What are the main goals of each Masterplan for ICT in education and why do you think it is important for MOE to develop them?
Masterplan 1 was firstly implemented in year 1997, to further enhance better learning and teaching in class for both students and teachers, it is to allow students and teachers to communicate both in the local and international platforms, it acts as a bridge to connect them without having to leave their country bondaries. The Government has made an effort to provide ready available multi media resources for students to have lessons taught through with the help of using such resources to enhance their learning process and also developing their thinking skills, teachers have to undergo trainings to be fully equipped with these IT skills in order to impart these skills and knowledge to their students. Given the then vision of the Ministry of Education (MOE) was "Teach Less, Learn More" whereby students are encouraged to learn more on their own rather than relying on their teachers. Therefore by implementing Masterplan 1 is an important step as it builds the foundation of a whole new technology era for students and teachers to work hand in hand in schools with the various info-technologies platforms provided for them.
For Masterplan 2 was introduced in year 2002 to further enhance the foundation of Masterplan 1, it is to change the culture of the classrooms as quoted by the then Minster of Education Mr Tharman, the Masterplan 2 has four key concepts that helps to imporve the foundation of Masterplan 1, they are Capacity Building, Experimentation , ICT for all and Curriculum and Assessment. All these four key concepts is to engage better learning and to allow students to practice social and media responsibility while doing their own research. Masterplan 2 sets a baseline to ensure students of different level are able to catch up during lessons and with the help of the standard baseline being set, teachers are able to plan lessons according to their students IT competence. For some schools they are already planned E-leaning into their school curriculum as it allows students to work at home which also aligns with two of the four concepts, firstly is the "Experimentation" which they are task to finish their assignments online and at home and submit it online, whereby they have to do their own research, this is to encourage them to focus on individual learning and relying on the resources made available for them to finish their tasks or assignments, with the help of school portals and internet resources. Hence it aligns with the concept of "ICT for all" as well, where all students have to participate in this activities, and for those who cannot afford a computers or internet connections or services, some schools still do open their computer labs during the E-learning week for students or they even have schemes that allow these students to posses their own computers at a cheaper rate to help them finish their assignments at home as well. With the help of the Masterplan 2, as it draws students attention better as they are more interested in such lessons, because multi media resources such as visual aids and audio aids were used in class to further engage students to participate in class. For example in junior colleges (JC), in their academic ccurriculum, project work is one of the main subject that students have to really rely on technologies, and with the help of advanced technologies, these JC students are able to do their research more efficiently and also writing their reports with better credits and they are able to check for plagiarism using internet resources before submitting their reports for the final assessments. On top of this, Masterplan 2 also encourages students to take part in co-curricular activities (CCA) such as the robotic clubs where students are taught to design and make their own robots with IT softwares to compete in national level or even international level, this also encouraging them to have innovative thinking and "thinking out of the box" and at the same time building students confidence in using IT. There is the digital media award which recognizes schools that make the effort in promoting and encourage ICT in schools. Government is also constantly improving the standard of IT in school and on top of that they are placing more funds for new IT equipments, that further engage students to have to the desire to wanting to learn more. Hence ICT is actually bringing students out of their textbooks into the visual world and at the same time they are equipped with all these IT skills, and also it helps to build up their own individual characters such as self discipline, independent and taking responsibility in their own learning. Therefore this is an important step as the competence of IT literacy is increasing with the help of schools that would be a help to students for their future career and higher level of education.
As for Masterplan 3 is a plan that is to bring learning into a whole new level, a higher level, where it encourage more on self learning, where students have to learn on their own and the teachers in class were act as teacher as a guide or a facilitator to only facilitate the class management and to only guide the students. This is some how similar with the then vision of MOE " Teach Less, Learn More". Therefore with the introduction of Masterplan 3, MOE is able to further improve the learning process, as technologies are ever changing so quickly, it is important to keep up with the tempo of the advanced technologies so that we are always ready to be able to communicate with our counterparts from around the world and allowing local students to learn more and more efficiently.
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)
As a student in junior college, JCjune and december holidays, my tutors are always online to answer our questions or doubts on our assignments and also we are able to book timings for consultation with our tutors as well. In school I have also attended workshops like Adobe photoshop editing, video editing lessons, powerpoint presentation lessons and such, all these lessons have further equipped me to be more efficient in editing photos or videos to be inserted into my powerpoint for presentation, as presentations is one of the main component in the university, therefore by picking up such skills it will prepare me for higher level of education. Hence my experience of using ICT in class has impacted me alot as it prepares me for the greater heights in education and this also links back to the Masterplan 2 and Masterplan 3 where we have to be constantly be improving ourselves in the area of technologies.
How do you think the Masterplan 3 for ICT in Education may affect your role(s) as a beginning teacher?
I guess it will be a challenge to me as I have to be very well equipped with the skills and knowledge of IT and I have to be well versed in it as well in order to impart the skills and knowledge to my students. I think I will have to think of more ways in using the IT resources to make my lessons more interesting and enable students to participate more in class. The challenges that I may faced potentially is that today's technologies are moving too fast, and information can be gathered in just one mouse click, and I have to try to be a teacher with all my facts on my finger tips, if not it would be a laughing stock in front of my students with an outdated information. I can learn from schools like River Valley High School, the school has actually infuse 3D technology into their Biology lesson, this is a good method of getting students to be interested in subjects with topics that are rather dry to be taught in class. Therefore with the help of new technologies, we are able to make lessons much more interesting and most importantly getting the interest of the students back into the subjects, with a little creativity we are able to make such lessons more fun and last but not least we will also uphold the concepts of all the masterplans especially the concept of masterplan 2 "ICT for all".
