Changes

This course makes an important shift from the way traditionally ICT courses in Education have been taught, hitherto in Karnataka and other states.  Traditionally ICT have been taught as a set of skills to work with a set of applications.  These skills have also often been introduced in a stand alone manner without much reference to how these skills map to the underlying educational processes.  This approach also assumes a tool-centric and very instrumentalist view of technology.       

This course makes an important shift from the way traditionally ICT courses in Education have been taught, hitherto in Karnataka and other states.  Traditionally ICT have been taught as a set of skills to work with a set of applications.  These skills have also often been introduced in a stand alone manner without much reference to how these skills map to the underlying educational processes.  This approach also assumes a tool-centric and very instrumentalist view of technology.       

Digital Information and Communication technologies (IT) have become an important part of societal processes, including education. Teachers need to have a critical understanding of the role being played by ICT in education and larger social processes, as well as develop digital skills in integrating ICT into their professional development and teaching-learning processes. Hence the course is being offered as a part of teacher studies.

This paper takes a different view to ICT Mediation in Education from the starting point of how the different possibilities allowed by technology can support educational processes of creating, collaborating and teaching learning. ICT can alter learning spaces and methods and allow self learning and peer learning.  Digital methods can allow new methods of creating and representing content and provide new pedagogies, extending Pedagogical Content Knowledge into Technological Pedagogical Content Knowledge.  Digital literacy and a critical perspective on technology are important domains of learning in and of themselves.  Thus, teachers need to have a critical understanding of the role being played by ICT in education and larger social processes, as well as develop digital skills in integrating ICT into their professional development and teaching-learning processes. Hence the course is being offered as a part of teacher studies.    

Historically, information and communication have  been important factors in social processes and systems.  We are now surrounded by networks created using digital ICTs, through which information flows constantly. Our notions of time and location are changing; the world seems to be becoming smaller and smaller where distance is no longer a barrier to commercial or social contact.  If we live in Bengaluru, or other big cities,  it is difficult to imagine being without all the networked infrastructure that plays a crucial part in our daily lives. Now, in villages too, many people are connected by mobile phones. This is seen by some as a shift from an 'industrial society' to an 'information society,' where information is seen as an important resource in itself. It is the digital format of resources that has caused such an explosion of information, the creation, storage and dissemination of information has become easier and cheaper.  Increasingly, production and consumption of information is becoming increasingly important, from economic, social and cultural perspectives. These changes are also impacting the nature of learning and of education systems, in many positive and negative ways.

This course, therefore, has attempted to define ICT Mediation in terms of 4 units across two years, linked to core educational processes.

It is hence essential that student teachers need to understand the nature of this phenomenon and its implications for education as well as for larger society, the shaping of which, in itself, is an important aim of the education system. It is also inevitable that the education system will adopt ICTs. Therefore the teacher-educator and student-teachers must be prepared by understanding the philosophical, socio-cultural and political implications, of ICTs in education. Since ICTs are also technologies, along with such understanding,  building basic skills for personal and  professional purposes is necessary.

Year 1: Unit 1 - ICT for connecting and learning

 

Year 1: Unit 2 - ICT for generic resource creation

 

Year 2: Unit 1 - ICT for subject specific resource creation

 

Year 2: Unit 2 - ICT in teaching learning

[[Category:TE year 1 hand book]]

[[Category:TE year 1 hand book]]