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Information Communication Technologies (ICTs) are as old as humanity itself; yet, digital technologies have brought in major changes in the creating, processing, organizing and presentation of information, as well as in communication. Since information and communication are basic social processes, all ICTs bring significant changes not only to education and knowledge processes, but also to larger socio-cultural, political and economic structures and processes. The ease of creating and sharing information using digital technologies has caused an explosion of information in society, creating what is termed as an “information society”.
Development of digital literacy skills is required for all to navigate this ‘information society’. Teachers, student teachers and teacher educators need to be able to use ICTs for their professional development, through self learning, peer learning, in digital resources creation and in teaching-learning. They must develop a critical understanding of the larger positive and negative implications of the design and adoption of ICTs in society. Recent curricular (NCFTE, National ICT Curriculum) and policy (National ICT Policy in School Education) documents on education in India have recognized the importance of integrating ICT in school education. We also believe that an effective ICT implementation can strengthen the school system such that the vision of 'universal education of equitable quality’ set out by the Indian Right to Education Act is realised.
Recognising the transformatory nature of ICT in education, the state education department is aiming to integrate technology into teaching and learning in sustained and meaningful ways. The ICT implementation in school education is based on the four pillars of infrastructure, training, content and connectivity. The focus is on having a digital lab and a digital classroom in all schools. It is envisaged that ICT is not to be seen as an end by itself, but rather as a process for creating a rich learning environment in the school. The digital classroom would be a regular classroom enriched with digital content; the teacher will be empowered to transact in this classroom. In line with National ICT Policy, the state intends to use open educational resources and free and open source software to allow rich possibilities for creating, sharing, communicating and learning. The department has also undertaken the training of teachers in technology integration to build in house capabilities in the education system, the schools and teachers to manage an effective ICT program integrated with school processes.
It is in this context that the Telangana Department of School Education has developed an ICT student text book and teacher hand book which will be used by the school teachers for transacting the ICT classes from Class 6-10. These have been based on the National ICT curriculum developed by NCERT, which seeks to bring to school education the possibilities of ICTs for connecting and learning, and creating and learning. The development of the ICT text book and the teacher hand book is in collaboration with IT for Change, a NGO working in the area of ICT and social change, and the Commonwealth Educational Media Centre for Asia (CEMCA), an inter-governmental organization, of the Commonwealth countries.
Scope of the handbook
This teacher handbook is meant as an accompanying resource for teachers to help in the facilitation of the student ICT syllabus and provide meaningful linkages to curricular and co-curricular areas. The handbook also has a component of Teacher Professional Development which will introduce the pedagogical framework for technology learning, the implications of technology and society and possibilities for advanced learning in digital methods and processes. The handbook also provides the guidelines for school level implementation.
It is hoped that the textbook and handbook will help support the teachers in meaningful technology integration in the direction of achieving digital classrooms as well as in their own journey of becoming self-reflective professionals.
ICT refer to the infrastructure and processes connected to creating information, organizing, processing and representation of the information, as well as communication of the information. ICT have impacted the functioning of existing institutions in government, private sector, media and civil society.
Understanding ICT - a brief history
Information as well as the communication have been one of the defining characteristics of the human society. Historically, many societies and cultures have used different and multiple ways of organizing, representation and transmission of information. These differences exist in the manner of recording, the content recorded, ways of access and the scope of the transmission. Improved and easy access to information and knowledge significantly enhances people's overall life opportunities and has the potential to alter structures in society. Historically, difference in access and use of information by various sections of the society has led to marginalization and inequity. ICT are perhaps nearly as old as humanity itself, as human beings needed to communicate with one another, beginning with symbolic (non verbal) ways, before language was invented. Language could be seen as the first 'ICT', it enabled (oral) communication among human beings. Yet oral communication had the limitation of space and time, meaning that the speaker and the listener had to be in the same space and time. Script was the next ICT, invented around 5,000 years ago, which enabled information to be held distinct from the communicator and be made available beyond the limitation of space and time that oral communication imposed. Writing also enabled easier recording of human history and thus the invention of script was a landmark in the history of ICTs.
Invention of printing technologies scaled up the 'writing' process and enabled mass production of books. The invention of radio and television created the 'mass media' in which simultaneously the same message could be transmitted to thousands of people. Each ICT invention enabled the processes of information creation, sharing, storing and communicating to be easier, quicker, more efficient (reaching more people) etc. Each invention was a significant event in the evolution of human communication processes and in the explosion in the availability of information. Each step also resulted also in shifts in the way information became accessible to sections of society.
The digital paradigm
Information and communication have historically been drivers of social processes and systems. What makes the new framework different is the advancement in the digital technologies surrounding information and communications. We are now perhaps in the middle of the next epochal movement in the history of ICT, the use of digital methods of accessing, creating, modifying sharing and storing information as well as for communication. The digital format of resources has caused such an explosion of information since creation, storage and dissemination of information has become much easier and cheaper than before. Increasingly, production and consumption of information becoming increasingly important, not only from economic but even more so from social and cultural perspectives. This digital knowledge society is developing new structures and adjusting existing structures, along the lines of information flow. These pathways of information flow can also create more marginalization and exclusion if all the participants in society are not equipped with the skills to function in this society. Another key aspect of ICT lies in the possibilities of connecting and their impact on communities and organization. By their very nature, ICT allow new possibilities for network structures of organizing and communicating information.
Movement of ICT
Knowledge model / Basis
Method
Storage
Sharing
Publishing (mass sharing)
Features
Oral / Language
Oral
Human memory; Speaking - Hearing
Not possible
Requires synchronicity of space and time
Written / Script
Text
Books
Physical
Not possible
Share knowledge across space and time, but in limited manner
Print / Printing
Text
Books
Physical
Books
Explosion
Mass Media/ Radio, TV
Analogue -Audio, video
Cassettes and similar analog devices
Physical
Over broadcast media
Mass reach across space and time
Digital (ICT)
Digital methods (text / audio / video editors)
Digital storage like hard disks
Email
Websites, blogs, Wikis – 'desktop publishing'
Information spreads fast and wide. Much easier construction and much Wider possibilities – text, audio, video
Like the ICTs invented earlier, the invention and mass use of digital ICTs is having significant implications for society across various spheres of polity, economy, governance, media etc. We will explore these implications briefly in the next section.
ICT and implications for polity, society and economy
Political
The political processes in most countries have been impacted by digital ICT. Many political leaders now participate on virtual platforms that allow them to communicate with people directly, e.g. Twitter which is a 'micro blogging' platform, is used by many political leaders, as well as government departments to communicate its work and information. Mass movements have also used digital networking tools to collaborate and support action. It is said that during the recent Egypt struggle for democracy, protests were coordinated using social networking platforms/tools, which made them more effective. The counting of votes has now become a fraction of time, used earlier, through 'electronic voting machines' and in a large country like India with a large voter base, counting for an entire constituency can be completed in a matter of hours.
Think and talk it over with your students
The use of Internet by people mobilising in Egypt during the 'Arab spring' is discussed in detail in 'Internet Activism and the Egyptian uprisings : transforming on-line activism into the off-line world' by Tim Eaton, see article. Read this article and discuss the concept of 'mediated mobilisation'. Can a variation of such a strategy be used for instance by women, to protest against illicit liquor shops in villages? Can you create a group of your colleagues in your Mandal, using a tool like 'Whatsapp' to discuss ways of raising awareness against domestic violence or eve teasing?
The listed article was sourced using 'Google Scholar' a search engine that provides links to scholarly / academic articles. Can you search Google Scholar for articles of interest to you. Digital technologies also allow unauthorised access (even spying). Emails and documents can be 'hacked' and accessed. A large part of our ICT infrastructure is privately owned, and the companies which often provide it 'free' (of cost) to users, may be using the information users feed, to monetise the same (sell the information) as well as share it with others. The sharing of such information both authorised by us (when we agree to the 'terms of use' of the software/tool), as well unauthorised, can be for the commercial gains of the company (they can sell or hire this information to advertisers for example), or for political purposes (to enable governments or other agencies to spy on us). ICTs make such tapping much simpler and easier, since the data passing over the global networks can be easily 'hacked' and a copy of the information shared with the people conducting such espionage.
Thus the digital nature of ICT can be both greatly beneficial as well as greatly harmful for furthering human rights and development. Hence a critical perspective is essential, and as teachers we need to be cautious against the hype that surrounds ICT, as a panacea for all problems, and instead keep a balanced and critical perspective and use our judgement to decide when and how to use digital technologies and when and how not to.
Socio-cultural
Since communication is the essence of social processes, the introduction of ICT has dramatically impacted most of our socio-cultural activities and processes. With the mass use of the cell phone, we now assume that we can reach anyone any time. This kind of access enables us to plan interactions / activities in much more efficient ways. Even twenty years back, the best of possible communication situations, one was not sure, if one could reach another person using a land-line / fixed line phone. In the absence of email, sending a letter over postal services meant a gap of many days before communication could be established. The reduction in communication time, has opened up numerous more possibilities for each of us (who are part of this digital world).
Social networking platforms are connecting millions of people to create 'virtual communities' or groups. Such interactions with large number of people who may not be physically close to one another, opens new possibilities for friendships and learning. Of course, we also hear several anecdotes of how people can be naively trusting of 'friends' on such networks and get exploited or fooled. It is extremely necessary to exercise diligence and caution in making friends on such platforms. We also need to guide our students on safe and careful use of social media platforms. The mass sharing of information through the digital networks is also perhaps speeding up the assimilation of dominant cultures, which began with the advent of mass media. Wherever one travels, we can see the popular brands and symbols and the shopping malls across cities look familiar with the similar brands available on sale.
There is research to suggest that this process is negatively affecting local contexts and cultures. UNESCO study has documented the decline of local cultures and languages and that many languages have become extinct and many dying. As teachers, your role would be to promote digital avenues for storing and sharing local cultures as well. For instance, the Wikipedia encyclopedia has more than 5 million articles in English but less than 1% of that is available in the Telugu Wikipedia. Documenting local cultures, resources, literature and sharing it in digital formats on public digital platforms, such as Telugu Wikipedia is an important priority for our society, one in which teachers would need to have an important role.
For several centuries, society was agrarian, meaning most people worked in agriculture, food (and related items) production was the most significant part of the gross domestic product (GDP). With the industrial revolution in the 18th century, industry / manufacturing sector became very important and its contribution to a nations GDP crossed that of agriculture.
Think and talk it over with your students
Society is changing, moving from an Agricultural society → Industrial society → Knowledge society. The table below lists highlights relating to the processes of production.
Kind of society
Basic production
Basic material
Share in India GDP of basic product in 1950 (2010)
Agricultural society
Food
Land
70.00% (15.00%)
Industrial society
Goods
Capital
20.00% (28.00%)
Knowledge society
Services / knowledge
Knowledge / Information
10.00% (57.00%)
ICT have affected the nature/shape of many industries and occupations. Typewriters, "film" based cameras have become extinct. Information based 'service' industries such as newspapers, travel and tourism, financial services, insurance, have been significantly impacted. Many new 'digital' occupations have also begun, such as software engineering, digital photography, system administration, desktop publishing etc.
The possibilities of establishing information networks which can facilitate rapid communications and decision making has led to the creation of very large transnational corporations. They are able to support de-centralised working, yet retain overall control through by better ICT based 'Management Information Systems. Such networks are also on the other hand, supporting decentralised production and collaborative production projects, such as Free and Open Source Software or Wikipedia.
Governance
Democratic Governments have in the past had difficulties in sharing information transparently with citizens and also supporting citizen/ community participation in their activities. This is partly been to the large volumes of information being generated and stored across thousands of paper files which has made sharing difficult if not impossible. Slow modes of communication also lead to delayed communication with the public. However, increasingly, governments are using ICT to improve information processing and sharing, leading to greater transparency. India has passed the Right to Information Act, 2005 and the use of 'pro-active' disclosure through the Internet is seen as a very important way of meeting RTI needs. Apart from information transparency, transaction processing too has been simplified in many areas. Booking of travel tickets has become simple, and in case of education, admission, examination administration etc. has also become quicker and more efficient.
Students must develop ICT competencies and skills through their school years, to fully participate in the knowledge society. If the students must develop ICT skills, it goes without saying that the teachers must be equipped to facilitate them to acquire these skills. The scope for ICT in Education has three broad strands – in the school and the teaching-learning process, in teacher-education and in strengthening the administrative and academic support structures.
Principles for ICT in education
Digital Natives
While considering ICT in Education, we need to consider that the generation of children entering schools are digital natives. They are born into an age where rapid changes are taking place in digital technologies, and learning to navigate the digital world is an essential skill. An important point to keep in mind here, however, is that these conditions of nativity are not uniform. Socio-economic disparities are mirrored in disparity of access to the digital world and many socio-economically deprived children are deprived of this aspect of education too. It is also important that teachers acquire and internalise technological and pedagogical skills to the extent that they can facilitate the classroom process while working with digital natives and non-natives.
ICT in Education as Public Resource
An important principle in public education, is that curricular resources and the tools for creating such resources need to be publicly owned, so that they are freely available to teacher educators, teachers and students without restrictions. In the same manner, digital tools and resources used in public education, should be publicly owned. Use of free and digital tools/resources can provide a rich and diverse public digital environment. Digital resources are non-rivalrous (meaning that sharing does not reduce availability) and hence promoting public creation and sharing of digital resources (both e-content and software) is an important step to ensure systemic benefit from ICT in education. The National Policy on ICT in school education therefore recommends the use of free and open source software applications. Use of proprietary products can create vendor 'lock-in' which could be detrimental to education. A free and open source operating system such as GNU/Linux is widely used. This can save public funds on license fees on procuring proprietary software and upgrade fees at later dates. There are a large number of freely shareable educational tools on GNU/Linux, pertaining to mathematics, science, social sciences etc which can be used in schools. There are large number of additional freely shareable tools , such as IBUS which supports word processing in more than 50 languages, including most languages used in India or the ORCA screen reader necessary for the visually handicapped or Scribus for desktop publishing. All these tools can be pre-installed in a 'custom distribution' of GNU/Linux for a one-time installation. A custom distribution of the Ubuntu GNU/Linux system will be provided to all the schools for implementing the program. This software distribution will have all the software applications that are part of the text book and hand book. Since all applications are free and open source, they can be periodically upgraded without license fee implications. The department may provide an updated version of software distribution annually, so that the schools can upgrade their ICT Labs and use the latest versions of the different software applications.
Integration of ICT in Education
ICT in school education
There are three ways in which ICT can be introduced in schools– Digital literacy, instruction in ICT-related subjects such as desktop publishing or video editing, and use of ICT to as a tool to teach various subjects as a regular part classroom processes.
ICT in teacher education
There are three components to use of ICT for teacher education - Digital literacy, creating and sharing digital resources, and networking for peer learning and sharing.
Open Distance learning is also being changed by integrating ICT, to allow for greater interactions between the educators and learners and among the learners.
ICT in education administration
ICT can be used for planning and implementing training programmes through Training Management Systems. Information can also be easily shared within and across institutions to facilitate education administration, for instance circulars or orders can be shared over mail or phone based communities.
Open Educational Resources
The National Curriculum Framework 2005 speaks of contextual, inclusive and meaningful education. For these ideas to come true, relevant learning resources must be available for the students, teachers and teacher-educators. These resources must be contextual, easily available and allow for learners to modify and adapt for their requirements.
Currently, textbook may be the most important resource for many teachers. This resource is limited, made once in a year and perhaps represents one set of thoughts. The text based resource does not incorporate audio visual resources, and may not address multiple learning needs. External resources, though available, are also largely non-digital, expensive and cannot easily be adapted for local needs and contexts. For critical and diverse perspectives to develop, multiple resources must be made available and it must be possible for knowledge to be constructed and shared from multiple contexts. Otherwise, it is possible that only some forms of knowledge will remain important and other will die out. For knowledge sharing to freely happen, educational resources must become freely available, freely shareable and freely changeable to adapt to local contexts and needs. Open Educational Resources (OER), as they are called, are such learning resources. Open Educational Resources are digital resources that are available freely, in multiple formats - text, audio, video - to allow for multiple learner needs.
As per UNESCO, OER are "teaching, learning and research materials in any medium, digital or otherwise, that reside in the public domain or have been released under an open license that permits no-cost access, use, adaptation and redistribution by others with no or limited restrictions." OER became a global phenomenon when Wikipedia was launched in 2001, this is an encyclopedia on the internet, where knowledge is created and shared by many people and not restricted to one person. Following this, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, a leading university in the United States of America, released many of its course materials for free called Open Courseware (2001). In teacher education, educational resources were developed collaboratively by a programme for Teacher Education in Sub Saharan Africa and published on-line. In India, National Programme on Technology Enhanced Learning (NPTEL) and IGNOU have offered many of their courses as OER.
Principles of OER
Open Educational Resources are resources that allow the following four kinds of freedoms to learners/ users. These “Freedoms” are as follows:
Resources can be accessed for free and 're-used'
Resources can be revised to make it relevant or more useful
Resources can be re-mixed / combined to make a new resource
Resources can be redistributed - the revised/ remixed resource can be shared back.
These are called the 4 Rs (re-use, re-vise, re-mix and re-distribute) of OER
Licensing and copyright
OER are shared under copyright which are less restrictive than the usual 'all rights reserved' and allow for some or all of the four R's. One popular copyright used for such resources is the “Creative Commons”. Creative Commons is a type of copy right (sometimes called Copy Left, to contrast it with the traditional 'all rights reserved' copyright) that will allow you to use the resources, modify them, combine them and also redistribute. When you are sharing a learning resource as OER, you can share it under Creative Commons License, by explicitly mentioning the license 'Copyright – Creative Commons' in your text. If nothing is mentioned, the default copyright is 'all rights reserved', which will mean others cannot modify or share your resources. The ICT hand book and text book are released as OER, which allows teachers, teacher educators and others to re-use, as well as revise and re-distribute.
Having an overview of ICT and their larger societal implications, we will now learn how to navigate / use ICT. Any technology has a skill component and ICT is something all of us can practise for our own use. In the next section we will learn how to use a computer and various software applications for our professional activities. You should diligently work on this practice component, and also try to integrate it into the other subjects you teach as well, to the extent you find this relevant and useful. The more you practise / use, the more you would learn and become comfortable. We will explore the basics of computer hardware and software and learn Internet browsing, concept mapping as well as text and number editing applications in this section. At all times, we will try to see how ICT are relevant to your primary mandate of teaching-learning. Hence we will approach the learning and use of these applications from a pedagogical perspective.
Computer Hardware and Software
A computer is a device which takes input, processes it and gives output which can be stored and shared. When you enter data into your computer, it is called as input. An input can be data like text or picture or an instruction on what to do with the data. This data is processed (process means to perform a series of operations on a set of data) and you will get the output. The software is what makes the computer and mobile so powerful. Learn more about the history of computers. A more detailed description of the computer can be found here.
Learning to input with keyboard
Most of the instructions / input is given to the computer through the keyboard, hence it is important that teachers should be able to type efficiently, using all their fingers. Typing using the correct finger for each key on the keyboard will help improve the speed of input enormously. It will enable the teacher to type without seeing the keyboard, and seeing the monitor during typing, will enable spotting of any mistakes immediately.
Earlier to learn typing, one had to go to a typing class, but now the computer has software that you can use to learn typing.
Brief information about the keyboard
The keys on the keyboard can be divided into several groups based on function:
Typing (alphabets and numbers) keys: These keys are arranged as in a traditional 'QWERTY' typewriter
Special purpose keys: These keys are used alone or in combination with other keys to perform certain actions, such as CTRL, ALT, ESC, Function keys etc.
Navigation keys: These keys are used for moving around in documents / editing text. They include the arrow keys, HOME, END, PAGE UP, PAGE DOWN, DELETE and INSERT.
Numeric keypad: The numeric keypad is handy for entering numbers quickly. The keys are grouped together in a block like a conventional calculator or adding machine. This block may not be available on all keyboards, numbers are also provided in the top rung of the keyboard
Learning to input with the mouse
Initially, the keyboard was the only device for providing instructions to the computer, but with the invention of the 'graphic user interface' (GUI in short), the mouse became an important input device. The mouse makes giving instructions much simpler by pointing the cursor to a place on the screen and clicking to select an instruction. You can become comfortable in using the mouse by practising with Tux Paint. Tux Paint features a simple interface and a fixed drawing area with access to previously made images using icons. Tux Paint is equipped with cartoon mascots which can encourage students to learn to use the mouse.
Operating System
We need a special computer program to explain our instructions to the computer, this is called the Operating system (also called system software). Every computer must have an operating system to run other computer programmes. Even your mobile phones have an operating system (such as Android). Operating systems start automatically when you turn on the computer, this process is termed booting. All the other computer programmes like programmes to paint, type, listen to music, learn maths etc., are called application software or 'Apps' which work with the system software. People who write programmes are called computer programmers or software developers. On any computer you will have software to paint, to type letters, to watch movies, to find something on the Internet, to learn maths.
You can become comfortable in using the Ubuntu GNU/Linux operating system through Learn Ubuntu.
The operating system is like the foundation of a building. By itself it may not seem to be very useful, but it is the basis for all other applications (other floors of the building, which are used by us)
One of the most powerful things about a computer is the ability to connect to another computer. The transfer of information through digital methods allows devices to be connected across time and space. It is not difficult to see the possibilities that this has for the way knowledge can be accessed and shared. The by-line of one IT company, Sun Micro-systems, was "The network is the computer". By connecting people to one another, ICT allow the sharing of knowledge with one another and allow collaborative work and creation.
The emergence of the internet and the web has changed the way we are accessing information. The internet is a network of thousands of computers, many of which 'serve' the network by providing data and services. Getting data about something is not so difficult any more. Emergence of email has changed the way we think of communication, on-line communities are emerging in various interest areas. All of these have a great impact on the way we learn. However, making meaning depends on our skills to evaluate and organize these resources. The resources available on the internet can be organized into a meaningful personal digital library on our own computer, thus enabling self learning. The web itself can be seen as a 'global digital library' which has resources on many topics. Resources are available on almost all topics that may be of interest to a teacher in the English language. However, teachers need and can contribute to on-line resources in local language, to increase the local language resources on the web.
If you want information about your bank balance, you can connect to your bank's computer from home and get the information that you want. There are many such computers in different organisations giving us different types of information. These computers are connected to one another, their network is called the internet. The internet is thus a physical network of millions of computers across the world, each of which has a unique identifier. Some of these computers act as 'servers', they store data which can be accessed by other computers. The millions of computers which are part of the Internet, is like a huge library with information on almost any issue. Apart from information, many of these computers also have applications or web tools, such as search engine, maps, translation, which have different purposes. The 'web-sites' we visit are nothing but folders of computers connected to the internet.
These computers communicate or share data with one another using the protocol called the TCP-IP, (transmission control protocol / internet protocol). As the name suggests, TCP/IP is the combination of TCP and IP protocols working together. Under TCP/IP each file being transported across the Internet is broken into smaller parts called "packets" by the server. Each packet is assigned an IP (Internet protocol) address of the computer it has to travel to. As the packet moves through the global network it is "switched" by a number of servers toward its destination, the requesting computer or "client" computer. These packets do not usually travel together on the Internet. Packets from the same file may travel via different paths through different servers, but toward the same destination. This “splitting into packets” technology allows us to use Internet most efficiently. It means parts of a file can be shared across a number of phone lines instead of having to find one phone line to put a large file into. It is also hard to break the network, as the data will be routed around the trouble spot. In this respect TCP/IP can be likened to a group of cars which need to go to the same destination, but instead of all of them going on one road (which may be busy), each car can select a different road out of thousands of roads available. By picking the roads with least traffic, all cars can reach the destination in overall least time. The power of the internet to rapidly move information from any computer to any computer is because of the TCP/IP protocol.
World wide web (www) is an application on the Internet, which was invented by Tim Berners Lee. The www allows computers to access the Internet in the form of a web page, using an application called the web browser. There are millions of pages of shared information on the computers in the network, created by many people and organizations, in the form of 'web pages' accessed using a software application called a 'web browser'.
This information network, called the World Wide Web, consists of web sites. A web site is a collection of related web pages. Web pages are identified by means of a URL (uniform resource locater), which is treated as the website address, usually beginning with “http://” (HTTP stands for hypertext transfer protocol, which is the method used for transferring web page information from the server to your computer. We connect to the Internet using a web browser and the browser opens one web page. This web page has links to other web sites / web pages which we can visit by clicking on the links. Each of the subsequent pages will also have many links which we can click on. Thus we can visualise the world wide web as a huge mansion with many rooms, each room having many doors. When we enter a room (open a web page), we can access the resources in that room. We can also go from that room to other rooms through the several doors that this room has (go from one web page to another web page by clicking on any of the links on the page we are in). The new room also would have many doors. Thus we can go through the mansion from room to room (web page to web page) through the door (web link) in each room. Thus though the entire web is very huge, we only access it one page at a time. We can connect to the web and go from web page to web page using a software called the web browser. Web browsers allow a user to quickly and easily get information provided on many web pages at many websites.
Initially the access to the www was only for downloading, this was called Web 1.0. Subsequently the second generation of www was evolved, called Web 2.0. , where ordinary users can create their own materials and publish on the Internet, using software tools like blog or wiki. A blog is like a e-journal and teachers can create their own e-journals for reflective practice using software tools such such as WordPress.
We have moved further along now to collaborative creation of web pages, through online collaboration platforms. Now more and more processing can be done on the Internet, where the data, results and analysis is stored the Internet and we can operate/ add/ access through various web based applications. This is called Cloud Computing.
Internet Safety
With the increasing importance of internet in today's society, teachers need to be aware of the safety concerns around using the internet and different applications on the web. Keeping private information private, secure access to the internet and understanding the rules and ethics of different online applications for communicating, including social media is critical for teachers. Teachers also need to interpret this for students and train them on methods of internet safety. More details on how to access the internet safely are available in the section on ICT textbook transaction notes.
Every profession has its own professional association for learning and sharing. These associations are a method of continuous interactions with fellow practitioners (peers) and allow methods of learning beyond the college or university. You may have learnt about social constructivism and how we learn from each other. Teachers, as professionals too need to connect regularly to their peers, for sharing their experiences, practices as well as insights. They also need to be able to contact peers as well as mentors for seeking support.
However, in the large school system in India, teachers may be isolated in their practice and they may have few opportunities for sharing experiences, reflecting and sharing understanding or seeking solutions for their specific needs and challenges. In the traditional in-service teacher training programmes, the learning is usually at a point in time; teachers learn in workshops, and there is limited opportunity for interactions after that. Teachers may not have formal, organized methods of being in touch with their faculty or with one another to extend the learning after the teacher workshop. There is a need for teachers to organise themselves into learning communities for regular interactions to support peer learning and mentoring.
While professional communities and associations have been there for a long time, ICT have made possible ways of connecting and communicating with each other simpler and more accessible. Online communities are often a good way of continuing interactions beyond the restrictions of meetings of physical time and space. Online communities can be mailing forums or discussion groups and can be accessed either through your phone or the computer.
The National Curriculum Framework for Teacher Education (NCF-TE, 2010) talks envisions teacher education with the following key components: (i) collaborative networks for learning and sharing, (ii) continuous learning (iii) different paths and spaces for learning. It regards peer learning as an important component of Teacher Professional Development.
Mailing forums are a good way to keep the teacher community in contact with one another and serve as a complement to physical interactions, and provide for learning beyond the workshops. Teachers can use the mailing forums to share their experiences, share resources created by them (including question papers, share activities and ideas for CCE), ask for clarifications, seek feedback, discuss issues in school administration as well. Professional Learning Communities are a recent method for continuing professional development and by providing teachers with peer support, it can be a sustainable method of development. A state-wide mailing-list can bring all teachers (usually teaching the same subject) together, to discuss and share. PLCs can be created at different levels for different purposes. You should also try to form such a community in your school, with your colleagues, your 'school professional learning community' which will have school development as an important aim. You can also initiate a PLC with your colleague subject teachers in your Mandal or district.
For making teaching more effective, a resource rich learning environment is necessary. However, in many cases, teachers only have the text book for their subject. The text book is intended primarily for the student and the teacher needs to access resources that are a super set of the topic as dealt in the text book, so that the teacher is well placed to teach the topic in a variety of ways, based on the learning contexts and needs of the students. Teachers must also be resourceful to address any doubts or questions that may arise in class or elsewhere on the topic.
However, learning resources other than text books are not easily available to teachers. Also significant part of materials available is copyrighted, meaning teachers cannot make copies of the same for their use and it may be expensive to purchase all the required resource materials. 'Copyright' refers to the legal framework under which the author is making available her work to the public. The default copyright in India and rest of the world is that, if the author does not specify the copyright clause, it means that all rights are reserved by the author. This means that most of the published materials available are copyright as 'all rights reserved' and cannot be freely used, shared or modified.
Teachers also will need to contextualise materials (make changes as per their own needs), which copyrighted materials would not allow. Hence there is a movement to produce learning resources and make available with less copyright restrictions. The 'Open Educational Resources' movement aims to release materials with minimal restrictions, which will allow teachers to freely 're-use', 're-vise', 're-mix' and 're-distribute' materials (these are called the 4 Rs, the fifth R can be 're-tain').
Global digital library to personal digital library
This chapter discusses how teachers can access available OER from the internet and create their own digital libraries on their computers for different topics of their interest. As a 'global digital library, the internet has information on almost every topic. This changes the way we can think of learning and the skills of learning. Skills of accessing information, organizing, evaluating information are very important. While the Internet is a continuous learning resource and there is a lot of content you can access, to make the resources useful, you need to organize it well, and have a clear unit plan on how to integrate multiple resources for teaching. While there are many tools for teaching learning, no single tool will be fully adequate for learning; we have to use a library of tools and materials.
Information can be accessed in multiple ways from the Internet and we need to know how to search for information on the Internet. Sources of information, even if freely available on the Internet, needs to be acknowledged. Resources are available in different formats on the Internet- images, videos, audio files etc. We must be aware of Internet safety while accessing images, videos and other information on the Internet. We already saw that each website is a page on the Internet and has an address. We can either copy and paste the link directly in the address bar of the browser (shown above). Another way of finding information on the Internet is through the use of a search engine.
Objectives of a personal digital library
A personal digital library can store information on different topics of interest to you. It is 'personal' meaning it is available on your own computer, for your use anytime. It is 'digital' it is available in a digital format, which is easy to edit, store and share. Most importantly, it is a 'library' meaning the digital resources are organised meaningfully, for you to easily access information when you want it.
How to access information on internet - Accessing text, image, audio and video resources
Accessing text resources
The Internet is a rich source of text OER. It is important to access OER while creating your own because you cannot use content not licensed for reuse. You could either access popular known OER repositories or you could search the internet for resources you want. One method of accessing existing OER is to search some text repositories. The most popular text OER repository is the digital encyclopedia, Wikipedia. You can search for your topic in Wikipedia, by simply typing this text in the search bar. We will do this for ‘Digital Story Telling’ (DST) which is the OER proposed to be created as an exemplar by this tool-kit. Wikipedia is available in more than hundred other languages, so you may also be able to search for text OER in Telugu or Urdu.
You could also use a search engine such as Google search engine or DuckDuckGo search engine to access information. The search engine will retrieve web pages for your topic that are both OER and non OER and you need to check each result you want to use, if it is OER.
Accessing image resources
Like Wikipedia is a popular text OER repository, Wikimedia commons is a repository of media (images, audio and video). You can search for your topic in Wikimedia Commons, by simply typing the topic name in the search bar. Flickr is also another popular source of OER images. You can use a search engine such as Google search engine or DuckDuckGo search engine to search for image OER. As in the case of text, you can select images that are licensed for reuse by specifying the search settings.
Youtube is a popular repository for videos, it contains both OER and non OER videos. It is the largest collection of videos in the world. If the video is downloadable, you will always see a download button; right click will usually give download option. You can search for videos on Youtube also. When you search, all videos will be listed. Right click on any link and click on "download as". # It will save in downloads folder; you can copy and paste into your folder
Vimeo and Wikimedia are also audio and video repositories. A google search on ‘OER Videos’ will also give you a list of sites to explore. In the search engine, you would need to specify "videos" as a filter for search results. You cannot insert videos into a text document, so inserting the link to the file, will provide the information to play the video.
How to evaluate an Internet resource
There are a few things you must check when we look at the usefulness of the information on any website.
Source of the website. It is important to know about the source of the information, to get a sense of its authenticity
Use of multiple websites: Only one website will give us only one kind of information. Using more than one website will give multiple perspectives. We can also cross check and identify errors if any.
Relevance: Often when we search, we may immediately share the first page we find, with others. However, it is important to read (at least quickly) the contents of the page, to help you get a sense of the relevance of the page for your purpose. Information use is very contextual. A web page written about rainfall and crops will be different for different places. So we need to look at how it will be useful for us. Information also has to be valid for a given time. If the information is very old, we need to test for accuracy.
Features of a website: How useful a website is depends on how many different ways we can access the information and use it and view it. Can it be used by teachers, students, general public? The understanding of this will also help us determine how much we can use the content.
How to search for information
The second aspect of using a website relates to how we search for information. What words we use, how we phrase the question for search are all important features in deciding the quality of search results. For example try these different searches - Giraffe, Evolution and Evolution of giraffe
You will notice that the pages that come up are all different. What we also need to keep in mind is who the user is, what is the use etc. How we use the search terms determines what results see and how relevant they are.
Check list for evaluating a website
The following questions should be answered to evaluate a website:
Whose website? (check the 'About Us' link that is usually provided on a web site to get this information)
What kind of website - commercial, educational, etc. Educational sites or non-commercial sites may be more reliable, generally
What kind of resources? Is the information reliable - always check more than one site
Does it allow for a discussion? Or does it only provide one-way information
Does it have transaction - like e-commerce websites
Is it easy to navigate?
Free/ Paid/ Subscription
Copyright of the content on the site
Navigation - How many internal and external web links does it have.
How to contact the website owner/manager?
For teaching-learning resources - In addition to the above, the following points are to be considered
What is the website about?
Is the information reliable - always check more than one website
Who made it?
What it has?
Is it for teachers or for children?
How to use in class?
Steps in creating a personal resource folder
There are several steps in creating a resource folder. The specific technology actions for each of these steps, is available under the relevant application in the Explore an application page.
Add your own comments, suggestions in the meta document, and connect the resources accessed and shared, with your ideas to create a resource document on the selected topic.
The set of resources downloaded in your folders for the given topic, along with your 'meta document' constitutes your personal digital library for the topic. You can build such libraries on any topic you are interested in, and build your own knowledge in a structured manner. Since the internet has resources on almost all topics, you have an opportunity to keep learning, that too on topics of your interest. The topic or area need not be only one of theoretical interest or only to build your knowledge. You can also work on building skills since there are likely to be videos available for helping you learn a new language, or even a skill like swimming. You can also share this personal digital library with your colleagues so that they can also benefit. When teachers share their personal digital libraries / resources from their library with their colleagues, cumulatively, it creates a resource rich environment. Try creating a personal digital library on a topic or issue you have always wanted to learn about.
Contributing to the Global Digital Library
You can register on Wikipedia. Create articles in Telugu (http://te.wikipedia.org) and add to existing articles. This will be a valuable contribution to OER in your language. (You can also do this for Urdu, English, Hindi or any of the Indian languages) as well. You can also register on the TROER and contribute resources.
You should also, as a matter of habit, release the resources created by you as OER, by sharing it in the Subject Teacher Forums, or publishing on the internet on the OER repositories mentioned in this chapter.
The power of ICT is in the possibilities of creating resources in multiple formats, also in revising them and recombining them to create newer resources. In the earlier era of non-digital ICTs, creation was limited mostly to textual resource creation; the digital has helped us re-imagine the idea of information to include non-textual methods including audio, images and videos. Generic resource creation, meaning creating resources on any topic, across subjects, is possible using a variety of applications. For e.g. you can create a text document, or a video or an audio interview on the topic 'Water' which can study water from the perspectives of science or social sciences. (Generic resource creation is contrasted with 'subject specific' resource creation, where we will use software applications that are relevant to a particular school subject, such as Geogebra for Mathematics resources).
Of course, the quality of the resource created will depend on the depth of subject matter expertise. In case of a resource created for use in teaching, the quality of the pedagogic imagination will also influence the quality of the resource. Thus, while ICT provides new ways of creating and revising content, and also provides new pedagogical possibilities, the quality of content knowledge and pedagogical knowledge also influence the adaptation of technological knowledge, in the creation of resources. Technological, content and pedagogical knowledge thus are mutually influencing, you can read more about this in the section on Technological Pedagogical Content Knowledge.
Audio communications (recordings) using different methods
Audio visual communication
Simple videos with pictures stitched with text added using screen cast methods
Editing videos with pictures, text inserts, video clips and audio
Each of this resource formats have their own advantages in communicating ideas. A picture can provide a clear idea of an idea or concept, a video can be even more powerful in enabling understanding. Text format can be used to communicate creative, subtle ideas and combining text, animation, audio and video in well designed manner can make the resource useful and this can be tailored to the context, the learning need and the method chosen.
Combining these different methods can help us create resources in the form of Digital Story Telling.
Subject based free and open educational applications
The Free and Open Source Software community has developed hundreds of educational applications, which teachers can use to teach their subjects. These tools complement and supplement the traditional teaching methods that teachers use, such as lecture, chalk and talk, group discussions, projects etc. These tools have a few potential advantages:
Teachers can use many of these tools to create lessons and other kinds of resources
Many of them are interactive and allow for the learner to provide inputs and get feedback/responses and create resources / digital artefacts. This can support a constructivist approach. One of Piaget's contemporaries, Seymour Papert described this process as 'Constructionism'
Resources created by the learner can be assessed by the teacher for conceptual understanding
Peer learning possibilities among learners can be supported by encouraging group learning (this can take advantage of the limited ICT resources that may be available in the school, due to which a 2:1 or even 3:1 learner:computer ratio may be required)
Sometimes intangible or abstract concepts (such as an atomic model, algebraic equations) can be demonstrated through simulations, which can aid conceptual understanding
Free and Open Source educational applications bundled with GNU/Linux operating system
The Free and Open Source (FOSS) GNU/Linux operating system can be configured to add other FOSS applications also, this is not possible to do with proprietary operating system software. The Ubuntu GNU/Linux operating system has been customised to create distributions containing thousands of free and open source software packages, with educational tools for almost all subjects, including Mathematics, Science, Social Science, Language, Art, Music etc. In this book, creation of lessons in Mathematics (using Geogebra), vocabulary lists (using Kanagram), quizzes on political geography (using KGeography), Science experiment simulations (using PHeT) and lessons in physical Geography (using Marble) are covered. Teachers can demonstrate creation of these resources to students and encourage them to create resources as well.
See image below for the applications available in the Education menu sub bar.
More educational applications can be downloaded from the Ubuntu Software Centre, internet connectivity is required for this.
As a teacher, technology allows you to integrate technology in many different ways -for accessing resources, for connecting with each other and for creating resources. We saw how you can organize your own learning through a Personal Digital Library (PDL) and create resources in multiple formats. In this section, we will see how technology can also be integrated in your teaching learning practices to design learning environments for your students.
The first step in determining the integration of technology is to do a curriculum analysis to determine methods of transacting:
what do I need to teach
what do I need to know and
how do I teach it.
This could help in determining the resources needed for teaching-learning; we have already seen in the earlier section some methods of resource creation and accessing. While accessing resources is certainly important, developing a framework for evaluating the resources is very essential.
The usefulness of a resource can be based on:
suitability of a resource to the concepts to be covered
areas of learning reinforced
extensions of learning provided and
suitability to a given classroom context (age appropriateness, content level)
Such an evaluation requires the teacher to be familiar with technology besides being well versed in content and pedagogy. This has been theorized as the Technological Pedagogical Content Knowledge approach to teacher professional development. A teacher can no longer ignore the technology aspect in her practice.
The multiple possibilities of creating using ICT have also given rise to a universe of educational software applications that can bring about new methods of looking at content and teaching.There are many free and open source software applications developed to explore different subjects. These applications can be used to create resources for teaching, for classroom transaction and for assessment. Many of these applications are part of the Ubuntu GNU/Linux custom distribution and hence available in your school. In this book we will cover following applications
The focus of this activity is to develop a digital story for a teaching-learning situation - examples, creating a photo essay for documenting an event or a place, comic strips to tell a story, an audio recording for sharing understanding. The focus on all of these activities is to demonstrate possibilities of using digital stories to express understanding and learning without focusing exclusively on text based methods.
Objectives
Capturing information in multiple (non-only-textual) ways; what to use when
Understanding that digital stories can be picture albums, picture story books, audio books, audio visual books or videos or a combination of these
Combining text, graphic and audio visual methods, developing a story and scripting by combining multiple digital methods
Learning the effectiveness of digital stories for communication in classrooms; in the case of language teaching-learning how this can be used for learning and assessment. It can be used to document community institutions for social science or explore a topic in science or mathematics.
Evaluation of digital stories (by teachers for assessment)
Possibilities for inclusion using digital story telling (by teachers for children with different learning needs and abilities)
Understanding digital stories
The first step is in understanding the effectiveness of different kinds of communication. Take a given multimedia communication and discuss with the students the overall message and the role and effectiveness of each of the pieces of the digital story in communicating the idea. For example, take a sample of resources - sequence story of pictures, an animation, a poster, an audio clip or a video - and ask the children to tell the story.
Notes for the teacher
Use the following pointers to evaluate a digital story:
What pictures/ images/ sounds/ videos have been captured? How are they important?
How different media (audio, video, image) are different?
Why has a video been used for a particular message or could it have been captured (better) by a photograph?
How have text, images and audio/ video been combined?
When to use what?
Student Outcomes
Comprehension, verbal (oral) expression from a given story/ resource/ audio/ video
Ability to coherently tell a story. Making a story line for a given idea. This is likely to be an iterative process, initially many 'story ideas' can be brain stormed by the students and then a few selected, by explicitly assessing these stories on parameters they use
Identifying key ideas for getting photos / images/ drawing pictures
Creating, accessing, modifying images and photos and adding descriptive text to develop stories
Creating, accessing, modifying audio and video and combining with images and text to develop stories
Technical skills of creating multimedia digital stories
Making a digital story with images and text
1. Telling a story with pictures
Digital story with photographs
Here, we have to create a photo / image essay. This could be either be a documentation of an event or a set of images that can be tied to tell a story or an explanation of a process. These images can be created through taking photographs of actual events or taking photographs of hand drawn illustrations. The photographs can be stitched using a slide show.
Making a story with digital art images
In addition to taking photographs, images can be digitally created using paint/ drawing applications. Images can also be created using digital art creation tools like Tux Paint or MyPaint. Screenshots of a digital art creation or snapshots of a video are also methods of generating digital images. Such creations can be combined with photographs in a slideshow.
Pedagogical possibilities from picture essays
There are multiple pedagogical possibilities from picture stories. Picture stories can be used as ways for building communication and expression in students. The choice of what to photograph or illustrate will determine the effectiveness of the photo essay.
Another skill to be built here is the ability to tell stories using photo or image essays. Unlike text, images can give rise to multiple interpretations and hence, multiple stories. This can be used effectively in a classroom to create an inclusive environment for all students to participate.
By asking students to illustrate a given story or a song or a poem, it is possible to assess their comprehension. Students can also be encouraged to make collaborative stories from pictures shared in a classroom.
2. Editing Images and Adding text
Once a picture story has been created, we may now find it useful to add text. For example, when we work for language lessons, we have to help create the story line using related pictures – related to a lesson/ idea/ author that we want to explore. It can be linked to the textbook chapter/ lesson; it need not be. Images can be added to text using a text editor or even a concept map; a concept map can also be presented with images and notes as a story.
There are different levels of combining text and images:
Editing the image for size, format, scaling and cropping, inserting into a document.
Editing images to improve image quality.
Adding a caption to an image.
Inserting text into images.
Adding descriptive texts and labels to an image; sequencing and telling a story.
Together, the images and text can tell a story. Examples will include a picture story book, a comic strip, or even a poster or brochure. This method of communication can be useful to combine art with other subject areas.
Pedagogical possibilities from picture stories
Picture stories can be effective in allowing students to express their understanding in text, based on their language ability. Pictures can support the narration. The teacher can assess how the students are able to tell a story and their coherence of expression for a given idea. Picture essays and picture stories can also help teachers determine students' levels of documenting and their practices of documenting knowledge (their sources of information, permissions, etc), their skills of combining text and non-textual methods for communicating.
Other examples of picture stories
Create a process flow (science) diagram and label it. (Using draw tools, scan from hand drawn process charts and take a screenshot from an existing image of a diagram/ process chart).
Even a Geogebra file is one such image / text story.
Explaining an experiment using screenshots from simulations is an example.
Digital learning resources to be used for making picture stories
While we may not be using this very often, even simple audio clips can be used to tell stories. Using sounds and narrations to tell stories as well as adding sounds to embellish a story are possible. Determining when to add an audio or a video is a function of the story telling ability. There are multiple ways of creating audio and video files:
Audio recording using a voice recorder or mobile
Video recording using a camera or a mobile
Screen cast video recording of any application or process being done on the computer
Using a voice recorder, narrate the explanation, description or commentary of the process or event to create an audio clip.
Combining the audio clip with videos and/or images to create video stories
Pedagogical possibilities from audio visual stories
Audio visual methods can add to the effectiveness of a message. Look at this video below of a short video combining audio(song),video (dance and protests) and animations.
Like in the case of picture stories, deciding on a story line, and correct choice of image or other media will determine effectiveness. Audio visual stories allow for different forms of expression including narration and music to be added and allow for more possibilities for creating an inclusive environment in a classroom.
Other outcomes will depend on the specific objectives of the digital story, whether of supporting deeper understanding of community/social institutions (in case of social science), of nature and natural processes/events (in case of science) and of expression/production (in case of language). Elements of art and music can also be blended into the digital story by the students. The style of presentation and quality of the output can also give the teachers an indication of the student's engagement with the idea/ concept as well as their technical skills.
Digital learning resources to be used for making picture stories
In addition to the tools mentioned, the following tools are to be used:
Digital stories can be used for assessment of student learning.
How well story is developed?
The quality of the script and the quality of the images, audio, video, text material used
The quality of the language
Analysing information presented in multiple formats
How well ideas are connected?
Accuracy
For a language lesson, you can assess the following:
Coherence and the flow of story
Language style
Vocabulary
Richness of ideas and extensions presented
Linking of ideas
For social science topics, or projects in mathematics and science, we can assess the following:
Coherence and the flow of story
Richness of ideas and extensions presented
How critical questions are asked and expressed, how dilemmas and challenges are explored
Linking of ideas
Some examples of digital stories in schools
Looking at digital stories created by schools for different topics/issues/locations can give an idea of the immense possibilities of this as a pedagogical tool.
The Technological Pedagogical Content Knowledge framework provides a useful basis to understand the integration of ICTs in education. It has seven components - Technological Knowledge, Pedagogical Knowledge, Content Knowledge, Technological Content Knowledge, Technological Pedagogical Knowledge and Technological Pedagogical Content Knowledge.
Content and Pedagogy
The NCFTE says "Most teacher education courses focus exclusively on the methodology of teaching individual school subjects. It is assumed that the teacher trainees have the subject-content knowledge which they would draw upon when required. Hence, teacher education curricula do not engage teacher trainees with subject-content. However, if we want to prepare teachers to present subject-content in developmentally appropriate ways and with critical perspectives it is essential that several theoretical concepts learnt during general education in school and college be revisited and reconstructed". Elliot W. Eisner said that “Like the systole and diastole of the beating heart, curriculum (content) and teaching (pedagogy) are the most fundamental aspects. ...No curriculum teaches itself, it always must be mediated, and teaching is the fundamental mediator". Thus content and pedagogy are closely linked in the processes of teaching, and teacher education needs to focus on both. Shullman also disagreed with the thinking that teachers' subject (content) knowledge and pedagogy were mutually exclusive. He believed that teacher education programs should combine the two knowledge fields. He introduced the notion of pedagogical content knowledge (PCK) that includes pedagogical knowledge and content knowledge, (and also curriculum knowledge, knowledge of educational contexts etc). PCK has two parts:
Content: Which includes all that the teacher needs to know to teach. This includes actual content (not just facts and definitions but key concept learnings, the ethics of the subject, the social justification/ social implication for the subject and the philosophy of the subject). This can be seen as the “what” of teaching. Content knowledge will make you an expert in the subject.
Pedagogy : Which includes all the methods, strategies and techniques that are used to teaching. This includes various technologies, use of various resources, materials, etc. This can be seen as the “how” of teaching.
Integrating content knowledge with pedagogical knowledge, rather than seeing the two as distinct, will make a better teacher.
TPACK
ICT have significantly impacted content/ learning resource possibilities for teachers. Earlier, the main resource was the text book; with ICT, text resources can be complemented and supplemented with image, audio, video, semantic map, simulations and various kinds of digital resources. ICT have also impacted pedagogy, by providing many more options for teachers. Earlier, to demonstrate eclipse, we could use a candle and a ball and physically manipulate these. Now, with a desktop planetarium tool like Stellarium, the sun, moon and Earth can be shown as moving in the screen, due to which actual classroom strategies can be different. Thus digital technology has altered/ presented new ways of representing content which makes it possible for new learning strategies to be developed.
Professor Punya Mishra and Professor Matthew J. Koehler, professor have done extensive work in extending PCK to the TPACK framework. integrating technology into their practices can help teachers in their professional development both in terms of deepening their content knowledge as well as in terms of supporting newer classroom processes.
TPACK discussion with teachers in Telangana
The TPACK framework provides a perspective on how technology impacts content and pedagogy, the two main components of the teaching learning process. This framework can help us understand the integration of ICTs into teaching-learning. In recent Subject Teacher Forum workshops with Telangana maths and science teachers, this framework was discussed, and the concept maps exploring TPACK in these subjects was created, which is provided below.
This page is intended to be a navigator for technology learning. Technology learning can be broadly classified into four strands:
Basic digital literacy
ICT for connecting and learning
ICT for resource creation - these can be further divided into the following:
ICT for generic resource creation
ICT for subject specific resource creation
ICT for resource publishing
ICT for teaching learning
Each of the mind map nodes will link to a strand of technology learning. You can navigate to the pages for specific applications by clicking on the "Click to Learn" node in the mind map below or visiting the list of applications.
ICT have impacted education by changing the processes of learning and even spaces of learning. Availability of a global digital library, the internet, has meant that the focus of education now needs to move from content acquisition to meaning making of content and using the information for decision making. The availability of new formats of content representation also allows us to explore and understand knowledge in new forms. This means, of course, that new skills have to be developed; both in terms of skills in interacting with the ICT environment as well as in terms of cognitive skills like analyzing, meaning making and representing the information available. The rapid growth and dissemination of information means that we now live in a world which is organized very differently and the implications of ICT and societal processes and institutions also needs to be understood.
Approach and intent of the NCERT ICT curriculum
The NCERT ICT curriculum has been based on the aspirations and guidelines set in the National ICT Policy which focuses on building the skills of computing, creating and collaborating through safe, ethical, legal means of using ICT.
Ability to handle ICT environment, creating original content, sharing and learning and focusing on educational and learning processes are the key principles of this curriculum, rather than focus merely on learning specific applications.
The curriculum has been designed keeping in mind the various possibilities of creative expression possible through ICT applications and platforms available today and also seeks to build a mindset that will explore and such applications on an ongoing basis.
The curriculum does not take a conventional approach to building digital literacy on specific applications but rather emphasizes a thematic, project based approach to ICT learning. Such an approach will also enable integration of ICT with multiple school subjects. This is why no specific software applications are focused on in the teaching, instead, the pedagogical processes that are sought to be learnt are discussed. For instance, instead of explaining how to use LibreOffice Writer (a text editor), the focus is on 'text editing'. Similarly the discussion is on creating image resources, audio resources, video resources instead of learning to use a GIMP or Audacity or OpenShot software applications and combining these resources for creating, editing and publishing learning materials. Hence the manual for these software applications is separated from the text book and hand book and referred through hyper links as and when required
The themes of The National ICT curriculum
Connecting with the world: Technology is providing new ways for us to access information and learn. Along with this, evaluating information and using it appropriately become skills to be developed. This theme will focus on accessing the internet, evaluating resources available and creating meaningful personal digital libraries for self learning.
Connecting with each other: A related dimension of connecting through ICT is in possibilities for learning in communities from each other. The focus of this theme will be on how to interact and learn in peer learning settings and through online, virtual forums. Collaborating and learning is a key learning expectation from this curriculum.
Interacting with ICT: Building skills and aptitudes in a technology environment is an important expectation of this curriculum. The theme will focus on building a more proactive approach to engaging with technology, evaluating appropriate technology choices, maintaining ICT infrastructure and becoming critical users of technology, being aware of the social and economic implications of technology.
Creating with ICT: This is a theme that focuses on building computing and creating skills in students and teachers using various ICT applications. These include data analysis and processing, creating graphics, creating audio visual communications, working with mapping applications, creating resources with specific school subject related applications and programming.
Possibilities in education: ICTs have changed how we learn, the processes of learning and even places for learning. Numerous applications have also been developed for subject learning. Along with this, it has become necessary to develop a critical perspective on technology in education, an understanding of how technology will alter learning processes, making appropriate choices of technology, media and content and evaluation of technology for various learning processes.
Bridging digital divides: Technology holds a lot of promise for development. Technology can also lead to exclusions and marginalisations. Understanding the social, economic and political impacts of technology as well as an understanding the various possibilities of platforms can help in making sure technology can be used for equitable opportunities. Another area of focus in the curriculum is in the use of technology for exploring inclusive education possibilities.
Teacher and Student curriculum
The teacher curriculum is expected to be completed over a 2 year time frame, resulting in a certification. While the 2 year time frame is for a comprehensive program, the curriculum has been designed in a modular manner to allow for need based learning. This can be structured as a course in both pre-service and in-service training, and specific subjects can be differentiated.
In the student curriculum, the focus is on bringing digital literacy for students as well as introducing the digital methods as a method of subject learning. Themes 1-4 will be a part of the student curriculum. The digital literacy will focus on building computing and creating skills and not merely office applications. Logically, this has been developed as a 3 year curriculum (for Classes 6-10) though individual states can structure it based on their requirements and constraints. The eventual expectation is that this can be tested as a core subject area at the end of Class 10.
Approach of the student textbook and teacher handbook
Philosophy of the book
The National ICT Policy articulated the vision for ICT in education in terms building the skills of computing, creating and collaborating through safe, ethical, legal means of using ICT. The NCERT ICT curriculum has been designed keeping in mind the various possibilities of creative expression possible through ICT applications and platforms available today and also seeks to build a mindset that will explore and such applications on an ongoing basis. Such an exploration requires a technology environment that is free and open; this has been recommended both in the ICT Policy and NCERT curriculum. The textbook has therefore introduced different digital processes predominantly through free and open source applications.
Curricular basis
The textbook has been designed based on the NCERT ICT curriculum; focusing on creating original content, sharing and learning and on educational and learning processes
Ability to handle an ICT environment for the above outcomes, rather than learn specific applications is the focus of this textbook
In line with the National ICT curriculum, the following dimensions of ICT knowledge have been taken up in this book
Interacting with the ICT environment, including the internet and an understanding of the nature of ICT
Data processing and representation
Communication with graphics
Audio visual communication
Working with different software applications
Each of these is organized as a chapter with graded objectives and activities in 3 levels to address the different levels of Class 6-8. The activities will be structured as small projects which will allow for an exploration of some topic/ issue is one/ more subject areas.
The 3-level curriculum has been split across two books – Book 1 (for class 6-8) and Book 2 (for class 9-10). Within Book 1, there are three levels proposed, based on the extent of digital skills anticipated and the academic levels expected
The focus is on learning skills of computing and developing competencies to interact with ICT, as envisaged in the National ICT Policy. Therefore, a wide variety of applications has been introduced. The choice of applications – both generic and subject specific – has been made in such a way as to introduce students to the possibilities of creating and learning with ICT.
Book 1 has a student textbook and this is the accompanying teacher handbook. The teacher handbook will have two components - a component for Teacher Professional Development as well as a component to support the transaction of the student textbook.
Pedagogic approach
ICT allow for integrated multi-disciplinary learning methods to be developed. To explore and for enabling a holistic approach to learning, the textbook for the students has taken a project based approach. A project based approach offers several advantages in terms of student engagement, exploration, self-learning, peer learning, expression and self evaluation. By using ICT to explore an issue or a theme, students will be encouraged to make connections with different school subjects.
The textbook has been developed based on the Technological Pedagogical Content Knowledge (TPACK) framework where technology is not introduced as a stand-alone, tool-based method but integrated within core academic processes relevant to school learning. Hence the activities have been described in terms of processes of learning rather than as steps of using an application.
An important emphasis in the textbook is on the possibilities of creation using ICT. Hence the book has been written as a set of activities that invoke several learning processes and integrating ICT meaningfully into the processes, allowing multiple possibilities for student creation. Working with various tools and applications has been left as incidental learning.
Collaborating and learning is another important aspect of ICT. The activities in the textbook have been designed so as to allow for group work and adequate opportunities for peer learning. It is intended that different activities be taken up by different student groups to allow for a wide variety of creations; thus allowing for learning and sharing.
It is intended that the activities be done in a cumulative manner, across different themes of the curriculum as well as across levels. The learning will be assessed formatively, by reviewing the processes of working with various digital methods and tools through the projects, as well as evaluating the finished product, which will be in the form of a digital portfolio.
All activities need not be completed by all teachers and students. The teacher can assess the learning contexts, needs and transact the activities that will be most effective. Teacher is encouraged to introduce variations into the activities that may make them more useful for student learning.
Learning expectations
The learning expectations are two-fold, for students and for the teachers. It is expected that at the end of the completion of the ICT syllabus, the students would be able to reach the levels of competencies articulated in the National ICT Policy. The key expectations from the curriculum are listed below:
Able to interact with various ICT devices and applications and handle ICT equipment safely
Able to use ICT for understanding information, analyzing and meaning making
Able to use ICT for creating and expressing in various forms - textual, graphical and audio visual
Able to use ICT for self learning through use of multiple ICT applications in various subject areas
Able to collaborate with one another and create and share work, as well as publish through web based methods
Understand the implications of ICT on society and adopt safe, ethical and legal practices of ICT use
In addition to these, the expectation from this curriculum is that teachers become a self-aware group of professionals who are able to collaborate and learn and adopt new pedagogical processes for facilitating a constructivist classroom using ICT.
This section discusses the aspects relating to the implementation of the ICT text book in the Telangana schools.
School ICT Infrastructure
The program requires each school to have an ICT lab, with following assets:
Hardware
This can be desktop computers or laptop computers. The number of computers could be decided based on the student strength in the school. Schools could also be provided with a limited number of alternate cheaper devices like tablets, raspberry pi to supplement the computers. However, the kind of active learning envisaged in the ICT text book requires that school ICT lab have sufficient computers, at least one-third the number of students in the largest section in the school.
One of the computers will be designated as the ‘server’. This will host the ICT textbook, handbook and teachers resources to us it their classroom teaching purpose and the required software.
The computers must be networked, through LAN cable or a wireless LAN. Internet connectivity must be made available through broadband.
The school should try to augment its hardware through donations and contributions from local community, parents association, clubs, philanthropies etc. Regularly adding computers is also important to replace computers that need to be put away due to failure or obsolescence.
Projector – a minimum of one LCD projector is essential in each school, as the program matures, more than one LCD projector could be provided so that teachers could use it along with a laptop in their classrooms for ICT integrated teaching, apart from sessions in the lab.
Printer (cum scanner cum copier), digital camera, speakers, head phones are other items that must be part of the school lab hardware
The school and the department must organize regular 'health' check-ups of the infrastructure for preventive maintenance.
Software
Each computer will have the school system, which will have two components: 'software' - the operating system and other software applications distributed as part of the 'custom distribution' and the 'content' which will be the educational content/ OER for each school
Software can be the custom Ubuntu GNU/Linux distribution used in the teacher training. A free and open source school MIS software like Fedena can also be installed in the school server. This can help tracking teacher and student attendance, work etc.
Software should be periodically upgraded as per norms suggested by SIET.
Since the GNU/Linux operating system is being used, anti-virus is not required to be procured by the department.
Teachers also may be interested to download additional applications from the internet. This should be allowed with clear guidelines, indicating that free and open source software that has educational uses can be downloaded based on need.
Teachers should also be able to download new applications for use in their own learning and in classroom teaching.
The HM and the ICT school co-ordinator will be responsible to ensure that no software or content is being downloaded and used in violation of license requirements. The simple method of implementing this is to ensure that no proprietary software or content is stored in the computers.
Content
The ICT text book and hand book, along with the data sets and digital resources required for transaction, is available on the TROER portal. An off-line copy of the same will be provided to each school. The school can access the on-line TROER version (which will include the latest updates as well) or the off-line version through its school server. The off-line school server version will be periodically (at least once a year) refreshed to bring it in synchronous state with TROER.
In addition, each student must have a printed copy of the student text book. Each teacher must have a copy of the student text book and teacher hand book. In case where the ICT lab is not available, some of the activities in the text book could be transacted, this could be part of the contingency plan for program implementation.
Teachers should also be able to create OER, for use in their own learning and in classroom teaching. Teachers should be encouraged to access existing OER for this purpose. Translation of existing OER (in English) into Telugu and other languages used in the state will support OER creation. Teachers can create additional data sets for the activities as OER.
Teachers and students must follow the legal and ethical aspects of accessing available software and content and must avoid downloading software or content that is not free and open. Teachers must also exercise oversight over the content downloaded by students and ensure that no inappropriate content, or copyrighted content is downloaded in the school computers.
Online and offline distribution
The program has three possible ways of being implemented, depending on the availability of internet and the computer up-time.
On-line: The entire textbook is available on-line on the Internet here. You can access the chapters, resources, activities from the text book on-line and practise on your computer. All resources - whether open content or even proprietary content - will be accessible. However, you need continuous Internet connectivity for accessing the on-line version of the book. In case internet connectivity is not available, the second option of implementation should be adopted.
Off-line: The entire textbook is available off-line in your school, on your school server. You can access the chapters, resources, activities and practise on your computer, like in the on-line method, with one limitation. Only open content will be available for you to access off-line in your school. The textbook will show the internet links for the proprietary content, which cannot be accessed off-line. These can be accessed whenever there is internet connectivity. This method requires the computers to be working and electrical power to be available. In cases where the computers are down or electrical power is not available, then certain activities of the text book can still be transacted, as discussed below.
Non-digital: In case the lab is not operational due to different reasons, such as non-working computers, or no electricity, then the print edition of the text book can be used. This can be support classroom discussions on a unit or project activities such as collecting data for surveys. All resources used in the textbook are listed in the print version under the references section. Even during this time, the on-line version could be accessed on a phone or tablet if there is data connectivity. Teacher may be able to demonstrate activities using a laptop and a projector, if electricity is available.
School level program management
Each school must designate an Teacher IT co-ordinator (TITC), based on norms suggested. Since all teachers in the school, will be, in a phased manner, trained in ICT integration, the role of TITC could be played by any teacher who has received the training. The key responsibilities of the TITC include
custody of the lab and lab infrastructure and making available to teachers and students as required
preventive and breakdown maintenance of the ICT assets
keeping a simple log of the lab usage
supporting teachers to transact ICT lessons in the lab and scheduling ICT classes along with the use of teachers for their subject teaching in the lab.
keeping the school and HM informed of any requirements, problems faced and work for their solution
One option is for the School Head Master to designate a suitable teacher (who is reasonably comfortable using ICT and is inclined to take on the responsibility) as the TITC, a second option is for the department to designate teacher of a particular subject as the TITC. The TITC role could be periodically (once in 2-3 years) rotated among the staff. At the same time, the ICT lab is a school infrastructure, so the school staff has a shared responsibility in its upkeep.
Similarly, 1-5 students from each class could be designated as Student IT coordinators (SITC), who will help the TITC in managing the lab, facilitating repair of the equipment as required.
Regular maintenance
ICT lab requires much higher maintenance than most school assets. Computers and other equipment are likely to fail or develop problems which need to be attended to, especially since they will be used intensively by students
The TITC must pro-actively address issues to ensure high up-time of computers
Contact information of individuals or institutions who are appointed for the maintenance and repair of the hardware must be clearly put up on a chart in the lab itself, along with do's and dont's for effective use of the infrastructure.
Software needs to be periodically upgraded. New versions could be upgraded every 1-2 years, while security related upgrades must be done more frequently, say once a month. this would require internet connectivity.
The school will need to have annual component of its budget for maintenance of the ICT lab and for consumables
Academic processes
Based on the student strength in different sections, the school must prepare its time table and student lab assignment, considering following possibilities
3 periods per week per section for students to work and learn in the lab
Upto 3 students could work together on a computer. The selection of these 3 student learning groups must be carefully done by the teacher to support peer learning possibilities, and not be random
If the number of students is more than three times the number of computers, the section could be split into two (or more as required), such that one group works in the lab and the other group(s) are assigned other classes, including discussing topics / exercises from the ICT text book
All students must participate in the ICT classes. The allocation of the transaction of the text book could be decided by the Head master in consultation with the team. It is ideal if the transaction is shared among few teachers, instead of assigning it to a single teacher. Since this will be a new experience in many cases, schools can explore ‘team teaching’ where 2 teachers could take the class together in the lab. This will also help in providing support to students during practice sessions. Involving many teachers will also help the activities / projects in the ICT text book to be meaningfully integrated with the core subjects.
For each topic in the text book, for the hands-on activities, students will need to become comfortable using the relevant software application, which is indicated in the 'digital skills' section. The teacher will need to orient the students on the software application as required for the topic. Students of course can and will explore any software tool for learning additional / advanced features. All software applications can be learnt through the 'Explore an Application' section, which is provided as part of the on-line and off-line distribution of the text book and hand book.
During practice sessions, some students (who may be more proficient in ICT) may also be roped in to support their peers during the hands-on sessions.
For each designated activity, each student is required to maintain their digital records / portfolio, in relevant folders. Ideally the resources created / accessed / connected to each activity should be in a separate folder.
Each student must have her/his login into the school system. (The Ubuntu GNU/Linux system allows multiple user logins to be set-up on a computer). Each student will be able to create folders and store their work on the system, which will be secured through their login. These folders will grow and be enriched over the three years of the transaction of book 1, and over the five years of the ICT learning of the student.
Each student must also have a note book to record her/his activities, assignments etc.
All teachers will undergo training so that they are able to transact the ICT classes. The HM should be able to allocate the ICT classes to these teachers, based on various parameters including work load of different teachers. There need not be any rigid fixing of any unit to any specific subject teacher. In fact the ICT book offers an opportunity for any subject to go beyond subject boundaries and explore other subjects as well in the project activities. The HM will need to prepare the time table of the school, in consultation with the staff, so that the ICT classes (3 every week and 30 weeks for a year) are transacted by teachers over the year.
In addition the 'structured program' of 3 periods per week, teachers may take their students to the ICT Lab to transact activities from their own syllabus/text book. A system of booking the lab in advance may be required to be set-up.
The lab may be made available to teachers and students for self-learning and practice, when it is not being used.
Assessment
The ICT subject will be assessed through a summative assessment at end of each term, so it will have SA1 and SA2. The portfolio of digital creations of the student will be assessed in the SA.
In addition, each of the six subjects (3 languages, Mathematics, Science and Social Sciences) will integrate ICT into at least one of the FAs for the subject. The FA can be done during the second term, so that the students would have had an opportunity to acquire basic ICT competencies during the first term. The teachers should discuss and space out the FA among the different subjects. They can also combine the FA of different subjects in a single project, which can have elements of learning for each of these subjects. For e.g. a project on 'Water conservation' can cover science, history, geography and mathematics
The teacher should be able to easily access the student portfolios for assessment, either over the network (using an administrator login), or will need to copy the students files using pen drive/ external hard disk.
In addition to these formal assessments, the school should also organize digital competitions for students, illustrative list of areas is provided below
Some of these competitions could be individual and some team-based. Similar events will be held at the Mandal, District and State level, and the school would depute students to these competitions.
School can also organize an exhibition of the digital products for parents, created by students, during parent-teacher meetings. This will give the parents an idea of their student work and learning. Audio visual digital student creations can reach to even better to text-illiterate parents.
Teacher Capacity building to transact the subject
Every teacher will undergo training on ICT integration in education through the Telangana Subject Teacher Forum program. In this program, teachers will learn the different ICT applications and digital methods that are covered in the text book/hand book. The training will support the building of the 'techno-pedagogical-content knowledge' of the teachers, it would have both conceptual as well as hands-on sessions. During the training, the teacher will be made a member of the Subject Teacher Forum mailing groups.
Support and peer learning
The workshops will be supplemented and complemented by refresher program which would consist of self-learning by the teacher, for which digital self-learning materials will be shared with the teacher. It would also consist of peer-learning with colleagues in the school and Mandal and state-wide subject forums. These forums are meant for teachers to share ideas, experiences and resources and also for seeking help and peer support. It is expected that based on the workshop learning and the continuing self and peer learning through the forums, the teacher will build capabilities to transact the ICT text book.
If the teacher faces a challenge or difficulty in implementing the program, she can discuss with her colleagues in her school. In addition, she can also send an email to the mailing lists, discussing the issue. This mail could be responded to by other members of the forum, or by the core group. These discussions can also serve as a feedback on the text book, to the department, to incorporate suitably in the next revision.
This chapter is to introduce students to the various possibilities of ICT in creating and communicating. The students must get familiar with interacting with ICT as well as be able to comfortably use different applications. Understanding that technology is a social resource, and how ICT can help them, their school or community is an important focus of this unit.
Interacting with ICT
Understanding the nature of ICT
How technology has developed in society
How ICT have developed and changed the way society is organized today
Developing a historical perspective on technology and understanding technology as a human process
Appreciation of the potential of ICT and what could be the problems using ICT
Understanding about the ICT environment
Appreciating that a computer can do many things; unlike many other electronic appliances
Understanding the difference between hardware and software
Getting familiar with various devices and applications
Understanding the safe use of ICT, including the internet
Understanding the ethical and legal aspects of ICT
Communicating with ICT
Understanding that the computer communicates with data, and can connect to other devices
Understanding of the internet and the web
Understanding that the internet is a resource for accessing information
Accessing the internet, searching for information and using the browser and accessing different web sites
Evaluating the information and creating a personal digital library for self learning
Understanding how to use technology for connecting with each other for learning
Developing an understanding of the role the Internet is playing in the society
Understand safe and ethical ways of using the internet
Creating with ICT
Understanding that you can do various things with ICT (like writing, painting, mapping, singing)
Understanding that data of different kinds and can be edited, processed, combined in multiple formats which is what makes it possible to do many things with ICT
Understanding that there are different devices for reading, representing data
Understanding that data can be organized in files and folders
Getting familiar with input devices
Getting familiar with different applications for creating with ICT
Each activity has the following components - time estimate, prior preparation, methodology, discussion questions, subject integration and portfolio.
Each theme of the textbook and the associated activities have been designed keeping in mind the possibilities for peer learning. Not all students will work with all data files; so the teacher should allow for an organized sharing/ presentation time for students to learn from each others' work. This can be done at the end of each activity or at the end of each level. This is left to the teacher to decide. Students can also be encouraged to help one another, to create a collaborative and supportive learning environment.
Level 1 -> 6 weeks
The first level requires 6 weeks of 3 periods each. 1 period is for teacher demonstration and discussion; two periods for hands-on work by students. (Instead of a single block of 3 periods, the school can also plan the time table such that the demonstration period can be a single period, while the hands-on 2 periods can be combined into a block period).
This theme being the first introduction to the students, might require a longer time, especially for students to get introduced and oriented to the ICT environment. Hence, some amount of time has been suggested for reading, theory and discussion.
A suggested break-up of activity-wise periods is given below. This is indicative, the teacher is encouraged to adjust the periods between activities and also between demonstration and hands on activity as needed.
Title
Reading
No of weeks (3
periods each)
Teacher
demonstration
periods
Student activity
periods
About nature of ICT (Reading and theory)
Reading included
2
2
4
How is a computer different from a fridge
2
2
4
What all can a computer do?
2
2
4
How is a computer different from a fridge
It will be useful to go through the additional links given for this discussion; the classroom must have a projection enabled for this session. The labs should have sufficient computers for students to explore, including removing and fixing the connections to other devices, switching and logging on etc. If there is a non-working computer (CPU) in the school, it could be kept opened to allow students to see and study the parts inside the cabinet.
In small groups ask students to come up why a computer is different from a fridge and this can be compiled digitally using a mind mapping tool
Project this for discussion and encourage students to classify the different things a computer does
Introduce to the children that computer understands data and applications communicate data; distinguish between an operating system and application software
In small groups encourage students to switch on the computer, get familiar with the various applications.
Show them some common applications like Text processor, Mind mapping tool, Painting tool, browser, etc.
Help the students create their own folders in which they will save their work (As a prior work, the login-ids for each student would need to be created on the computer on which they would work. Alternately, this could be done after the first few classes, when the student seating is firmed up. In case students are storing their files only on the server, and logging into the server, there would be greater flexibility for the student seating, else students should always sit on the computer, where their login has been created.
In small groups let the students talk about any application they are familiar with and list out the steps involved (this can be a flow chart or mind map). This can be used to introduce the idea of computing - the ability to process input to get an outcome.
Student created mind maps can be digitized (you can take a photograph of their hand drawn map) and added to their cumulative portfolio.
What all can a computer do
This activity requires a 3-period block: 1 period for demonstration and 2 periods for the hands-on work. Demonstration 1
It may be an interesting idea to start the class with this video : How has the work desk changed.
The video shows as a time line how different applications came into the computer. Ask students to watch and make their comments. Encourage them to talk about any applications that they see on the video that are familiar to them. You can pause the video at any point if required to explain a point. You can also play it any number of times as needed. This may help you in getting all students to follow the video. Following this show them the various files on their computer (or on the school server). Demonstration 2 Resources needed
The suggested files for showing in the class are listed in the textbook and will be available in the offline textbook also. In addition you can open the following educational applications:
Show the following web pages, drawing the attention of the students to the fact that you are not accessing information not on the computer, but stored on some other computer, somewhere else. Suggested pages are given below:
Demonstrate the folder structure of resource files, and show how you have organized the resources for the class.
When opening each file ask students to focus on the following:
What is the file name and file extension
How the application was opened (from a menu or right click)
What all did they see on the application
What input had to be given (for example, opening a browser and typing an URL)
What controls are available (increase in size, volume, etc)
On student computers, create a folder with an image, video, text document, animation, text document, concept map, geogebra file (from the offline textbook)
Students must open the folder on the computers and each of the files. Show the students the Applications Menu on the computer and ask them to explore multiple applications. From this class onwards, they will be creating their own resources on the computer.
When you have accessed pages from the internet, through a discussion, introduce the idea that the internet is a connection of many computers. This connectivity is an important aspect of ICT - which allows us to access information, communicate etc. Based on the level of student awareness, the teacher can introduce emails, mobile communication, chats, etc.
Students must practice Tux Typing, Tux Paint. They should also know how to open their creations in Tux Paint (See page Learn Tux Paint). In a text editor, students must make a list of 8-10 things they know about ICT.
Level 2 -> 2 weeks
At this level, the activities require an ability to understand ideas of society and choices made by society. If it seems difficult to transact this with the class, this entire section can be moved to the end of the year or combined with Level 3 activities.
When did it all begin and the human story
(Note that the transaction notes do not repeat suggestions made in earlier transaction notes, since it is assumed the teacher would be familiar with them).
These are two activities in Nature of ICT level 2 to introduce students to the idea that technology developed in society.
Hands on work will be in the form of discussions, and students writings about their understanding of technology.
Since both the activities overlap, you can also combine the activities to facilitate a discussion
Before starting the activity, ask students to discuss about technologies they are aware of and collect information about the technology.
The focus of these two activities is to guide the students to understand that technology is not neutral, it impacts society in good an not-so-good ways and society shapes technology. Students must also get an understanding that technology has a life cycle.
Use the Science, Technology and Society chapter in the textbook to read with the class and also explore with the students different devices shown. Let the students imagine and talk about the contexts and requirements that would have allowed the different devices to develop
Using the Jacquard loom, facilitate a discussion on the idea of programming and help the students understand how a machine that is programmed to do an activity is different from a general purpose calculation device (this is similar to the activity how a computer is different from a fridge)
There is an example given in the textbook of a potter; ask the students to find out about other occupations in their locality and ask them to write a short note about how technology, including ICT, can impact the person and the occupation.
Depending on the understanding of the students, you can talk to them about computer development was given importance during the second world war. Show the slideshow of Alan Turing and tell students the story of Enigma
Students can express their ideas and work in the form of picture stories. If there is adequate time available, students can add text to their picture stories. If students are typing their text document, you can teach them how to insert their pictures.
Level 3 -> 5 weeks
This level requires five weeks of 3 periods each. 1 period is for teacher demonstration and discussion; two periods for hands-on work by students. The focus in this theme is on students understanding the various ways in which technology touches them in multiple ways, even beyond the various activities they would have done in the classroom.
Title
Reading
No of weeks (3
periods each)
Teacher
demonstration
periods
Student activity
periods
About nature of ICT (Reading)
Reading included
The machine is using us
1
1
2
The global digital library
2
2
4
I have a new address
2
2
4
The machine is using us
This activity requires internet connectivity in the lab.
Read the section on What is the internet with the students. It is important for the students to understand that the internet is a network of computers and the world wide web is different from the internet. Discuss about the internet of things and encourage the students to discuss the purposes where internet is used -Reading information, News, Radio, TV programmes, Webcast instead of telecast, Booking movie tickets, Shopping..and so many more..
Show the video "The machine is using us" and discuss in class.
During the demonstration activity, show the students how to use a browser and how to access the internet pages using a browser. Explain that search engine is a website and this will help look up pages on the internet. Show the following different kinds of websites.
Students should create a text document in which they record the websites they access.
Demonstrate how to access the internet and download information.
Show students how to look for authentic information on the web.
Introduce students to copyright and how to access open licensed content
This activity has a lot of portfolio requirements. Students must create a concept map that describes the information that they would research on.
In groups the students will download the information needed and create a resource folder
Encourage the students to summarize and evaluate the information they have accessed, in a text document
I have a new address
This activity requires two weeks of 3 periods: 1 period for demonstration and 2 periods for the hands-on work.
This activity requires internet connectivity in the lab.
As a prior preparation for this activity, the teacher must create email IDs for the students. From internet safety standpoint, we have suggested that teachers do the ID creation, and also help in configuring the privacy and inbox settings of the gmail account.
If you are able to manage this as an activity in your school, you can also create a email group for the class.
In the classroom activity, demonstrate how to send and receive emails, individually and to groups. Talk to students about internet safety as well as email habits like replying, forwarding, copying, etc. Explain to students that passwords must be secure. It is important to log out of email account especially when using public computers.
Students must be able to access an email address and each student should have sent at least two mails, one with an attachment.
Social media is not introduced as part of the syllabus, however, you can use this unit to introduce to students ideas on how to operate safely in the virtual world.
Typically, an activity will have a 'teacher demonstration' or a 'teacher-led' activity, which will be followed by 'student-led activities'. Students will be encouraged to 'self-learn' as well, by exploring applications and resources on their own, beyond what is expected of them for any activity.
Secondly, each theme of the textbook and the associated activities have been designed keeping in mind the possibilities for peer learning. Not all students will work with all data files; so the teacher should allow for an organized sharing/ presentation time for students to learn from each others' work. This can be done at the end of each activity or at the end of each level. This is left to the teacher to decide.
Level 1 -> 11 weeks
The first level requires eleven weeks of 3 periods each: 1 period is for teacher demonstration and discussion; two periods for hands-on work by students.
A suggested break-up of activity-wise periods is given below. This is indicative, the teacher is encouraged to adjust the periods between activities and also between demonstration and hands on activity as needed.
Title
Reading
No of weeks
(3periods each)
Teacher
demonstration
periods
Student activity
periods
About data representation
Reading included
Data can tell stories
2
2
4
How to make data meaningful
3
3
6
Concept map and text document
6
6
12
Data tell stories
Data sets have to be prepared for each computer/ group of students. A data folder must be created on each computer and the data sets copied.
Copy the data folder on the student computers. For each data set, make a set of questions for the students to answer after a study of the graph. After the students complete the analysis, encourage them to express the summary of the analysis in the form of a mind map. The following questions can be given to the students for discussion
What data elements are captured?
Does the data give you exact numbers or only relative estimation?
What can you conclude from the data?
What are the advantages in each kind of representation (maps, graphs, satellite images etc)? When do you think is each method suited?
What further information on the topic would you like to find out?
The data sets can be drawn so as to represent different subjects.
Encourage students to create a concept map expressing their understanding after looking at the data.
You can digitize these concept maps, by photographing them and saving the image of the concept map along with the data. Explain to the students that there are two ways of creating digital outputs. One method is directly creating the desired output using a digital tool or application. The second method is to take photographs of an output and using the image as a digital output. The difference will be in the extent of editing that is possible to do. An image of a concept map can only be edited like a photo, using an image editor. A digital concept map can be edited to change the actual content of the concept map itself.
Organizing data to make meaning
This lesson can be used to talk about data elements and allow students to develop multiple perspectives of looking at data. Also, the focus will be here on learning to organize and as long as students have a logical basis for the organizing they have chosen, it is adequate. There need not be a single correct method of organizing the data.
If any permissions for conducting surveys, going out of school is needed, they have to be taken.
Let students collect the data and make their notes. Encourage them to discuss how the raw data has come and how we have to identify data elements for capturing
Take photographs of raw data and tabulated data
Take photographs of their notes - documented either as a concept map or a written text.
The intention of this activity is to prepare students to look at data analysis and not so much focus on a digital output. Where students are able to also create the digital outputs, including in creating tables and populating the data, they should.
Concept map and text document
Students must understand that text is another form of data and text can be organized in different ways using different tools. They should understand the appropriate application to use for each requirement.
When text is entered digitally, it can be edited easily.
Text can be copied, pasted and formatted differently. Some features like copy-paste are available across most applications whereas some features of formatting are specific to some applications.
A "plain text" editor like gedit allows simple entry of text, copying, cutting and pasting of text and is linear. It is purely text and no images can be added.
But most text editors have more features. A text editor like LibreOffice Writer allows text to be entered, formatted and presented in different ways and designed for printing. The text document also can add links to other files or resources on the computer or the internet. It is the most advanced tool available for creating textual outputs.
The concept map allows text to be represented and connected in a graphic way. A concept map also can add links to other files or resources on the computer or the internet. Nodes can be copied, pasted. Text in the nodes can be copied or pasted.
In addition to this, presentation software, such as LibreOffice Impress is also available which allows combining text and images as well as embedding of videos to make a multimedia presentation.
You could draw their attention to the different kinds of formats these different applications present and also explain to them about the cumulative nature of the portfolio which can combine multiple formats.
Explain the use of a concept map to clarify one's thinking, make connections between the concepts. Encourage the students to use a concept map to explore the topic further, even beyond what the data contains; this can be useful to introduce the idea of secondary data later on. In concept map creation, the students can be introduced to the following (this is an indicative list, teacher can extend it based on the class)
Opening the Freeplane application (in this course, Freeplane is used as a free and open application for concept mapping)
Inserting nodes and child nodes
Typing in the nodes - English and Telugu
Linking nodes
Linking an existing image/text file to a concept map - for example, the actual data they collected can be linked, the hand-drawn and digitized concept map can be linked)
Adding notes to any node to give additional details
Saving the concept map
Exporting as image
Exploring as text document
To get familiarized with keyboard input of text, you can introduce students to text typing in a plain text editor (gedit), where they type an existing, available text, in English and in Telugu. Once they are comfortable with basic typing, they can open LibreOffice Writer and start creating a text document on the basis of the data they have taken up for analysis in the prior chapter. In text editing, the students can be introduced to the following (this is an indicative list, teacher can extend it based on the class)
Creating listing of items in a document with numbers and bullets
Discuss with students the advantages of different kinds of data representation and show how formats can be combined (by inserting a mind map as an image)
Level 2 -> 8 weeks
The second level requires eight weeks of 3 periods each. 1 period is for demonstration and discussion; two periods for hands-on work by students. A suggested break-up of activity-wise periods is given below. This is indicative, the teacher is encouraged to adjust the periods between activities and also between demonstration and hands on activity as needed.
Title
Reading
No of weeks
(3 periods each)
Teacher
demonstration
periods
Student activity
periods
About data representation
Reading included
Columns and rows
4
4
8
Numbers and patterns
4
4
8
The teacher is encouraged to adjust the periods between activities and also between demonstration and hands on activity as needed.
Columns and rows!
This activity requires 4 sets of periods and the objective is to introduce students to using spreadsheet software for data input.
In the initial activities the focus will be on entering data and representing data graphically. Data visualization is very powerful and students will benefit from these skills. Students can work with data sets given as well as data sets they have collected in the previous activity on How to make data meaningful.
Some of the learning points to emphasize are:
How to view data
What questions can be asked
What further connections can be made are to emphasized in this
Data with multiple variables - for example, crop production by year is a single variable, crop production by type of crop and year is multiple variables
Doing simple numeric manipulations on the data to make new interpretations
The first two examples have been chosen to illustrate how to use a spreadsheet. In spreadsheet session, the students can be introduced to the following (this is an indicative list, teacher can extend it based on the class)
Opening LibreOffice Calc and demonstrating how to create a new spreadsheet
Entering data in a spreadsheet - typing in Telugu and English
Wrapping the text inside a cell
Increasing and reducing the column sizes for fitting in the data (in wrap text mode)
Sorting (alphabetically or numerically) the data
Simple formatting in a spreadsheet - coloring of cells, making bold, cell borders
Entering simple formulae in a spreadsheet to calculate data; some of the formula to be calculated include total, percentage, minimum, maximum
Drawing charts - bar graphs and pie charts - in a spreadsheet
Copying the table of data entered and inserting into a text document
Inserting the graphs and charts entered into a text document
Data is related to us; and we contribute to the data. To bring this idea more strongly, the map of India with fluorosis distribution is given as an example. The focus of this example is to talk about how we can collect data about ourselves and how analysing can help decision making.
Number patterns
This activity requires 4 sets of periods and the objective is to introduce students to using spreadsheet software for exploring patterns in numbers
The session can focus on the following:
Features of a spreadsheet like dragging, dropping, auto-fill
Using different formulae - like addition, subtraction, multiplication, division to create patterns and solve/ decode patterns
Create a numeric pattern based on verbal descriptions of a problem
You can also use spreadsheets to introduce the basics of algebra like generalization.
Level 3 -> 5 weeks
The third level requires five weeks of 3 periods each. 1 period is for demonstration and discussion; two periods for hands-on work by students. A suggested break-up of activity-wise periods is given below.
Title
Reading
No of weeks
(3 periods each)
Teacher
demonstration
periods
Student
activity
periods
About data representation
Reading included
Spreadsheet for data analysis
3
3
6
Making a multi-page text document
2
2
4
The teacher is encouraged to adjust the periods between activities and also between demonstration and hands on activity as needed.
Spreadsheet for data analysis
This activity requires 3 weeks to complete. The objective of this activity is to introduce to the students the various kinds of analysis possible and also learn the spreadsheet functionalities to be used.
After completing different analysis, the spreadsheet tables as well as the charts can be included in a text document and students can be asked to write a description of the analysis.
The teacher led activities have two sets of data - rainfall, temperature. The rainfall of Telangana data is over 10 years and the file will show a charting as a line graph as well as a bar graph. You can discuss with students what are the various kinds of analysis we can do. The temperature data is a multi-variable data with seasonal and annual temperature (mean and maximum) over the last century. Draw the students' attention to the difference between the two bar graphs.
Students will also be exploring digital atlas, using the software Marble to study rainfall and temperature maps of the Earth during July and December. Ask the students to correlate both activities to develop a more integrated perspective of these phenomena across subjects like Mathematics or Geography. Encourage them to see connections of rainfall and temperature to Science (for instance water cycle)
The focus in this activity is on the number of different ways in which data can be viewed and analyzed in a spreadsheet and how to infer from data.
Some features to include and reinforce are:
Sorting (ascending and descending, text and numbers)
% share of total
% growth across years
Making a multi-page text document
This activity requires 2 weeks. The objective of this activity is to enable students to create a text document, that has content in text and image formats, is formatted neatly for easy reading. Tables created using spreadsheet, will also be inserted as tables in the text document.
The teacher led activities have two sets of data - rainfall, temperature. The data from these can be used to make the multi-page document. Students can also create the multi-page document from their own data set they have been working on, in the earlier sections. Also in the activity using The globe on your table with Marble, students would have explored rainfall and temperature of different regions of the world, these two activities can be linked and students can share their thoughts on the two activities.
Encourage the students to play with the document, freely adding, modifying and removing text, changing formatting, introducing sections, tables etc. This should help them understand that digital writing/editing has a very high degree of flexibility, not available in writing in a book. This 'fluidity' in writing can help many more students to feel comfortable about writing, since they can always go back and change/correct their writings when needed. More students may be encouraged to write.
Each activity has the following components - time estimate, prior preparation, methodology, discussion questions, subject integration and portfolio. Each theme of the textbook and the associated activities have been designed keeping in mind the possibilities for peer learning. Not all students will work with all data files; so the teacher should allow for an organized sharing/ presentation time for students to learn from each others' work. This can be done at the end of each activity or at the end of each level. This is left to the teacher to decide. Students can also be encouraged to help one another, to create a collaborative and supportive learning environment.
Level 1 -> 6 weeks
The first level requires six weeks of 3 periods each. 1 period is for teacher demonstration and discussion; two periods for hands-on work by students. A suggested break-up of activity-wise periods is given below. This is indicative, the teacher is encouraged to adjust the periods between activities and also between demonstration and hands on activity as needed.
Title
Reading
No ofweeks
(3periods each)
Teacher
demonstration
periods
Student activity
periods
About communication with graphics
Reading included
Photo and image essays
3
3
6
Telling a story from pictures
3
3
6
Photo and Image essays
This activity requires three 3-period blocks: 1 period for demonstration and 2 periods for the hands-on work.
Keep ready pictures/ images/ slide shows for demonstrating how to tell a story. Alternatively prepare the students in advance for them to collect images.
In addition to images in the activity, use the computer timeline slide show, picture gallery of microscope and the time line of communication technology to talk about how pictures, combinations of pictures and text can be used to communicate. Important areas to focus can be on (i) what is / are the key idea(s), (ii) how to structure it, (iii) determining when is text useful, (iv) evaluation of the method of graphic communication.
You could also discuss with students how each person creating a communication with images can collect different images to show depending on what they want to emphasize on. The other side of this is that pictures can give rise to multiple stories - open ended and closed ended - and multiple narratives, depending on the context of the story teller. As a teacher, picture and image essays can be an important way of understanding students' perspectives through this communication.
Focus on how to capture a good picture - the working of the camera, the effect of light on the picture quality, what is the object to be focused, when to zoom and when to capture a wide area etc are to be discussed with the students. Introduce students to file sizes of images and explain to them the connection between resolution and file sizes (higher resolution of images leads to higher file sizes).
In the teacher-led activity, there is a single image and two sets of multiple images. The story teller (the teacher) can we use a single image or when can we use multiple images are all decisions to make story telling effective.
Single image essay: This is an image that can be used to speak about cows, milk, the relationship between cow, calf and human beings. Sometimes a single image is very powerful when we want to talk about an idea. If we are wanting to speak about processes of milk production and occupation, multiple images could be more effective.
Multiple image essay: If we want to profile the timeline of a place or event, multiple images are effective. Another example is when we want to capture important moments in a festival, school function or even emotions of children in a game, multiple images can be better.
Emphasise that there need not be a rule about single/ multiple images - students should be able to tailor and develop a communication based on the idea they want to communicate and the audience they want to communicate with.
For each one of the activities, let the students work in small groups and identify the pictures they want to collect/ create. In this activity, they will either create the images using paper and pen and digitize or take photographs of events that they are creating a picture essay on. There is possibility for both for individual image essays and collective digital essays.
The image collection can be done outside of the classroom hours, the class period will be used for presenting the images and discussion.
Any image that is used can reflect a subject area. In addition to demonstrating the students' grasp of the subject, the teacher can also use this discussion to build learning skills needed. These can be the rubrics for assessment also.
Tell a story
This activity requires three 3-period blocks: 1 period for demonstration and 2 periods for the hands-on work.
Students must add narratives to the image and picture essays they have created. You can also give them additional images or photographs to compose stories.
The focus here is on understanding how stories can be different - fictional, biographic, descriptive, narrative, open ended or closed ended. The focus is on coherence on story telling than the language competencies demonstrated.
Ability to develop a story line in different contexts and making connections to build multiple narratives is an important learning outcome.
Since this is a novel experience for students, encourage them to be creative and productive. It is not so important to be correct factually or in language, that can develop over time. Since using images for communication gives students an option to using written text for communication, it is likely that students who are not usually very good with written text may excel here. You can use the diverse ways of presenting information, creative expression, to encourage the diverse skills of different students. This is part of the 'comprehensive' in CCE.
For more ideas on using picture stories for digital story telling click here.
Level 2 -> 8 weeks
The second level requires eight weeks of 3 periods.
A suggested break-up of activity-wise periods is given below. This is indicative, the teacher is encouraged to adjust the periods between activities and also between demonstration and hands on activity as needed.
Title
Reading
No of weeks(3
periods each)
Teacher
demonstration
periods
Student activity
periods
About communication with graphics
Reading included
Stories and songs come alive with pictures
4
4
8
Creating animated pictures
4
4
8
Stories and songs come alive with pictures
The teacher has the choice of doing the illustrations by hand and digitizing or using a digital art creation tool; this could even be a group activity. Some students can illustrate songs, some can illustrate stories.
It will be useful for students to make a concept map of ideas being communicated in the song/ story and abstract the important story line items for illustrating. The teacher can facilitate this discussion, encouraging students to express their understanding using multilingual expressions.
Here again, focus on the choice of ideas for illustration. You can use this exercise to help stimulate creativity in children. As different children will have different ways of imagining representing songs and stories by pictures, encourage students to present in the class and share their thinking in detail. This sharing will support peer learning and students who are quite visibly creative, will be able so rub off on other students also.
The illustrations can be hand drawn and digitized. The students can also be encouraged to create using digital art tools like Tux Paint.
For this activity, the teacher must demonstrate the following (all the pictures and text document are given in the textbook activity):
Drawing a picture and coloring a picture using TuxPaint
Opening a digitized hand drawn picture and making changes
Inserting images and showing as a slide show
Combining the text from the story/ song with pictures using a text editor
The story town mouse and country mouse can be taken up for illustration. The internet can be a good source of images. You can also create your images. Some good quality illustrations for this story are available here.
Emphasize that this activity is cumulative and this will be built upon using audio visual tools.
The activity should also include presentation of each others' picture stories - only as picture albums or using text and pictures.
The school can also consider having some of these creative presentations being shared on the School's annual day or other events. It is also possible to include student presentations, connecting image with audio/visual stories in parent meetings in schools, since text illiterate parents will also be able to enjoy these presentations and get a feel of the learning processes in the schools. Parents (and community members) are also likely to enjoy their local songs and stories being available as picture stories and pictures with songs and this also may help them connect better with the school learning processes.
For more ideas on using picture stories for digital story telling click here.
Creating animated stories
This activity requires 4 sets of 3 periods.
An animation is a set of rapidly changing images, creating an illusion of movement. Deciding how to make minor changes and illustrate is an expression of students' creativity.
In the teacher led activity, you can demonstrate how an animation works using a set of images, opened in a tool called Tux Paint.
This is an extension of creating an illustrated story, using the animation feature of a digital art creation tool like Tux Paint.
An animation can be of the stories and songs chosen earlier for illustration or an independent slide show.
During this activity demonstrate the following:
Making a series of images with incremental changes
Using the slide show option to show as an animation within Tux Paint
Level 3 -> 6 weeks
The third level requires six weeks of 3 periods.
A suggested break-up of activity-wise periods is given below. This is indicative, the teacher is encouraged to adjust the periods between activities and also between demonstration and hands on activity as needed.
Title
Reading
No of weeks(3
periods each)
Teacher
demonstration
periods
Student activity
periods
About communication with graphics
Reading included
Making comic strips
4
4
8
Making posters
4
4
8
Comic Strips
The objective here is to help students create an independent story line or idea as a comic strip
Help students identify appropriate sequences - 3-5 pictures
Helping them think about how to create conversations (this can be an useful method to help students with discourse creation)
Illustrating with a digital art application
We will use LibreOffice Writer to put together images and conversations
Making posters
This can be in the nature of a cumulative project bringing together their experiences of working with text and images.
This can be done as individual projects of group projects.
The choice of topic can be based on concepts being explored in school, stories or poems being discussed in the language classes or contemporary issues of local significance.
The students should be able to build critical perspectives and narratives on social processes and events, being able to see the issues, argue out multiple perspectives (using comic strips) or make an infographic. Digital image creations are to be encouraged.
As in the earlier case, the school can consider showcasing these as part of an annual day exhibition or competition.
For more ideas on using picture stories for digital story telling click here.
Note: The different themes have been organized as Levels 1, 2 and 3 based on the complexity of the ICT skills involved and also keeping in mind the syllabus and textbook levels of classes 6,7 and 8 respectively. For audio visual communication, given the complexity of the skills involved, the textbook intends to introduce it only in the second year of the ICT program and hence the starting level is indicated as level 2.
This introductory level of audio visual communication requires six weeks of 3 periods each. 1 period is for teacher demonstration and discussion; two periods for hands-on work by students. A suggested break-up of activity-wise periods is given below. This is indicative, the teacher is encouraged to adjust the periods between activities and also between demonstration and hands on activity as needed.
Title
Reading
No ofweeks
(3periods each)
Teacher
demonstration
periods
Student activity
periods
About audio visual communication
Reading included
Audio story telling
3
3
6
Combining words and sounds to tell a story
3
3
6
Audio story telling
The objective of this activity is to appreciate the importance of audio as an important aspect of communication and how we can listen to sounds and tell a story. While doing this activity, students will also get an idea of the importance of oral history, how narration and oral traditions have helped in creating knowledge.
This activity will have two parts - listening to sounds and telling a story as well as listening to stories and narrations for understanding.
The teacher can use this activity to talk about how we are surrounded by sounds all the time, how we make meaning and how lot of information is contained in the different sounds around us - for example, when water is getting filled in a vessel how much is filled can be guessed based on the sound of the water dripping. In addition, also talk to students about oral traditions and how knowledge is handed down through generations.
Introduce to students the different ways of recording sounds - using a mobile, a voice recorder or a computer. For more information on how to access audio from different sources and adding to the computer click here.
In the teacher activity, some sample recordings for audio listening and a story telling have been given. The teacher is encouraged to record sounds that are present in their local environment and use it for the demonstration activities. You can also include local stories / story telling narrations for listening.
As part of the student activities ask them to do the following:
Make a recording of all the sounds for a given situation or story - for example, lunch time at the school, sports period, cooking sounds in the kitchen, sounds of the local festival. They can also record sound clips for image essays already created. Let these be discrete, short duration clips than a long audio. For example, students coming out for lunch can be one clip, the sound of lunch vessels can be one, the sound of plates, the sounds of water for hand washing and the sounds of free play time can be different clips.
Have the students record a story or a description from an elder in the family or community
The recordings made by the students can be shared for collective listening. Students can add illustrations to the sounds and narrations they are listening to and digitize them (hand drawn and digitized).
Wherever possible, the student work can be cumulated from the previous activities under communication with graphics.
Combining words and sounds to tell a story
This activity focuses on combining sounds to with spoken words to create stories. as a demonstration, the teacher can record a story or a narration with additional sounds/ music and present it. The story can be recorded without the sounds and with the sounds. This will introduce students to the skill of combining audio clips for a communication as well as help them appreciate how words and sounds complement a communication. You may even find it interesting to record some sounds very specific to a language and play it for the students and ask them to talk about what imagery the sounds evoke in their minds. This is especially useful for Indian languages.
The internet can be a good source of audio and video clips. You can also record your own clips.
In this activity for combining words and sounds, you can use the same story of "The Town Mouse and Country Mouse" and do a retelling of the story as a summary. You can do a short recording of the summary without any sounds and you can do a recording adding the sound clips of mouse squeaking and cats meowing to add to the effect of the story. Combine all these sounds using Audacity.
As part of the students' activities, have them add narrations to the sounds they have already recorded.
For more ideas on using picture stories for digital story telling click here.
Level 3 -> 6 weeks
This level of audio visual communication requires eight weeks of 3 periods each. 1 period is for teacher demonstration and discussion; two periods for hands-on work by students. A suggested break-up of activity-wise periods is given below. This is indicative, the teacher is encouraged to adjust the periods between activities and also between demonstration and hands on activity as needed.
Title
Reading
No ofweeks
(3periods each)
Teacher
demonstration
periods
Student activity
periods
About audio visual communication
Reading included
Making an audio book
2
2
4
Making an audio visual read aloud book
4
4
8
Make an audio book
This is a read-aloud of a book or any textual material. The primary objective is for students to get familiar with a method of creating resources which can supplement textual materials. This can also be an effective method of assessing students' speaking skills (pronunciation, fluency) - either as self evaluation exercises for the students or through peer assessments or teacher led assessments.
The teacher should demonstrate the audio read-aloud using a sample text. The excerpt from Lincoln's letter to his son's school teacher has been given here as an example. The audio file has been linked in the textbook. Encourage the students to discuss if there was any difference between their reading of the text and the audio listening.
The reading aloud can be added to a cumulative portfolio, building upon the following activities completed earlier:
Read aloud of the illustrated story they made in communications with graphics
Read aloud of the illustrated song they made in communications with graphics
For more ideas on using picture stories for digital story telling click here.
Make a read aloud audio visual book
This activity is an extension of the audio book; the illustrated and textual book is presented along with an audio narration. By doing this activity students can see how the different formats of information - text, images, audio and video - can come together to create. In this activity, a simple video creation tool is introduced, which records an application (a slide show of images, a text document with multiple pages or a poster) running on the computer screen and allows you to add audio. Such an application which records an application on the computer is called a screencast recorder. In this book, we have introduced an application called Record my Desktop which will allow you to create such an audio visual resource.
This is a cumulative activity and students can make the audio visual book using one or all of the following:
Adding voice narration to a photo and image essay
Reading aloud the illustrated songs and stories
Adding a narration to the poster made
Reading aloud the comic strip made
The audio clips recorded in the first activity can also be combined, for making videos, if applicable.
We have seen earlier that the power of using ICT in teaching learning lies in understanding the in the interplay between content, pedagogy and the available technologies. Pedagogy includes all strategies and technologies. While technologies include both digital and non-digital technologies, the possibilities of creation with ICT have made available new possibilities for content and pedagogy. We saw earlier the ways in which we can look at ICT in teaching learning as well as the the framework for integrating technology, content and pedagogy. To realise the possibilities of constructivist approaches integrating technology, it is important for technology to allow possibilities for creating and collaborating and not merely represent content in static ways.
The Free and Open Source Software world has thousands of software applications which can be freely explored by teachers. Many of these tools can be used for learning different school subjects. One advantage of many of these tools is that they do not present 'ready made content' but provide a canvas of menu options, which teachers can use, to create materials for learning and configure to address learning needs.
A tool like Geogebra can help demonstrate many mathematical principles and support learning of concepts. Marble is a digital atlas that can be manipulated in ways that a print version cannot be. Stellarium converts your computer into a planetarium. Other tools like Marble do not support creation of resource files, but lessons can be created using Screen shots of the application and combining it with text. Videos can also be created. You can also download many more software applications and you can search for these with keywords which could be your subject names. Engaging with multiple tools can broaden the understanding of how software applications can be used for subject teaching.
In the textbook we have introduced several tools for subject teaching, with an attempt to map to he syllabus levels suggested in the different subjects. This section of the handbook will suggest some methods of transacting the lessons with these tools as well as create resources using these tools.
Chapter objectives
Develop the dimension of technology knowledge to allow the teacher to proactively investigate appropriate tools for integration in teaching learning
Understanding the power of free and open source educational software applications for allowing collaboration and co-creation
Strengthening the technological and pedagogical content knowledge of the teachers
Helping student to create resources using these educational software applications
Understanding the possibilities of using technology in designing assessments to support the implementation of Continuous Comprehensive Evaluation (CCE)
In the textbook for classes 6-8, we have introduced the following tools for integration in subject teaching:
Kanagram is a very simple FOSS application for strengthening vocabulary in a language. The tool allows you to configure word lists for any given category. You can provide a hint for each word also. For instance you could define a category - 'Rivers of Telangana' and give Godavari, Krishna, Palleru, Dindi, Bhima as the words for this category. For each word you can give a hint or clue, for e.g. 'second longest river in India' for Godavari. When you 'play' Kanagram, you will select a category. If you select 'Rivers of Telangana' , you will get jumbled words, one at a time, and you need to guess the word.
How the tool supports learning of that subject
This word thus builds the vocabulary of students in an enjoyable manner. Unjumbling the word is a creative exercise, making students familiar with anagrams. Later making anagrams of any word can itself be a useful linguistic activity. The hint or clue also adds to the fun in the learning.
Apart from testing students vocabulary, you can also support student language skills by encouraging them to build word lists for different categories and provide meaningful hints/clues. (The clues need not only be literal clues, it can be cryptic also, like in crosswords). For instance, you could set the clue as 'Pandava' for Bhima River. This activity can be a base for students to explore crosswords, play the Scrabble game, which involves students identifying words from the letters they have chosen. Solving crosswords is a good language learning activity.
Kanagram allows word lists to be setup in other languages also. So you can set simple word lists in Telugu as well. (Currently Kanagram allows only simple Telugu words, complex/compound letters are not supported).
Creating word lists with Kanagram
Chapter Objectives
Understanding how to build vocabulary in a language, using a game of jumbled words
Creating jumbled word lists for different categories, to support vocabulary building and language learning
Anagram maker, is a website resource which generates anagrams for any word you type in. You could have a competition in class for students to identify the maximum number of words from a word or group of letters.
Level 1 -> 2 weeks
This activity requires two 3-period blocks over 2 weeks : 2 periods for demonstration and 4 periods for the hands-on work.
In the first demonstration period, you can play the jumble word game with students. You can highlight following
the jumble and un-jumbling itself
the idea of word categories (this is similar to the 'set theory' that students will learn in Mathematics later)
You can ask students to suggest more words for a category
Ask them what 'hints' they would like to provide for a word. This is the opposite of what students usually do - they find answers to questions framed by others. Here they are framing questions (hints) which require / suggest answers. This can be a novel learning experience for students. You can debate and discuss hints.
Students can play with the jumbled words in two periods. You can discuss meanings of different words that may not be clear to students. You can also ask them for equivalent words in other languages.
If there is time, you can ask students to suggest more categories. You can ask students, in groups, to design categories, words, jumbles and hints for each word. They can type it in a text document in a table.
In the second demonstration class, show how you have created a new category and uploaded words, jumbles and hints for each word.
Encourage them to debate and discuss whether the words suggested belong to the category, whether there are any 'border' words where there can be varying opinions on whether the word can be included in the category, and also the suitability of the hints suggested
Students can then upload the categories and word lists for the categories created by them, on the Kanagaram installation on their computers. If you find any additions very creative, useful, you should share in the Subject Teacher Forum so that these can be available to other schools, and also can be made available in the next custom distribution.These activities can be over 2 periods and in the last period, students can share the work done by them for peer review and feedback
Geogebra is a graphics software application, this enables a teacher to create lessons and resources which can be used for teaching-learning. It is a free educational application and and has its own respository of files, http://Geogebratube.org, available as Open Educational Resources. It can be downloaded freely (from http://sourceforge.net/projects/Geogebra) and it is available on GNU/Linux and Windows platrforms.
Geogebra allows you to make sketches on a graphic view and the algebra pane describes the co-ordinates of the construction. Functions can also be defined using the input bar. It is possible to animate constructions in Geogebra by defining the variable as a slider. Geogebra also allows instruction to be typed in Indic languages. The graphics view of Geogebra can be viewed in 2 dimensions or 3 dimensions. The tool also has a spreadsheet option to work with list values for plotting a function.
Geogebra construction follows the logic of mathematical constructions and the tool bar, will work in the same way, a paper and pencil construction would work. The construction protocol can be viewed by anyone using a Geogebra file. This is useful for the teacher and student to make comparisons between the two processes.
Building of subject related learning competencies
Different curricula have identified key competencies that should result from a mathematics teaching learning program. These include conceptual understanding, procedural fluency, problem solving, reasoning and logic and communicating and engaging with mathematics.
The Telangana state academic standards for mathematics also emphasize problem solving, communication, reasoning and visualization as key learning attainments.
Geogebra with it possibilities for visualization and animation can help support the building of these competencies. The precision possible in drawing supports building the procedural fluency of geometric constructions, helping students understand why a particular step is necessary. Teachers can use Geogebra to set up investigative questions for students to explore.
Chapter Objectives
Understanding the interface of Geogebra and making different sketches
Appreciating the different possibilities of using Geogebra in classrooms
as a pre-made resource in classroom discussion and demonstration
co-creating a resource in the classroom and using the process of constructing the resource to clarify concepts
student investigations which can be used for formative assessments
Helping students independently explore Geogebra for self-learning
Building a library of Geogebra files for further learning and sharing the resources with the world wide Geogebra community.
The first level of Geogebra requires five weeks of 3 periods each: 1 period is for teacher demonstration and discussion; two periods for hands-on work by students.
A suggested break-up of activity-wise periods is given below. This is indicative, the teacher is encouraged to adjust the periods between activities and also between demonstration and hands on activity as needed.
Title
Reading
No of weeks
(3periods each)
Teacher
demonstration
periods
Student activity
periods
About Geogebra
Reading included
Drawing with Geogebra
2
2
4
Understanding lines and angles with Geogebra
3
3
6
Drawing with Geogebra
The focus of this activity is to help students get familiarized with the tool bar and create various shapes. Free hand as well as given shapes have to be drawn. The geometry can be left for students to self-explore in this activity and can be formally introduced in the next activity.
The students need to be introduced to the following:
Tool bar options like line, circle, making a closed shape (polygon)
Drawing and coloring objects
Defining the axes and grid
Moving an object and rotating an object
Saving a file
Taking a screenshot of the Geogebra sketch created
Understanding lines and angles with Geogebra
In this activity, students can be introduced to basis geometric concepts of lines, segments and angles and how angles are formed by intersection of lines. Geogebra models the way constructions are done in traditional mathematics classes. Hence, one way the teacher can use this activity is to construct the figures - line, angles and engage the students in a discussion. For instance you can draw two segments, by rotating one segment and asking the students to name and measure the angle. Depending upon the direction in which they measure, the angle will be different. This can be an useful point to talk about clockwise and counter clockwise rotation.
Another useful activity to do with Geogebra is to help students construct complementary and supplementary angles. Often students add the numbers to say 90 degrees or 180 degrees and the visualization of the angle is not there. Encourage students to create and move angles to make a right angle or straight angle.
Introduce the following to the students:
Drawing lines, rays and segments
Rotating a segment to make an angle, label the angle
Use a text box to type the angle
Create and move angles to make complementary and supplementary angles
Drawing lines parallel and perpendicular
Marking the angles formed between parallel lines
Using the attached worksheet to record their observations
In both the activities, the teacher must construct the Geogebra file in class as a demonstration and ask students to construct the files. There are also questions for students to attempt in a worksheet. All the files have been uploaded as part of the student textbook.
Level 2 --> 3 weeks
Learning about triangle properties
In this activity, students can be introduced to ideas of exploring a triangle. Students have a lot of conceptual difficulties around triangles, methods of construction and the properties. By using an interactive interface like Geogebra where students can create different kinds of triangles and recording their observations, students can be supported to build visualizations of geometric concepts. This topic allows multiple explorations and 2 weeks may not be enough for this activity; this can be taken up for extended work within the regular subject periods, as needed.
The following things need to be introduced:
Drawing lines
Plotting intersection and labeling angles
Using a textbox to summarize the properties observed
Using the attached worksheet to record their observations
Exploring symmetry
This activity is intended to introduce students to basics of symmetry, rotational symmetry and creation of symmetric objects. The students will explore the difference between rotation and reflection as they explore symmetry.
The following features need to be introduced:
Rotation by an angle
Reflection around a point
Reflection along a line
Dilation and translation of objects
In both the activities, the teacher must construct the Geogebra file in class as a demonstration and ask students to construct the files. There are also questions for students to attempt in a worksheet. All the files have been uploaded as part of the student textbook.
Level 3 --> 3 weeks
Learning about quadrilateral properties
In the class 8 mathematics syllabus, the students are introduced to the properties of quadrilaterals. In an activity similar to the triangles, students can be asked to create Geogebra sketches on quadrilaterals.
Building animations in Geogebra
Animations are powerful to demonstrate properties. This can be done using a feature called Slider which allows you to change parameter value and observe changes. Deciding which parameter to change can be a useful discussion by itself and can demonstrate to the teacher the students' understanding.
KGeography is a free and open source map software. You can access the political maps of countries and continents. For most maps, you can click on the provinces identified within the map, and KGeography will reveal the name of the province. You can also respond to quizzes on names of provinces, capitals etc. Since KGeography is free and open source, it can be modified by software engineers. This has to be done to show Telangana and Andhra Pradesh in the India map, which currently shows undivided Andhra Pradesh.
India map in KGeography
Building of subject related learning competencies
The tool helps students to build a visual map of the earth, with the political boundaries of countries within continents. The quizzes may make it interesting for students to explore on their own. The class 6 chapter on reading and making maps can be facilitated with sessions from this section.
Chapter Objectives
Understanding political maps of regions in the Earth, such as continents, countries, states.
Becoming familiar with the continents of Europe and Africa using the maps.
Exploring the political geography of these two continents and the countries in these two continents (Class VII Geography)
Becoming familiar with the different land forms (peninsula, island etc)
This activity requires two weeks (2 3 period blocks): 1 period for demonstration, 1 for quiz and 4 periods for the hands-on work.
In the first demonstration period, you can show the maps of Europe and Africa
In the two subsequent hands-on periods, students can select the countries in the continents, read their capitals and familiarise themselves. They can also be asked to study the land - water mass in and around both continents.
In the second demonstration class for 1 period, you can run a quiz for some of the countries of these two continents.
In the two subsequent hands-on periods, you can ask students to select any one country in either of these continents and do a photo essay of that country. They can take screen shot of the country's map, and write an essay on the country, covering history, bordering countries, geographic features such as climate, soils, seasons, rainfall, natural features, festivals, political systems etc. They can be encouraged to consult others and elders to get information on some of these aspects. Such projects can integrate the social sciences learning for the students. You should encourage the students to take different countries, so that when they present their essays, it would be learning for others. This activity can be done in teams/groups as well.
Over years, you would be collecting essays on different countries, created by your students. This can become a part of your own resource repository, which you share with subsequent batches of students and encourage them to improve on the same in their efforts. Thus student portfolios can be improved by the same students or by the next batch of students across the years.
While KGeography is a mapping software focusing on political geography, Marble is a mapping software focusing on physical geography. You can open maps of the earth (and also of some other planets in our Solar System, Moon etc) and see the physical features of different regions of the earth. Since it is a digital map, you can zoom in/out, move the earth in different directions etc.
Marble Software
Building of subject related learning competencies
Marble can help students appreciate physical geography, the maps use a rich set of colours for identifying different elements of physical features. Students can even select the physical features that they want to see, or all. The class 8 chapters on reading and making maps, seasons can be facilitated using the activities discussed in this section.
Marble can be used to move the discussions from content (just facts) like 'What is the 0 degree longitude", 'What is Tropic of Cancer?', to more conceptual aspects like 'Why are summers and winters more extreme in the northern hemisphere (as is seen from the darker and bigger shades of red in summer and blue in winter, in the northern hemisphere) than the southern hemisphere? Why is large part of North Africa a desert? Why is the international date line not falling fully on a longitude but is somewhat crooked? This makes students to look at Geography not as a collection of facts to memorise, but a method of exploring and understanding natural phenomena.
Chapter Objectives
Understanding how to read a digital globe model of the earth
Explore physical features of different regions in different maps, including temperature/climate, rainfall etc
Understanding how the different physical features influence one another and human life
Digital learning resources
Handout for Marble. The version of Marble (screen shots) used in this activity pertains to the 14.04 distribution of Ubuntu. The Marble in the Ubuntu 16.04 distribution looks different, though it has the same functionality
This activity requires three weeks : 3 periods for demonstration and 6 periods for the hands-on work.
In the first demonstration period, you can show the physical map of the world. You can show the 3-D model of the earth and explore different maps provided. You can open the "Atlas" map to see the different continents and oceans. You can freely rotate the Earth, using the movement as well as drill functions of Marble and show the entire globe. For instance, you could simulate the rotation of the Earth by moving the Globe from left (west) to right (east). You can also use the mouse to increase the zoom to see a place in more detail.
In the subsequent two student hands-on periods, you can guide the students to explore the digital globe, through the activities relating to rainfall. Ask students to pick up any country of their choice and try to move the Atlas to locate that region (though they will not see the country name, you can locate the cities and towns, rivers and mountains of that region). Students can move the atlas to see India and increase the zoom to see the cities and towns in Telangana. Encourage students to open the different maps available and suggest possible uses of these maps, in their learning. You can encourage students to ask questions from any doubts they may have.
In the second demonstration period, you could relate the activities in chapter 2 of your class 6 text book 'Globe - a model of the Earth' to the Marble globe. You can also relate the maps on temperature to the chapter 3 and 4 of your class 8 text book, to the seasons.
In the subsequent two student hands-on periods, you can guide the students to explore the climate in different parts of the Earth and correlate it with the physical factors of that location. You can discuss the land masses and water masses. Are they equal? Are they equally distributed in the northern and southern hemispheres? You can have a discussion on what factors (such as distance from oceans, altitude, distance from equator, forest coverage etc) would influence the climate, by looking at the climate in different parts of the earth.
In the third demonstration period, you can demonstrate the temperature/climate maps in Marble and connect it to the chapters on seasons and polar zones. You can have a discussion on what factors (such as distance from oceans, altitude, distance from equator, forest coverage etc) would influence the rainfall, by looking at the rainfall in different parts of the Earth.
Students can, in the subsequent 2 hands-on periods explore the rainfall maps. They can also explore the other maps in Marble. As a project activity, you can ask students to map the school and their homes and other institutions in your location, using the OpenStreetMap tracker app, which can be downloaded on mobile phones.
PhET is a free and open application desktop based simulation tool which can be used to study different experiments. There are many PhET simulations available on the internet. Screenshots can be taken of the simulation or a screencast recording of a simulation can be done to create additional resources for the classroom.
Building of subject related competencies
Setting up experiments, investigations and recording and concluding are important processes of science. Simulations can be used to support the physical experimentation. Wherever possible, hands-on experimentation and investigation must be done. In addition or as a follow-up, students can be supported to run computer based simulations. In some cases, a virtual simulation allows the students to run a what-if scenario. Sometimes changes happen very quickly or very slowly. In both cases, studying the changes in a controlled setting may help the students observe the changes, record and document. The simulations are built for a particular process or event and allow the user to modify variables/ parameters to study the experiment.
Chapter objectives
Understanding the role of experimentation in science
Facilitating students' self learning through investigation in interactive environments like simulations
Combining simulations, videos and other digital resources for learning
In this introductory class, talk to the students about experimentation as a process and how thought experiments were conducted. To illustrate the different kinds of ICT tools that can be used for learning science, show an animation, video and a simulation and ask the students to discuss the difference between these resources. This will introduce students to the idea of a simulation as a virtual experimentation tool.
Simulation on Colour Vision.
Open the simulation: Color Vision. Run both the simulations – RGB Bulbs and Single Bulb. Then, answer the following questions:
When only one bulb is used, what colour does the man see? Why?
When more than one colour is used, what colour does the man see? Why? Does this change if I move the sliders on each of the bulbs the man sees? If it changes, why does it change?
When all the three bulbs are used, what is the colour that the man sees? Where else do we see white light? If R,G,B when mixed give the white light, what can you say about the nature of the red, green and blue.
When does the man see any colour and when does he see black?
What is the filter doing? Explain the difference in colour between the source being monochromatic (single colour) and white.
Simulation on Friction
Open the PhET simulation on Friction under Physics/ Motion. Run the simulation and answer the following questions.
What do the moving green and yellow circles indicate?
When you are rubbing the yellow book on the green book what happens? How do you know that the heat is being generated?
When the temperature goes very high, the yellow circles fly off. What does this mean physically?
Simulation on sound
Observe the simulation – Listen to a single source. Run the simulation and answer the following questions.
Enable the audio-enabled and check the difference between the speaker and the listener. Ask the students, why is this so?
When you increase the frequency – what are the changes you see, hear? Do you come across these kinds of sounds (frequencies) anywhere. When you change the frequency, the nature of sound changes. There is a name for it. Ask your teacher. Where else does this aspect of sound come in?
When you change the amplitude, what happens? Based on what you hear, describe what you think is the meaning of amplitude.
The book has introduced you to ICT as a process to support learning. Whether through the creation of a personal digital library for your reference, creation of educational resources in text, image, audio and video formats or through connecting with your colleagues through mobile and email forums, you have experienced the possibilities that ICT provide for creating, connecting and learning. We have also discussed TPACK as a framework through which to explore ICT in teaching learning, through the use of different subject specific applications.
Any book can only introduce and familiarise you to different software applications. The aim of the teacher handbook is not to make you an expert in different tools, as a part of the classroom / ICT Lab activities. For becoming an expert, you will need to spend time, exploring the different menus of any application and check what they do and how it can be useful for you.
An important objective of the ICT syllabus is to make teachers confident users of technology, make critical choices about on integrating technology in their practices as well as facilitate students' learning of ICT. It is hoped that teachers would be able to appreciate the possibilities that ICT provide for bringing about inclusive classrooms where students collaborate and create knowledge outputs for supporting their own learning.
Last but not the least, the book has attempted to sensitize you to the socio political dimension of ICT use. While ICT has potential to benefit, it could also have negative consequences. Developing a critical perspective on ICT integration in education is important for the schools, teachers and students to participate meaningfully in the emerging digital society.
