My ICT Experience In School

To the restless kid that I was, spending all day in the classroom with only one break in the middle of the day for recess was utterly boring. I looked forward to PE lessons, assemblies, any hour that would take us out of the classroom. That's not to say I didn't enjoy my lessons- I really did, it was just the monotony of sitting at the same desk in the stifling heat that I disliked.


The Information and Communication Technology (ICT) lessons (of course, back then it was just known as 'computer lessons') were always eagerly anticipated by my classmates and me, not least because it meant that we could have a respite from the heat and our usual chalk-and-blackboard lessons. Coming from a middle-class background, I was comfortable with computers and dismissed these lessons as nothing more than a chance to fool around and check my e-mail.


Amidst the various ICT lessons throughout primary and secondary school, my favourite was the annual National Education quiz that all students had to take to graduate from primary or secondary school. In one hour, my knowledge of Singapore was severely tested as I was asked to recall iconic buildings, persons, and facts about the country I grew up in and supposedly knew thoroughly. I preferred these quizzes to social study lessons as the Multiple Choice Questions always seemed much more fun when I could get the answers straight away. The interaction that students get from working with computers as opposed to pen and paper was a bonus that I enjoyed, along with the enhanced graphics that digital quizzes were always accompanied by. As usual, even at Secondary Four my classmates and I were surreptitiously checking our e-mails and social networking sites while doing the quizzes, and using Wikipedia to fill the gaps in our knowledge of our nation.


Given more control over how I learned was the biggest benefit of these computer lab quizzes. While ostensibly to test our knowledge of Singapore, my frequent scouring of Wikipedia and Google to embellish my answers highlighted my shallow understanding of my country. However, I also found myself more eager to learn through these websites than through the textbooks. Any uncertainty over the credibility of the information gleamed online was always checked with my teacher, whom I thought was more than pleased that her girls were taking their learning into their own hands.


Essentially, these computer lessons placed the responsibility of learning in my own hands, acting only as aids to let me discover the information I needed, and wanted, to know. Sadly, such freedom was mainly confined to Social Studies lessons. I suppose subjects like Mathematics and Mother Tongue are better learned in a traditional classroom setting, as theories and pronounciation can be more tedious learned from a computer. I am glad, therefore, that I experienced independent learning in my secondary school days as my later studies required this sense of eagerness on my part for me to succeed. Hopefully, as a teacher, I would be able to nurture students  mature enough to understand that computer lessons are more than just e-mail checking time, but rather, one of the few initial encounters students would have that placed their own learning in their hands.