Week 3: Teacher's role in the Information Age

For Task 1A, our group has chosen to find out about the IT educational policies in China. The four categories of findings have been divided up among us. My post here is related to the teacher's role in the information age.

• The role that teachers play has been changing greatly in many areas in the information age. With the wide-spread use of IT into modern instruction, teachers are expected to be somewhat like a technician in addition to be knowledgeable in their own field. They are not only judged by how learned they are, but also how well they can integrate modern technologies into their instruction to achieve effectivemess.
• Teachers today are supposed to work better as facilitators, consultants, guides, or directors. Children prefer learner-centered classrooms instead of the old-fashioned style where teachers act as knowledge transmitters. A vivid description of the teachers' role might be the transfer from the traditional "sage on the stage" to today's "guide on the side".
• Teachers nowadays are compelled to keep up with the time and be experts not only in their own field but in the modern technology to better benefit their learners.

Links: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Education_in_the_Peoples_Republic_of_China#Teachers
http://www.moe.edu.cn/english/index.htm.

Week 1: The Road Ahead

2.1 Task 1
The similarities and differences found out by comparing and contrasting material from Gates’ The Road Ahead with the local teaching and learning circumstances in my university are as follows:

Similarities:

1. Many of the classrooms and offices have been connected to the network which enables students and teachers to communicate with their counterparts across town and around the world.
2. It is true that communication between parents and teachers has become more efficient and more frequent due to the network.
3. The classroom has expanded its walls via the information and communication links to other parts of the community and world made possible by the Information Highway. One of the schools in my university, for example, has been making good profits by opening such educational courses to faraway students.

Differences:
There are a great many differences, some of which are as follows:
1. Gates predicts in The Road Ahead that teachers will remain centrally important but will probably spend more time with small groups of students working together using a personal computer that is connected to the network. It is not the case however in my local circumstances. The computer has not been so effectively or widely used in teaching by us.
2. The miraculous Digital White Board in The Road Ahead seems too far away for teachers in my local circumstances.
3. It is obviously hard for us to teach via multimedia as is expressed in The Road Ahead.

Enjoy being elsewhere

Hello, guys!
Do you enjoy your life here in Singapore? What do you like about it? I like the rain so much. How about you?