ICT as Informative Tool

ICT as Informative Tool

Informative tools are applications that provide large amounts of information in various formats such as text, graphics, sound, or video. Informative tools can be regarded as a passive repository of information (Chen & Hsu, 1999). Examples include tools and information resources of the existing multimedia encyclopedia of the Internet. The Internet is a huge electronic database, and researchers consider the Internet as the most significant ICT tools in e-learning environments. Pew Internet & American Life Project did a survey in 2002 which showed them three out of five children under the age of 18 and more than 78% of children between the ages of 12 and 17 rely on internet. Key findings from this study are found in Levin & Arafeh (2002) shows that students rely on the internet to help them do their homework. In short, students consider the Internet as a virtual textbook, reference library, virtual tutor, learn to study shortcuts and virtual study groups (McNeely, 2005).

The benefits of using ICT in the classroom include;

1.      Gives a break from monotonous classroom.

2.      Interactive class to improve students’ concentration and attendance.

3.      Encourages slow learners with the online resources.

4.      Teacher can help students with their doubts online.

5.      Students can improve knowledge retention for longer period of time.

 Research done on ICT as informative tool

Fontana and colleagues (1993) experimented with the design of a multimedia prototype with rich multimedia databases to foster higher-order thinking skills in social studies.  The researchers attempted to use the same technologies that swamped students with data to mediate students’ mastery of the thinking skills for synthesizing information.  The computer-based instructional system provided students with explicit instruction, guided inquiry, tutoring and coaching from teachers, collaborative learning with peers, and student controlled production.  Such a system required a refocusing of the current uses of multimedia in the curriculum, from engines for transmitting massive amounts of data to tools for structured inquiry based on higher-order thinking. 

The researchers suggested that higher-order thinking skills for structured inquiry were best acquired where: students constructed knowledge rather than passively ingest information; learning was situated in real-world contexts rather than based in artificial environment like end-of-chapter textbook questions. Oliver and Hannafin (2000) investigated the use of computer tools to manage and manipulate Internet-based hypermedia resources by 12 middle school students. 

The main purpose was to examine how Internet resource tools were used, from the searching for relevant materials to the presentation of the resources collected.  The tools were proposed to support higher-order thinking about hypermedia resources to help students find, frame and resolve open-ended problems.  Higher-order thinking represented efforts to process and understand information through organization, synthesis, reasoning, and evaluation.  It was reported that tools alone were insufficient to help students to manage hypermedia information for solving open-ended problems.  Students more frequently applied lower-order tool functions (e.g. information collection) than higher-order tool functions (e.g. reasoning).  Students typically resolved problems with original solutions, but tools were infrequently used to develop evidence-based arguments justifying new ideas.  Oliver and Hannafin (2000, p. 91) argued that.

As a part of the activity to understand how informative tool can be used, we were asked to prepare about whether Hitler was a gay or not. We used different sources and articles to find out about it and did comparing and contrasting to prepare the presentation.

Therefore, informative tools alone may not be sufficient to help students manage extensive hypermedia resources.  It is only together with appropriate support structures that the potential of informative tools for engaging students in higher-order thinking is more likely to be realized.