The global economic environment characterized by changing patterns of trade and competition, technological innovation, and globalization of information are causing countries are experiencing significant shifts. Together, these developments are producing a new worldwide economy that is global, high speed, knowledge driven, and competitive. At the national level, all facets of modern society are becoming knowledge dependent, and without the essential knowledge and skills for modern living, people will remain on the margins of society, and will lose their vast potential contributions (Wadi, April 2007).
Information Technology (IT), as defined by the Smart Computing Dictionary, is
"A general term used to describe any technology that helps to produce, manipulate, store, communicate, or disseminate information. IT refers to the most expensive, complex computers, with devices usually dealing with electronic data in binary format. However, these IT machines are not able to communicate with one another."
And, Communication Technology (CT) is "the term used to describe telecommunications equipment through which information can be sought and accessed". Examples include: video conferencing, teleconference phones, and modems.
Information and Communications Technology commonly termed as ICT and refers to methods of storing, manipulating and communicating information. This includes computer based technologies, digital imaging, the internet, file servers, data storage devices, network infrastructure, desktops, laptops and broadcasting technologies namely radio and television, and telephone which are used as instructional tools at schools.
INTEGRATING ICT IN THE TEACHING AND LEARNING PROCESS
In Mauritius government has spent tremendously to promote ICT integration in teaching and learning. Is it worth investing so much money? What advantages do ICT have in education? Many researchers have given their view points about the advantages and how ICT can be integrated in curriculum.
Allen (1997) believed that the basic skills of the future are the use of powerful technologies. The traditional textbook can no longer fulfill the need in the rapid changing and the information-explosion world. He asserted that the traditional teacher-centered approach makes classroom no longer an effective system to prepare students for the realities which they face in the near future.
Parmley et al. (1997) stated that technology works best as a supporting tool-making complex processes or creative experience either possible or easier to accomplish. He thought that technology can offer new ways to provide meaningful, real-life context for learning, it also allow students to collaborate with peers and experts across the country and around the World.
Rosener (1997) described IT as good as, or even better than, traditional method of teaching and learning as it being limitless of time and space. Poole (1998) pointed out that suitably integrated computer use can contribute to successful results in the classroom as to: support teaching and learning; support children's socialisation; enable children with disabilities to integrate and enables a teacher to duplicate excellence.
According to Kennewell et al. (2000), integration of ICT in teaching requires understanding at a deeper level to facilitate the development of strategies and process to identify opportunities, solve problems and evaluate solution. They believe that these higher-level objectives require not only technical knowledge and skills, but the ability to choose an effective strategy for a problem. Poole (1998) shared his view that the technology is only a tool to both teacher and student. The effectiveness of the tool depends entirely on the skills they bring to the learning process. He believed that the teachers' task is thus to nurture the students willingness to learn.
Gregoire et al (1996) provided the following important points in respecting student learning in analysing that the contribution new technologies can make to teaching and learning:
New technologies stimulate the development of intellectual skills
New technologies contribute to the ways of learning knowledge, skills and attitudes, but still dependent on pre-requisite knowledge and type of learning activity.
New technologies spur spontaneous interest more than traditional approaches of learning.
Students using new technologies concentrate more than those in traditional settings
Moreover the above outlined points are balanced by further genuine observations:
Benefit to students of using new technologies is greatly dependent on the technological skill of the teacher and the teacher's attitude towards technology.
Skill and attitude in turn are largely dependent on the staff training in this area.(UNESCO Paris,2002).
2.2.1 Impact of ICT on education
ICTs have the potential for increasing access to and improving the relevance and quality of education. Tinio states that ICT has a tremendous impact on education in terms of acquisition and absorption of knowledge to both teachers and students through the promotion of:
• Active learning: ICT tools help for examination, calculation and analysis of information thus providing a platform for student inquiry, analysis and construction of new information. In contrast to memorization-based or rote learning, ICT promotes increased learner engagement as learners choose what to learn when they need to learn it and work on real life situations' problems.
• Collaborative and Cooperative learning: ICT encourages interaction and cooperation among students, teachers regardless of distance which is between them. It also provides learners the opportunity to work with people from different cultures and working together in groups, thereby helping to enhance learners' teaming and communicative skills as well as their global awareness. Researchers have found that typically the use of ICT leads to more cooperation among learners within and beyond school and there exists a more interactive relationship between students and teachers (Grégoire et al., 1996). "Collaboration is a philosophy of interaction and personal lifestyle where individuals are responsible for their actions, including learning and respect the abilities and contributions of their peers." (Panitz, 1996).
• Creative Learning: ICT promotes the manipulation of existing information and to create one's own knowledge to produce a tangible product or a given instructional prupose.
• Integrative learning: ICT promotes a thematic, integrative approach to teaching and learning. This approach eliminates the artificial separation between the different disciplines and between theory and practice that characterises the traditional classroom approach.
• Evaluative learning: ICT enhanced learning is student-centered and provides useful feedback through various interactive features. Unlike static, text or print-based educational technologies, ICT recognizes that there are many different learning pathways and many different articulations of knowledge. ICTs allow learners to explore and discover through new ways of teaching and learning are underpinned by constructivist theories of learning rather than students do memorisation and rote learning.
And a mentioned in "Teaching of ICT" by MIE/IGNOU (2005), improvements in telecommunication technologies can lead education to provide more independence to teachers and students by:
Better use of learning resources- a presentation once made through use of technologies can be showed to students over and over again.
Motivating to learn-ICTs combine text, sound, and colourful, moving images that increase learners' motivation and their interest to learn.
Facilitating the acquisition of basic concepts that are the foundation for higher order concepts and creativity can be facilitated through drill and practice as repetition and reinforcement of content and skills are being focused.
Aspect
Less
'traditional pedagogy'
More
'emerging pedagogy' for the information society
Active
• Activities prescribed by
teacher
• Whole class instruction
• Little variation in activities
• Pace determined by the
programme
• Small groups
• Activities determined by
learners
• Many different activities
• Pace determined by learners
Collaborative
• Individual
• Homogenous groups
• Everyone for him/herself
• Working in teams
• Heterogeneous groups
• Supporting each other
Creative
• Reproductive learning
• Apply known solutions to
problems
• Productive learning
• Find new solutions to
problems
Integrative
• No link between theory and
practice
• Separate subjects
• Discipline-based
• Individual teachers
• Integrating theory and
practice
• Relations between subjects
• Teams of teachers
• Thematic
Evaluative
• Teacher-directed
• Summative
•Student-directed
• DiagnosticTable 2.2.1 Overview of Pedagogy in the Industrial versus the Information Society
While theoretical arguments can be put forward to provide a strong rationale for the use of ICT in enhancing the teaching and learning process, the only real rationale is based on whether, in practice, it has a positive impact on learning, the learners, and teachers (Newhouse, 2002).
Figure 2.2.2 depicts a plausible impact of ICT on learning, students, the curriculum, teachers, schools, and school systems, and at the same time, showing the relevant connections between these entities.
Figure 2.2.2: Concept map indicating relationships between
learning environment entities and external entities. [Newhouse, 2002]
IMPACT OF ICT ON LEARNERS
ICT has very strong effect in education and it provides enormous tools for enhancing teaching and learning. There have been many studies that have highlighted the various ways that ICT may support teaching and learning processes in a range of disciplinary fields such as the construction of new opportunities for interaction between students and knowledge and accessing information. ICT enable new ways teaching and learning when used appropriately under right conditions such as suitable resources, training and support. ICT also offers the potential to meet the learning needs of individual students, to promote equal opportunity, to offer learning material, and also promote interdependence of learning among learners (Leach, Ahmed, Makalima & Power, 2005).
The five ways to establish and sustain effective learning environments through ICT suggested by the Committee on Developments in the Science of Learning (2000) are:
1. Real world problems
2. Scaffolding
3. Feedback, reflection and guidance
4. Local and global communities
5. Extending teacher learning. (Newhouse, 2002)
IMPACT OF ICT ON TEACHERS
Roblyer and Edwards (2000) suggested that there are five important reasons for teachers to use technology in education:
(1) motivation,
(2) distinctive instructional abilities,
(3) higher productivity of teachers,
(4) essential skills for the Information Age, and
(5) support for new teaching techniques (Samak, 2006).
In order to make use of technology in the classroom effectively, educators should have a positive attitude toward technology and they should be trained in using the modern technologies in their respective field of education. Chin and Hortin (1994) stated that teachers must act as the "change agent" in the relationship between technology and the students as teachers are more likely to implement the recommended and proposed changes concerning ICT in education.
But at the same time there are many challenges faced by educators as they consider how best to best incorporate ICT tools into their teaching. This is being discussed in the following article.
2.4.1 Factors affecting technology integration in Teaching and Learning
I. Jung talks about the enormous challenge teachers are facing in our society due to the rapid expansion of knowledge. The modern technologies are demanding that teachers learn how to use these technologies in their teaching. Hence these new technologies increase the teachers' training needs. Gressard and Loyd (1985) asserted that teacher's attitudes toward computers are a key factor in the successful implementation of ICT in education. They pointed out that teachers do not always have positive attitudes towards computers and their poor attitudes may lead to a failure of the computer- based projects.
Also the most commonly cited barriers are:
lack of time;
lack of access;
lack of resources;
lack of expertise; and,
lack of support (Butler and Sellbom, 2002; Leggettt & Persichitte, 1998; Rogers, 2000).
Another barrier given by Butler and Sellbom (2002) and Chizmar & Williams (2001) is reliability. Reliability included hardware failures, incompatible software between home and school, poor or slow internet connectivity and out of date software which are available mostly at school while the students/educators are having more up-to-date software at home.
SUBJECT DIFFERENCE IN ICT INTEGRATION
Subject being taught is also a factor influencing the integration of ICT in the teaching and learning process. In general, science teachers have more positive attitudes towards ICT and possess a higher level of computer literacy knowledge than other teachers such as Arts, Humanities and Commerce.
Law et al (2000) believe that they used ICT in their teaching more frequently. Rosener (1997) sated that the use of IT should be used when they provide more opportunities for students to visualise and understand study materials. In areas where the subject matter focuses more on value, meaning and philosophical ideas, IT will only partially be able to substitute for human interaction. However, in areas which have a high volume of students studying the subject like the sciences which constitute of a standardised curriculum and factual content, it will more likely be able to supplement the content and teaching methods with use of ICT.
ICT AND MATHEMATICS
There are many potential uses for computers in the teaching and learning process of mathematics. According to Oldknow and Taylor (2000), the role of ICT in the teaching and learning process of mathematics are as follows:
"In terms of teachers, the use of ICT:-
Improves their efficiency
Reduces their administrative burden since less paperwork
Releases more time to address students individually
Provides better records of students' progress
Acts as a stimulus to rethinking their approach to their mathematics teaching
Acts as a stimulus to rethinking their understanding of mathematics
Acts as a means to communicate with other teachers sharing the common problems".
The use of ICT makes students:-
"Engage their attention and motivate them
Stimulate their curiosity
Encourage them to develop their problem-solving strategies
Provide models and images which aid them in concept formation
Improve their test and examination results since they learn by own pace and learn through feedback provided to them".
Mathematics lessons are associated with real life situations and increases the relevancy of the lessons to the real world. The curriculum needs to be updated continually to take account of the technology prevalent in society. Mathematics has tended to be very abstract while most students tend to operate on a concrete level. The use of concrete materials in some lessons is useful but often not convenient. The computer can provide experiences with virtual concrete materials. In approaching problems associated with remedial and extension students' computer use can provide appropriate material and overcome classroom management problems.
In 1995 the DfES' mathematics curriculum IT support group published a leaflet in which are included the six ways students can enhance their mathematics learning through the use of ICT:
Learning from feedback: Fast and reliable feedback is provided which encourages students to make their own judgements and to test out and work over their ideas.
Observing patterns: The use of computers and electronic calculators enables students to work as many examples as possible when exploring mathematical problems. This supports their observation of patterns.
Seeing connections: The computer enables formulae, tables of numbers and graphs to be linked readily. Changing one value and seeing the immediate effects in the others helps students to understand connections between them.
Working with dynamic images: Students can use IT to manipulate diagrams. This encourages them to visualise the geometry as they generate their own mental views.
Exploring data: Computers enable students to work with real data which can be represented in a variety of ways. This supports interpretation and analysis.
Teaching the computer: When designing algorithm to achieve a particular result, the students are compelled to express their commands clearly and in the correct order thus making their thinking explicit as they refine their ideas.
These opportunities are equally valid now, but we have more widely available tools can help to provide students such as teachers can map these opportunities onto the main types of ICT resources (including both software and hardware) such as
Hand-held technology - used numeric and graphing aspects of graphical calculators.
- used data-handling and other aspects of graphical calculators
- used graphical calculators with data-loggers
Programming languages - used Logo
Small software - mostly in the form of games and simulations.
Spreadsheets - set up a basic spreadsheet e.g. entered and replicated formulae
- used extended facilities of a spreadsheet e.g. statistical graphing
Web-sites - explore web-based resources relevant to mathematics teaching.
Whiteboards - use electronic whiteboards for whole-class work, using OHPs.
General purpose software - Microsoft Office package such as Excel, Word,
Explorer and PowerPoint.
Mathematics teaching software - dynamic geometry software(for constructions and
transformations e.g. for coordinates, measures) and
interactive package including graph-plotting using
Graph-plotters, data-handling (database or statistical
software), symbolic algebra.
E-learning- For e.g.Xerte (open source e-learning) is an interactive program and fully-
featured e-learning development environment for creating rich interactivity.
The dynamic geometry software can help students arrive at a convincing proof. As we know, the mathematics curriculum can take a very long time to respond to technological changes, such as the development of the electronic calculator. Yet now ICT is so well established in all branches of industry, commerce and research as a mathematical and statistical modelling and problem-solving tool there are few people who still use pencil-and paper techniques. So while the impact may be slow, we should at least be prepared to reexamine our own ideas of what are the fundamentally important elements of the curriculum.
Here is an example of dynamic geometry software used to explore the relationship between the areas of quadrilaterals and the areas of the figures formed by joining their midpoints.
As mentioned in the leaflet from "Mathematics and IT - a pupil's entitlement":
"As the technology progresses and becomes more prevalent, teachers will also need to be continually reconsidering the mathematical content of their teaching. Having software which can, for example, solve systems of equations at the touch of a button has strong implications for the way particular topics are approached."
For example, most graphical calculators will perform the standard arithmetic operations such as matrix inversion or complex multiplication. Using these facilities we could now concentrate on deepening an understanding of what matrices and complex numbers are, and can be used for, without the need to perform routine and unenlightening manipulations. Given the widespread use of matrices and complex numbers in engineering, science and other numerate disciplines it would be good if we could harness ICT to help students understand their significance.
One important aspect of the widespread availability of mathematical ICT tools, and easy access to sources of mathematical information via the Internet, is that they can enable us to keep in touch with developments in our own subject.
The four key concepts, highlighted in the ICT in mathematics (DfES, 2004), that are noteworthy for mathematics are:
using data and information sources;
organising and investigating;
analysing and automating processes;
models and modelling.
How can the use of ICT raise standards in mathematics?
ICT can be used as a tool:
to support teachers in teaching an objective more effectively, in improving lesson design and improving teaching and learning;
to enable pupils to engage with learning and to be motivated to improve their learning;
to enable pupils to access geometrical, graphical and statistical ideas dynamically and so to make connections in their learning;
to build pupils' confidence in their mathematical abilities by testing their conjectures, learning from feedback and using reasoning to modify their solutions.
Students learning mathematics most benefit from the use of ICT in areas such as:
the teacher using an interactive or electronic whiteboard for starters and plenaries;
the teacher using an electronic whiteboard for interactive teaching in the main part of the lesson;
using generic software such as databases or spreadsheets as a means of making sense of data;
using content-free, mathematics-specific software on computers or graphical calculators to aid visualisation and help make connections in algebra and geometry;
using simple programming languages, such as LOGO, to build increasingly complex mathematical models and relationships in shape and space, number and algebra;
using content-specific software, usually targeting specific mathematical skills;
processing and interpreting experimental information from data-loggers;
using information resources such as the Internet, CD-ROMs or data files.
[Source: Integrating ICT into mathematics in Key Stage 3
(www.standards.dfes.gov.uk/keystage3)]
E-Learning
Tinio, V
Although most commonly associated with higher education and corporate training, e-learning
encompasses learning at all levels, both formal and non-formal, that uses an information network the Internet, an intranet (LAN) or extranet (WAN)-whether wholly or in part, for course delivery, interaction and/or facilitation. Others prefer the term online learning. Web-based learning is a subset of e-learning and refers to learning using an Internet browser (such as Netscape or Internet Explorer).
[Source: http://www.y2fox.com/learn/eRom.php]
2.6.4 Blended Learning
Another term that is gaining value is blended learning. This refers to learning models that combine traditional classroom practice with e-learning solutions. For example, students in a traditional class can be assigned both print-based and online materials, have online mentoring sessions with their teacher through chat, and are subscribed to a class email list. Or a Web-based training course can be enhanced by periodic face-to-face instruction. "Blending" was prompted by the recognition that not all learning is best achieved in an electronically-mediated environment, particularly one that dispenses with a live instructor altogether. Instead, consideration must be given to the subject matter, the learning objectives and outcomes, the characteristics of the learners, and the learning context in order to arrive at the optimum mix of instructional and delivery methods.
2.6.6 Open Source E Learning
Like any form of teaching, e-learning requires various resources to be developed successfully. So there are many interactive packages which can be of great use and they are free software packages and of good use to educators since they help to add plain text, images, videos, drawings and other interactivities to their teaching and also various types of questions are included like:
true/false
multiple choice
matching
fill in the blank
calculations
When the student clicks on the submit button, they get their feedback directly and can have repetition of the work if need is.
Thus e-learning can be beneficial to educators in the following ways:
E-learning is delivered through "blended learning", in which e-learning is used to complement traditional educational methods.
E-learning could be a large or small part of a course; having already the necessary materials that can be converted into e-learning.
Any use of technology to support teaching and learning could arguably be described as e-learning.
Help to manage and organise course materials more effectively and efficiently
Reduce the need for certain administrative tasks (for example, making paper copies, marking tests, giving out course reminders)
Enable educators to monitor student participation and progress, ensuring that they can offer directed support and advice quickly and can make more effective use of staff-student contact time
Widen communication opportunities with students
Help to change educators' role from "knowledge provider" to "learning facilitator", promoting self-directed learning
Reduce large-group teaching and increase time spent with small groups or individuals
Encourage the development of flexible learning materials.
From a student's point-of-view, e-learning can:
Encourage anytime-anyplace access to course materials
Provide self-directed and self-paced learning, allowing students to keep track of their own progress
Increase opportunities for student participation, encouraging less confident students to take part
Support different learning styles (using flexible learning materials)
Promote student engagement (using interactive learning materials), improving learner motivation and satisfaction
Give direct access to relevant and up-to-date information
Alternate and complementary ways of learning often help to facilitate understanding
Enhance opportunities for collaborative group work
Improve communication with course tutor and teaching assistants
Facilitate communication between students, promoting peer group support
Aid preparation of future topics, and revision of previous topics
Improve organisation of course materials
Increase the accessibility of information and course materials to students with disabilities. [Source: http://www.nottingham.ac.uk/elan/getting_started]
