The article Technological Literacy by Carmen Luke (1997) gives a historical overview of technology, but having in mind that it was written more than 10 years ago, the information is not up to date.
The “Pedagogy” section of the article gives a few good IT based activities, some of which are worth trying:
– Daily weather report: First thing in the morning, students have to find on the internet the weather report for specific cities, in my case Bangkok, and, let’s say, my home town. The article suggests NASA’s website, which seems the most appropriate choice.
– E-mail partnership project: Students correspond by e-mail with students from other countries. The good thing about this project is that the e-pen friend doesn’t really have to be in the same age group. The article writes about primary kids corresponding with university students.
– Hypothetical class tip to a foreign country: A very good problem-based learning project that has the students plan a trip abroad. The students can be divided into groups, each group dealing with different aspects of the trip: plane tickets and hotel reservation, sites to visit, budget, visas, passports, etc. Information can be then gathered in a small booklet and “donated” to the school library.
All these activities involve computer mediated learning, which “tends to generate group rather than solitary learning, it encourages collective risk taking…, collaborative problem solving and information sharing,” as Carmen Luke concludes her paper.
