and chalk is still useful in some parts of my teaching, but
not all. Students with lower academic abilities and shorter con concentration spans
they tend to loose their concentration quickly in class, especially with traditional
teaching methods. Therefore I have tried to incorporate traditional teaching methods
with the use of ICT tools such as using computer to play video and audio, using
projector to project images and slides, using power point to present grammar items,
and the result was very good as the use of ICT and catch students’ attention and it also
helps to explain ideas and concept clearly.

As an English student in the past and an English Teacher at the present, I found that
the teaching and learning styles can be very different when ICT is used or not being
used in the lesson. I grew up in a local band 1 secondary school in which the majority
of the teachers like using traditional teaching method, I found that it was feasible but
it could not stimulate my interests in learning at all.

When I am now teaching in a band 3 secondary school, I found that the traditional
method of teaching may not be feasible to this group of students mainly because they
cannot behave and concentrate as good as their counterparts in band 1 schools.
Therefore, more help from different media is needed. For example, in one of my
reading lesson, the lesson’s objective is to teach students new vocabulary and revise
the grammar item: adverbs of sequence by introducing Lamma Island. At the
beginning I played a video and asked students to jot down the vocabulary in the video,
then I asked some students to present vocabulary of Lamma Island with their power
points, finally I went through the reading passage with the class with the use of power
point as well. The strategy of using ICT in teaching and learning seemed successful as
the majority of the class did pay attention to the video and presentations. During the
time when they were doing pair reading, I introduce the online Oxford Dictionary to
students and showed them how to check the meanings of new words through online
dictionary. Students were interested in it as asked questions about it.
When I was revising the grammar item with the class, I used both blackboard and

power point to help illustrate the grammar structure. The power point appeared to be
more attractive to students as they tended to be more focus when I was talking with
the power point.
Therefore, with the use of ICT, it can catch students’ attention, stimulate their
interests, help weaker students to concentrate in class and help in concept elaboration.
In terms of effectiveness, the use of ICT was effective as students could answer my
concept checking questions at the end of the lesson.
When comparing with the traditional teaching approach, the use of ICT may be even
more effective when teaching students with lower abilities or special needs.

UIIT Assessment item 3
I think using ICT in education in Hong Kong has both pros and cons of infusing ICT
in education. In terms of effectiveness, both traditional teaching method and the use
of ICT in teaching are effective. For traditional teaching method such as practicing
exam drills and doing grammar exercises, these are good for students to handle the
exams. In terms of students’ interests, the use of ICT in teaching would be a better
choice as students can come across the same topic or message through different forms
of media such as video, audio, images, power point etc. In fact the use of ICT is very
common in Task-based and project-based learning. Teachers nowadays often ask
students to carry out research on different topics, to prepare power point presentations
and later present to the class.

Besides, teachers often make use of internet searching machines in teaching; for
example, checking meanings of words through online dictionary, using online
stopwatch in exams, sharing resources and communicate with students through online
forum and social networking website such as Facebook and Twitter. Apart from
assisting in learning and teaching, the use of ICT can increase student-teacher
interaction as they can always communicate and exchange ideas through e-class,
emails, forum and social networking websites.

In terms of classroom management, the use of ICT can help teachers to maintain
classroom discipline especially in the computer lesson;

According to Leask(2001),

My experience as a teacher and educator strongly suggests that the role of a teacher
despite pressures to change towards that of a facilitator and creator of didactically

prepared web-based learning material, remains absolutely control in rendering the
experiences and work of pupils with and at the computer conherant.(p.17)

Thus, teachers should have appropriate control on their students in the use of ICT.For
example, a teacher can lock students’ computers when he is teaching and unlock the
computers during students’ practice. In this case, it can help students to concentrate on
teacher’s talking.

In terms of students’ learning, some students are visual learners who learn better with
visual images and audio. In this case, the use of ICT can particularly help this kind of
students and improve their learning efficiency. For students who have special needs
such as hearing problems, teachers can adjust the volume of audio and microphone to
help him in listening.
Suggested by Chau(2000),Students’ perceptions of the influences of IT was divided
into positive and negative ones...in general students’ attitudes towards the use of IT
were more positive than negative. They regarded IT as an important survival skill and
a useful tool (“draft Report,” 1998, p.21). Thus, it is important for teachers to
introduce the use of ICT in class in order to facilitate students’ learning and enhance
their survival skills.

For the cons, facilities availability may contribute to the problem. For most of the
schools in Hong Kong, there should have basic ICT teaching aids available such as
computers, projectors and audio amplifier etc. In some DSS schools in Hong Kong,
there are computers available over the campus, even in the playground. But there are
also some rural private schools which do not have sufficient fund to afford the most
updated ICT aids and the number of computers in those schools is just sufficient, the
computers can be very old and are mul-function sometimes.

Since the availability and the updated level of the ICT aids are different in schools, it
may affect the use of ICT teaching because of facilities availability.
To conclude, the use of ICT in Hong Kong’s education has both pros and cons, but
after considering the factors including effectiveness, student-teacher interaction,
classroom management, cater to students’ needs and facilities availability, the pros of
the use of ICT in teaching are still out numbered the cons, therefore, we can see that it
has become the main trend and it’s being commonly used in nowadays teaching.

Reference

Chau, K. (2000, May 23)Survey on CU Students’ use of Information Technology
(IT).United College Newsletter [Attachment 2],p.1.

Leask, M. (2001). Issues in Teaching Using ICT. USA: RoutledgeFalmer.

Uiit assessment item 2&3

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Uiit assessment item 2&3