Integration of Information Technology activities into School Curriculum
Dr Meenakumari*, Prof. M. Radhakrishna**
*Chief Technology Officer, Aptech India Ltd, Bombay, India.
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**Technology Advisor, Aptech International, Bombay, India, and Professor, Indian Institute of Technology, Allahabad, India. E-mail:
Internet based learning is a tool for many problem situations. While integrated into a school system it could be of great help in remedial learning, absentee learning, recapitulation, individualization, self-pacing, look ahead, taking care of a diverse group of students while addressing the median group. When viewed as distance learning environment it offers opportunity for the dropouts, extends reach to those who did not have access to education. When looked at from the point of view of non-formal / supplementary / non-credit education it provides opportunity for groups to learn and upgrade the needed knowledge and skills. This is useful for working groups, people wanting to change their profession. The paper discusses strategies and models to implement Internet based learning systems for each of the above situations. The models / strategies emphasize the need to integrate these new approaches with the existing structures for maximum effectiveness.
Keywords: IT curriculum, Secondary education, IT instructional model
1 Introduction
The school systems, all over the world, have a desire to introduce the Information Technology (IT) or computer studies at a very early stage in the education of the student. For the purpose of this article IT and computer studies have been considered equivalent and the term IT has been used to represent either of them. In most countries, the IT education has been implemented by introducing an IT subject in the curricular activities of the students, from the upper primary level till higher secondary level (A level). About two to three hours of curriculum time per week is allocated for this subject. The conventional curriculum introduced in schools includes Introduction to computers, software tools like word processors, spreadsheets, databases etc., programming languages, Internet and Web page design. The emphasis is on formal teaching of the IT as an independent subject dealing with a few isolated concepts and some techniques.
The consequence of this approach is that the additional IT subject takes away the time from either the other school subjects and thus reducing the emphasis on these subjects, or add an additional 2 to 3 hours a week to the curriculum and the school duration and thus increasing the burden on the student. In either case, the quality of education is adversely affected and without really providing any advantage to either the student or the education system.
The conventional instructional approach described in the last sentence of para 1 above, in regard to teaching IT makes learning difficult and is often suspect. This criticism is valid in respect of teaching of any other subject of the school curriculum. Very rarely the approach catches the imagination of the student and inspires the student. In fact the approach is counter productive and positively looses an opportunity to provide an exciting learning experience for the student. The overburdening of the student has to be seen in the Asian context of very high pressure on the student to do well in the school in order to gain entry into university level professional courses.
A number of models such as Piage’s constructivist learning, exploratory learning, collaborative learning and experiential learning models offer some fruitful alternatives to conventional instructional process. An interesting example of constructivism is that the children during their play construct their own worlds and explore the relationships in these worlds. The child learns the concepts pertaining to this world and the relationships in this world through exploration and without the threat of being evaluated. The threat of evaluation does not allow the student to learn or experience the concepts but merely remember the concepts and applications. During the play, the child also develops the concepts of collaboration with others, accommodation of the others’ point of view etc. IT education is very much amenable to adopting these learning models and Seymour Pappert and his school have made some notable efforts to apply some of these learning models through the LOGO environment.
The approach, of teaching IT skills as specific subjects in conventional manner may enable the learning of these IT subjects through rote learning, but the student does not gain in terms of applications, does not develop an appreciation of the subjects, may not see the relevance of these subjects to his daily activities. This results in education that is uninspiring, unexciting and inefficient. Of course this criticism may equally be valid for other subjects taught in secondary schools. However these subjects had the advantage of being taught by professional teachers with long experience partially compensating for any loss of focus on applications and relevance. IT education does not have this benefits as the IT teachers are not experienced teachers and often tend to be computer professionals with no formal training in the process of teaching.
Thus there is a need to design the IT education in a more careful manner. The design covers the issues of IT curriculum, instructional models, integration of the IT into the conventional student activities and student evaluation. This paper explores a way of introducing the IT courses at the school level by keeping in view all the above issues.
2 Objectives of teaching IT courses in schools
We live in the world of IT and we receive a variety of services from the society and delivered through IT. We are expected to accept these services and respond to them in a positive manner for the harmonious living. This requires that the members of the society have certain appreciation and acquaintance with the IT services and applications. A student who comes out of the school system has to find a job in the society.
Most of the jobs require the student to work in environments influenced by the computers, make use of IT skills and tools to perform the jobs in an effective and efficient manner, operate various information systems and IT applications of relevance to the job. This requires that the school graduates have acquired proficiency in a broad range of IT skills. It must be borne in mind that the purpose of the general school education system is to prepare the student to live harmoniously and in a socially responsible manner in a world of science, technology, and commerce. Further the education provides the student with the necessary IT skills that are needed to perform the work assigned, and expose them to the relevant applications. The last goal is to ensure that the student is excited about learning and learns in a manner that integrates IT with the rest of the curriculum so that the student finds the learning process as a holistic experience rather than a series of unrelated bits and pieces of knowledge. The IT courses should also provide the background and prepare the students to take up professional courses in the relevant area. Generally the courses at secondary level do not provide a basis for specialisation but provide general background to appreciate, harness, integrate and understand different areas of knowledge needed in various human activities and endeavours.
A look at the types of jobs undertaken by a person either at his work place or in life and their analysis would help in realising the scope of the IT activities, IT skills, and IT applications that need to be introduced at the school level. It is important to realise that the IT does not provide jobs in these IT fields but would facilitate performing jobs in all other areas of human activity essential for the society. The type of jobs that we come across after post-school level are an office assistant who uses IT office tools to prepare documents and reports, operate test, and help in developing the computerised information systems such are payrolls, personnel records, ledgers and transactions, inventory systems, patient care and monitoring, operators of application systems in hotels, travel industry and hospitality services etc, industrial worker who would operate computer/ microprocessor based equipment, workers from service sectors who operate general purpose information systems or specialised applications such as medical transcription, call centres etc., and teachers at primary level.
From the foregoing discussion, the objectives of teaching IT at school level may be summarised and stated as under:
（1）Develop capability to operate computer systems and microprocessor based systems with confidence
（2）Develop appreciation of and acquaintance with the IT and applications, including applications to instructional process
（3）Develop capability to operate and help in developing information systems
（4）Provide general and specific IT skills that are needed by the job market, society and self
（5）Introduces IT and applications in a manner that integrates them into the school activities and relates them to the world in which the person lives
（6）Provides the basis for learning IT in tertiary education
3 Course Philosophy and outlines
The discussion in this section is divided into 4 parts – primary (5 years), lower secondary (2 to 3 years), secondary (2 to 3 years), and higher secondary (2 years).
3.1 Primary
The IT introduction may start in the last two years of the primary school. The content at this level must excite the student, make him wonder at the capabilities of the technology, nurture his/her basic talents such as drawing, writing, story telling and listening, and basic arithmetic. Since the student needs to handle the computer keyboard, microphone, and storage systems etc., it is good to create special hardware and software interfaces that are not ambiguous, easy to use and are relevant to the situation. Without lot of explanations, the students are immersed in the world of technology through a variety of tools/gadgets. We would return to the Interface aspects later, after a discussion on the contents. Experiential learning, Jean Piaget’s constructivist philosophy, Seymour Pappert’s micro worlds and logo based turtle, integration of the IT experience with the student activities such as playing, drawing, writing, story telling and listening, and basic arithmetic would form the basis of IT education at this stage. It is important to keep in view the transitional nature of objects and contexts that dominate the student’s world at this stage.
Students work on the following themes over these two years.
（1）Logic and Control experiments with Kits and/or simulations. This needs the teaching of the basic concepts of Boolean constructs i.e. and, or, not through a series of situations contrived using the kits/simulations. The problems are initially built around simple situations known to the student and the student is made familiar with the ideas and the tool. The student then constructs his/her own world and experiences it.
（2）Experimentation with Floor Robot with wireless link to the system. This is akin to the famous turtle of Logo. Students create their own worlds and explore them through plays. The student excitement comes from the feeling of playing god by controlling the world around.
（3）Story telling and recording. This is implemented with the simple voice capture technology. Coupled with listening to their own voice and playing the story back to the others this forms a powerful technology to develop communication ability, creativity, and use of IT in communication. The excitement comes from both technology use and listening to their own voice. This facility could be utilised for other orally expressive activities such as singing nursery rimes or songs. Creativity and its expression form the basis of this activity.
（4）Viewing multimedia stories and songs. This introduces the potential of multimedia technology indirectly in the communication process.
（5）Listening to music. This introduces the student to the rhythm and appreciation of music.
（6）Drawing and painting pictures using simple tools. This forms a powerful mode of expression and which the schools generally promote.
（7）Writing and viewing. This includes two aspects – writing through general typing and writing on a paper like flat device with a stylus pen. This satisfies the needs of the school. The technology enabled writing devices could excite the students with their multi colour displays. This introduces the technology applications.
（8）Arithmetic. The teaching of arithmetic using MM CBI and LOGO provides an exciting method of learning using the principles of exploration would open up new applications of Information Technology.
CBI courseware to teach the concepts in other school subjects
The Interface is an important element in the design of the system, especially for the children at primary level. It consists of software and hardware interfaces. These interfaces must facilitate the novice student to interact with the system with very little training. The SW interface may use the basic concepts of objects and their storage and retrieval, and the use of the objects and may be introduced through special pictorial interface. The interface may consist of pictorial toolbox that contains all the tools and bins to store and retrieve objects. The objects can be removed from the bin and used. The system starts by displaying this interface and the interface stays all through the student activity. This conceptual interface is shown in figure 1.
Figure 1 Interface
The hardware interface devices that the student uses are special touch sensitive keyboard, writing stylus, mouse and voice interface. Normal keyboard may also be used but in a very limited manner.
3.2 Lower secondary
The lower secondary school spans the first 2 to 3 years of the secondary school (sometimes called middle school). It is at this stage that formal studies of languages, mathematics, social sciences and sciences are initiated. The IT at this stage may introduce certain tools and applications that are helpful in learning the school subjects and also in activities that are pursued after completion of the secondary school education, both in the world of work and also in the tertiary education. Keeping these goals in view we may examine the curriculum requirements.
The first component that needs to be introduced is word processing, especially in a foreign language like English. Word processor is a very important and useful tool all through the life and human activities. The word processor is generally taught as an office tool, as an application, and as a tool to teach the language. The teaching/use of word processing in the above three environments was found to influence the learning of the language. The research studies carried out during the 70s and 80s conclusively established that the word processing has great influence on the learning of the language, specially the aspects of the written language. The influence of word processing on the learning of the language could be traced to methodologies adopted to teach the language, the visual impact of the fluidic structures of the sentences, and the conscious effort put in by the student to make the language perfect. The last point needs elaboration. When the student practices writing on paper, the frequent corrections needed to improve the draft would often result in acceptance of less perfect structure. Since word processor removes the tediousness in correcting the document, it was found that the student attempts to reach perfection. This quest to reach perfection becomes a habit and as a consequence there was a considerable improvement in the written language capabilities of the student. The instructional strategies for teaching word processing may include writing simple sentences and then gradually increasing the size and complexity. Demonstration by the teacher may precede the student practice. The exercises may include events that occur in the life of the students, writing small stories, nursery rhymes, writing news events for the school etc. The required features of the word processor may be introduced gradually over a period of 2 years. Here the spirit of developing aesthetically pleasing and correct sentences has to be emphasised. While teaching the language, special environment using CBI techniques is created where in the correct sentence structure and meaning are communicated. This environment would support the exercises and self-study. The activity word processing is to be combined with spoken English/language and teaching of the grammar. Interface may include NLP to interpret the sentences. Both the normal keyboard and voice interface are used while teaching the concepts of word processor and its applications. Use of different fonts, font sizes, and colours would excite the students. Use of tutor-tutee mode where the student is the teacher and the computer is the student would be very useful in the exploration mode of learning.