When integrating ICT into the curriculum,  special attention must be given to the teachers in the school. There are those who will be early adopters, those who are fairly conversant with ICT use but choose a wait-and-see approach, and those who are not familiar with ICT and are probably worried about its use in the classroom.It the second and the third categories of teachers that we mus be more mindful of. They can make or break any ICT implementation program in a school.

For the second category, the wait-and-see group, they must be convinced about the importance and the usefulness of ICT use. Teachers are in general a fairly pragmatic group of people. They have been inundated with all kinds of fads that has been introduced into the teaching profession. They have seen fads come and go. A (un?)healthy scepticism becomes part of the outlook of such teachers. To convince them, they must not only be told of the importance of ICT use, they must also be convinced that the school is serious in believing that ICT use is important to achieve the curricular goals set for the school; and very importantly, that ICT really works for their students and the teachers.

Such teachers will watch to see if the school is serious about ICT implementation. By “serious” here, I do not mean that, for example, that the school makes it compulsory for teachers to have a certain minimal percentage of their lessons with an ICT element in them. By “serious”, I mean that the school would actually take into consideration, for example, the kind of assessment that the students would undergoing. If the only assessment that matters are the high stakes examinations where students can be drilled to do well in the traditional way, teachers will see little point doing “extra” since no measurable value is attached to the use of ICT in the classroom. In the face of a heavy work load and responsibilities and the perceived lack of time to “cover” the syllabus, ICT use in the classroom will not be given any importance by these teachers. This is made worse if teachers know that the appraisal of their performance is heavily weighted towards how well their students perform in the pen and paper examinations. A whole lot of serious convincing is needed.

For the non-ICT savvy teachers, not only they must be convinced but additional assistance is required if they are going to adapt successfully to using ICT in the classroom. Some of these additional assistance may include even bringing them to an acceptable level of basic ICT skills. It may mean for them to just learn to use word processing or spread sheet software for their own personal use. The training should be of the just-in-time nature.

Getting them to use ICT in the classroom would require a gradual process beginning with the familiar software they already know. Here again school administrators must not set unrealistic expectations of these teachers. I have already mentioned in a previous posting how some school principals banned the use of PowerPoint. For the new users of ICT among teachers, asking them to try something beyond PowerPoint may be asking too much in too little time. Better for them to learn the finer points of using PowerPoint and other simple ICT tools then be stressed out by unrealistic expectations.

The stress of learning to use ICT for these teachers can also be reduced if they are given adequate demonstrations and also a lot of hand holding by more ICT-savvy teachers. This is to give them confidence that someone is helping them and ready to assist. All they need to do is to try and master the simpler ICT tools.

Perhaps, the last important thing is that ICT tools take time to learn and master. Time is needed for teachers to feel confident to use them in front of an audience of usually ICT comepetent students. Rushing it will only lead to unsuccessful lessons in the classrooms.

In short, an ICT integration programme must be people friendly. It is about people first and technology second. The gates to ICT integration will not open unless we do imitate Gandalf at Moria and “Speak Friend, and enter”

In the Lord of the Rings, the band accompanying the Ring-bearer led by Gandalf approached the entrance of the home of the dwarfs at Misty Mountains and was barred by the Moria Gate bearing the ancient inscriptions, “Speak, Friend and enter.” Gandalf spent quite a bit of time trying to decipher the password that would magically open the gate. After a long time pondering upon it, he realized that the magical word was “friend”!

Similarly, if a teaching faculty in a school intends to move into the magical realm of integrating ICT in the curriculum, the approach to doing so should be based on that word “friend”. For ICT integration to succeed it must be people-friendly. Although the process of ICT integration seems to be about technology, in reality it is about people, especially the teachers and the students.

It is about people because it is these two groups that I mentioned above are the ones who are going to be most affected by the whole process and they are the ones who will decide on the outcome of the whole process. In an earlier posting, I described teachers as the “gatekeepers to ICT integration” in the classrooms. The success of an ICT integration program is dependent on the willingness of the teachers to introduce them in their classrooms. Therefore it becomes imperative that in any attempt to introduce ICT into the classroom on a regular basis, great thought must be given about:

• teachers’ perceptions or beliefs about the usefulness of ICT in education;
• teachers’ attitudes towards learning and adding another dimension to their already vast teaching repertoire and responsibilities;
• the kind of training and other forms of assistance that they would require to be using ICT successfully and regularly in the classroom; and
• the motivations for the teachers to use ICT in the classroom.

It is only when these considerations are taken into account before and during the implementation of an ICT integration program, that ICT integration can be a more friendly process for all, especially the teachers. This is vital not only as a PR excercise but for the successful implementation and continuity of the program. It is people first, and technology, second. It is only then we can “Speak, Friend and enter.”

Some of us may remember (you have to be fairly old now) that Disney movie, “The Love Bug” (1968) which featured an old beat-up Volkswagen Beetle “race” car with a life of its own. It was so immensely popular that there has been a few follow-up movies since the original. The common thread in all these Love Bug movies was the ability of this old, far from fearsome race Beetle, to beat more powerful race machines. The Love Bug movies are typical underdog movies that American audience loves.

The Beetle (“he” is called Herbie) in the Love Bug movies reminds me a lot of PowerPoint, the much maligned software from a  much criticized software giant. PowerPoint has often been criticized among presentation software users (see here, here and here as  examples). The phrase, “Death by PowerPoint” is quite commonly heard these days too in the corporate boardrooms. This pooh-poohing of PowerPoint as a teaching tool occurs at the school level too, including in Singapore.

I remember a time when I was a consultant for the Master Plan for IT in Education (MPITE) of the Ministry of Education (MOE) of Singapore, that some school principals did not consider the use of PowerPoint by teachers in lessons as examples of ICT integration. This, I believe, caused a lot of difficulties for teachers in Singapore who are just beginning to be introduced to the world of ICT integration for education. This is not to mention that many of these same Singapore school principals themselves are not able to string together a decent PowerPoint presentation on their own. What more with using more sophisticated ICT tools!

If we are followers of Marshall McLuhan, then we will also be aware that any medium that we use, can have an effect on us because technology has that ability to “extend” or “amputate” our abilities(see this related article about how Google affects us) .

Yet despite all that criticism, PowerPoint is still well-loved for various reasons. This may be because most computer users in the  world are Windows-based. Still, despite all its short-comings, perceived or true, PowerPoint will be around for quite awhile. There are many ways one can improve the PowerPoint presentations that we use (see ZaidLearn’s PowerPoint bookmarks here for many suggestions). Too put it simply, just don’t be a slave to PowerPoint and become dependent on its templates. You don’t even need fancy transitions for a good lesson to take place with PowerPoint.

I remember I have used PowerPoint to teach History in Singapore schools and I have had students who usually are disinterested wanting to move their chairs and even sitting on the floor to be closer to the screen and the sound source during my lessons. As an example, I used to show lots of pictures of the last Tsar, to give my students an idea of what he represented (or at least he tried to present himself) to his subjects then. I did my best then not to teach from the textbooks. I would simply show the Tsar in his military uniforms and would ask my students questions about him. Why did he wear military uniforms? I would show a painting of his coronation (there is also a video footage of his coronation) and ask them to study the painting and asked them who was present and why. Or why he placed the crown on his own head. I would also show a painting of him blessing his kneeling soldiers at a battlefield during World War I and ask my students why was he doing that. I would also show them the lyrics of the Tsarist anthem and play the actual anthem and ask them about the music. What kind of music did it remind them of? Why? I would ask them to study the lyrics too and ask them what they can learn about the Tsar from it. Just simply doing these with PowerPoint and asking good questions would get my students thinking about the Tsar. They become actively involved in the presentation. They construct their knowledge through making inferences and using other thinking skills. The teachers job is to ask them questions and get them to think. Here ICT is integrated into the lesson and thinking skills is infused into the lesson with the help of good ICT use.

For a teacher, it is still good teaching methodology, assisted and enhanced by a piece of technology, the multimedia capability of PowerPoint, that is going to win the day. PowerPoint only becomes bad only if we put PowerPoint first and then adapt our teaching to what we think PowerPoint can do. It is made worse if we use the standard templates and use them like a crutch. Like Herbie, The Love Bug, despite all its apparent deficiencies and beat-up appearance compared to the newer kids on the block, PowerPoint, the underdog of presentation software today, is still much loved and is here to stay for awhile more. It can still have its day, if placed in the hands of the right person.