Lesson ONE

SO I have started school. More precisely, so I have started school to learn about how to teach and handle teaching. And learning in a computer lab-not what I most fancy-is difficult with so many what-I-can-do-with-the-computer distractions zipping past my neural networks every other zillimillisecond. In other bite-sized words: I am experiencing much resistive forces to coming back to school as a student.

That aside, Lesson One of QED527 module on Infocommunications and Technology (ICT) has been refreshing. The cool acronym 'mp3' refers to 'Master Plan 3'. Oh heavens-I thought. Just what is this master plan notion all about?

I listened on and found myself slumped in the midst of a big plan. I am sitting in the centre of a most exciting phase of time. A plan that has started churning its gears 12 years ago in 1997, is presently moving into greater dynamism. The Singapore Education ICT Masterplans were conjured to meet the needs of the KBE (knowledge-base-economy). Through three phases, the careful building up of infrastructures to working at cohesion amongst learners, educators and curriculum, and finally an inward to outward learning emphasis, where the motivation to learn would generate continual interest and meaningful use of ICT. It is like a "hardware to software" to-and-fro shift, where technology drives learning and learning motivates relevance in technological development.

This is an exciting phase where I will see for myself how the fruits of long-term planning are reaped, the forces built over a decade harnessed. And perhaps, ten years from now, a success story unfolds. For I do not see our current use of infocommunications and technology in schools as being sufficiently integrated to have become an essential built-in of education, but, it seems that, we are moving in that direction.

It's intriguing to realise how a series of ICT plans that kickstarted while I was still counting my coins for a bus fare of 35cents is still of working influence now as I count my luck for chancing a $1.60 chicken rice stall.

Lesson One was conducted on 5th August 2009, 0830-1030, NIE.