Definition of ICTs in Education.
ICTs stand for information and communication technologies and are defined for the purpose as a “diverse set technologies tools and resources used to communicate, to create, store and manage information. These technologies include computers, the internets, broadcasting technologies include Radio, Television and Telephone.
ICT have great potential to develop in Education at all levels. It has been widely used in the schools and colleges and even in University of Develop countries. ICTs are now being used increasingly in developing countries for “e-learning” applications.
ICTs in Science Teaching and Learning in Schools.
ICTs are currently used in worldwide as instructional tools for educational purposes especially in Science teaching and learning in school. The most commonly examples of ICTs used in Science Education are computers and Internet. In Brunei, both of these types of ICTs are used to improve the efficiency and effectiveness of education. The use of ICTs in Science laboratory in teaching and learning is a great challenge in most Schools in Brunei.
Nowadays, every school Laboratory are equipped with projectors, visualizes, smart boards, and computer laboratory. This will help to enhance teaching and learning skills and also to arouse and stimulate student’s interest. Example of teaching aids that Science teachers can use are laptops, tablet, iPad, PowerPoint Presentation, OHP, Videos, Websites, and Interactive whiteboard. All this teaching aids helps in the teaching and learning science as it create innovative training materials that suggest concrete pedagogical activities.
Science teachers can use their laptop and computers to find up to date information about Science around the world at their fingertips by browsing through the internet’s from trusted websites. Teachers may not only use the internet to find old and new information but can also find some useful resources in teaching Science from other facilitators and educators around the world. Science Teacher also can find some useful resources of using ICTs aids like simulations, animations or even videos from the internets to help them enriched in teaching some difficult terms or concepts in Science.
Other than that, teacher can create their own learning management system like blog to get the students involve in the discussions among them about certain science topics posted by the teachers or their friends. This way the students can interact actively with the teachers and friends whenever and wherever they want. Teachers can also teach their students to create their own blogs so that they can share with their friends the information that they have found from the internet.
With the workload of the teachers in today’s challenging in educational system, sometimes, Science teacher have limited time to do marking on their exercises. With the help of ICT, teacher will have easier life with the use of blog or Learning Management System (LMS). Science teachers can search for related activities, exercises and questions on the internet and shared to students. Here science teachers act as the server and the students as the clients. Shared documents on network like exercises and questions can be accessed by students and directly answered by them. Their answers are then submitted and automatically marked and if not, the teacher can print the student's answers through shared printer on network. This method only consumes less time compared to traditional method.
For teacher who wants to do experiment but cannot be conducted in school laboratory because of the experiment is too dangerous or complex for a normal school laboratory, they can show the experiment by using Web experiments. Web experiments are practical science procedures controlled at a distance, using a web site. By using web experiments, students can take part in real experiments operated from the computer. This learning process is also successful because the use of ICT enables the teacher to increase the pace of the lesson when appropriate.
In conclusion, teaching and learning science can become more interesting by using ICT. This could help the students to be more creative as been said in the SPN 21 that students and teachers should technology literate in their teaching.
