There's a huge range of options for using ICT in Humanities. Many of my lessons with my Year 8 SOSE class involve a trip to the computer rooms or the library as I'm very much in favour of student-driven inquiry learning. I have just started teaching them about natural disasters and in our first lesson they were split into pairs to research a natural disaster. The only directions I gave them was that they had to find at least 10 interesting facts about their natural disaster and they ran with it. We were in one of the computer rooms and they were using the Internet to do their research, visiting websites like Wikipedia and a host of disaster-specific pages. After a gentle prompt, students were rushing to YouTube to incorporate a clip into the presentations they'd have to do about their natural disaster and were enthralled by the sights and sounds of the natural disaster footage.
They were using MS Word to collate and organise their information, and some were also asking if they could create a PowerPoint presentation. These are features of the VELS Level 5 Standards for ICT, in particular "ICT for creating" and "ICT for communicating" as students were independently selecting which websites to go to, and conducting searches on search engines to find the information they required to complete the task. The activity was entirely learner-centred and the students required very little, if any, direction from me, except to monitor the noise level as they excitedly showed off and discussed their findings with each other, and to confirm the order of the presentations as every pair wanted to go first!
I'm personally excited about the upcoming activities in this particular class as we'll be using an online game that was introduced to me by one of the students. It's called Stop Disaster, and in it, students are able to select a scenario where a natural disaster is about to hit. Each natural disaster is linked to a specific geographical location (eg. bush fire in Central Australia or tsunami in South East Asia) and students have about a certain amount of time (depending on the difficulty level) to prepare the town for the impending disaster by reinforcing existing structures, building a hospital and a school and putting in place defences to help minimise the damage. The site and the game are brilliant and give students the chance to explore and experiment (and certainly take risks) with the possible outcomes, proving that learning can definitely be fun!
Hi Lauren,
ReplyDeleteWhat a fantastic example of how ICT can provide a flexible and rich learner-centered environment! By allowing the students the freedom to search sites like you did, I believe you allowed for a great experience for the student where they are free to explore the web. I have worked with teachers who email students the list a websites and this guides their search. I believe your approach is better for allowing the experience to be truly learner-centered.
Thanks for a great read and resource!!
If you'd like to read more about ICT in education try going to my blog amy-ict.blogspot.com or check out Megan's http://ictwonders.wordpress.com
Amy
Lauren,
ReplyDeleteGreat to see your students so excited to use ICT. I find the same thing happens when letting the students watch their own clips on youtube, even when they're only watching the same one as everyone else for a research worksheet. Somehow they feel more special than watching it as a group on a projector or something.
Also lovely to see that they were so enthusiastic about going first!
The activies you posted are really good and the Stop Disasters site looks like a great resource. Thanks for sharing!
Liz.