Technology is nothing
“Technology is nothing. What’s important is that you have faith in people, that they’re basically good and smart, and if you give them tools, they’ll do wonderful things with them.” – Steve Jobs
At Hayah the ICT department has been very busy over the past few years experimenting with new technologies to enhance the teaching and learning of our students. Our aim was to enable our students to be 21st century learners and to provide students with a balance view and experience of ICT, Web 1.0, Web 2.0 and Web 3.0. With this in mind we had adopted the Google Apps for Education as our e-learning tool. Students create, amend and share work using Google Apps. Students showcase their work using Google Sites. Plan their schedules using Google Calendar and save their data with Google Drive. Google Apps for Education serves as a one-stop for documents, calendar, email, cloud space, e-portfolio and much more.
To move away from teaching our students propriety products where students are commercially bound to one application; We adopted an Open Source policy. Wherever possible, students are taught using Open Source software which allows the teachers to teach the same skills and knowledge according to our adopted international standards but without limiting our students to particular programme or operating system.
Technology is ever changing and I believe that schools need to have a flexible approach that mirrors technological innovations in society. Detailed surveys are a fantastic way to know and understand technology use amongst all stake holders in any school. We carry out yearly surveys to know, understand and plan.
Teaching about ICT, Web 1.0, Web 2.0 and Web 3.0 also means teaching how the web works. To facilitate this we have introduced a Robotics elective, incorporated codeacademy.com into the curriculum and we are currently experimenting with Raspberry Pi.
“You can’t teach people everything they need to know. The best you can do is position them where they can find what they need to know when they need to know it.” – Seymour Papert, Creator of Logo programming language
“The biggest growth in the Internet, and the area that will prove to be one of the biggest agents of change, will be in e-learning.” – John Chambers, CEO Cisco Systems
Let’s CHANGE together
Circuit board Image source (http://pixabay.com/en/electronics-board-ic-circuit-35870
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