Questions:
- What are the main goals of each Masterplan of ICT in education and why do you think it is important for MOE to develop them?
- Has any of the Masterplans impacted you as a student? Share your experience on how ICT had been used in the classes you attended as a student. (If applicable)
- How do you think the Masterplan 3 for ICT in education may affect your role(s) as a beginning teacher?
1. The ICT Masterplan 1 (1997-2002) was created to lay the crucial groundwork for the ICT policy to take effect. It is really the platform where the Ministry of Education (MOE) built the infrastructure for which the future plans will grow on.
This elaborate undertaking avowedly required the utmost prudence in ensuring that the policy runs smoothly. MOE recognized this and so decided to focus on for main goals.
Schools were tasked to improve on their connections with the world as shown in ictconnection.edumall.sg. This was to allow for broader perspectives between teachers, students and the world. Such perspectives would reveal a wealth of knowledge that could help especially teachers to develop ICT to even greater heights. Hence, it was important for MOE to develop it.
Masterplan 1 also required teachers to pioneer innovative processes in education ( ictconnection.edumall.sg). The students would benefit greatly in terms of thinking flexibly, able to collaborate well with others and exercise sound moral judgments. Admittedly, this would entail the introduction of new knowledge to the teachers. Thus, they had to be trained beforehand for approximately 30 hours each as revealed by Dr Ng Eng Hen, the Minister for Education and second Minister for Defense, in his speech at the International Conference on Teaching and Learning with Technology on Tuesday, 5 August 2008. This resulted in a cadre of educators who were not only strong in pedagogy but ICT-trained as well. They acted as guides for their colleagues. Furthermore, they urged their schools to shift from their traditional mindsets of context-based to more teacher-facilitated education. Indeed, their passion and perseverance helped to equip 363 schools with ICT-enabled infrastructure quickly. Hence, helping MOE to lay the important groundwork for the ICT policy to gain momentum.
The improvement of the students’ creative thinking, lifelong learning and social responsibility only heightened their capacity to imbibe new technology resulting in more morally-justified usage. As the world enters a more technologically- aware society, the internet is constantly bombarded by much information from every layer of society. In fact, the information can be easily tweaked or even plagiarized by anyone. Thus, it was imperative for MOE to develop the students’ thinking skills to ensure that they were able to ascertain right from wrong and so allowing for more justified uses of ICT technology.
Promoting administrative and management excellence only served to allow for a much more controlled running of the plan. In fact, it allowed for the smoother transition into the next phase of the policy and that is Masterplan 2.
Masterplan 2 allowed for the former to expand and assimilate into schools quickly. It provided then baseline standards to which schools would be able to adhere to in realizing the final outcome of ICT integration into the curriculum and assessment. It acted as a bridge for schools to cross into Masterplan 3.
Masterplan 3 views teachers and students as learners. It emphasizes on much self-directed and collaborative learning. Hence, cementing the understanding that learning can take place anywhere and anytime and does not constrain itself with the rigors of school curriculum.
In order to achieve this goal, MOE has stressed that school leaders are key to driving this policy by creating conditions for ICT to be used in a meaningful way. It also allows for the standardization of all ICT-related programmes in schools. Thus, the teachers need to be more focused in their planning so that lessons are not only stimulating but also encourage self-directed and collaborative learning amongst the learners. Even so, it must be reminded that a good set of frameworks must be put in place to provide the support teachers need in their teaching as well as learning. Henceforth, allowing for ICT technology to reach more schools.
Without these goals, the outcome of self-directed and collaborative learning cannot be achieved so quickly. This opportunity must be seized quickly lest Singapore would be caught in the wave of stagnation.
2. The Masterplan in ICT of Education 2 had the deepest impact on me as a student. I remembered that my teachers had us creating websites and learning new software such as Dreamweaver and Micromedia Flash in secondary school. This allowed us to become more competent in in using ICT technology for our presentations and projects that would benefit us in the future. In addition to this, our Interdisciplinary Project Work that involved creating an English package for the Cambodian children had us designing Powerpoint slides in the form of calendars and such. We also had to translate English words into the Khmer language by using Microsoft Word. That took us some time to find the exact Khmer language and downloading it into Microsoft Word. We had many problems in making the calendar interactive for the students and so we decided to use Micromedia Flash to create it. Despite the many setbacks we faced during the execution of our project, we learnt much in choosing appropriate programmes and word processing skills which was one of the outcomes for Masterplan 2.
3. Masterplan 3 made me realize the intricacies needed to guide students into
self -directed and collaborative learning. As a beginning teacher, I will need great expertise in ICT. It is no longer only about creating basic Microsoft Powerpoint slides for the students but the presentation itself needs to be interactive as well. The introduction of interactive whiteboards, YouTube and podcasts will serve this purpose. At the same time, I need to ensure that my lesson plans must involve group activities that allow for much collaboration and learning amongst students.
As a beginning teacher, I may need to collaborate with my other colleagues in creating lessons plans that merge different subjects together. The lessons must involve both pedagogy and 21st century ICT skills that the Ministry of Education has rolled out as baseline standards for all schools.
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