LB#7: IT for Higher Thinking Skills and Creativity.

To define higher level thinking skills and creativity, we may adopt a framework that is a helpful synthesis of many models and definitions on the subject matter. The framework is not exhaustive but a helpful guide for the teacher's effort to understand the learner's higher learning process.

Complex                                                           

Thinking Skills                                                              Sub-Skills 
Focusing                                                             defining the problem, goal/objective-setting, brainstorming
Information                                                         selection, recording of data of information
Remembering                                                     associating, relating new data with old
Analyzing                                                            identifying idea constructs, patterns
Generating                                                          deducting, inducting, elaborating
Organizing                                                          classifying, relating
Imagining                                                            visualizing, predicting
Designing                                                            planning, formulating
Integration                                                          summarizing, abstracting
Evaluating                                                           setting criteria, testing idea, verifying outcomes, revising

Use your creative skills in designing a paradigm. Device a graph to illustrate the higher-level thinking skill.

LB#6: IT Enters a New Learning Environment.

Effective teachers best interact with students in innovative learning activities, while integrating technology to the teaching-learning process.

In Meaningful learning

• Students already have some knowledge that is relevant to new learning
• Students are willing to perform class work to find connections between what they already know and what they can learn.

In Discovery learning
     Ideas are presented directly to students in a well-organized way, such as through a detailed set of instructions to complete an experiment or task. In applying technology, the computer can preset a tutorial process by which the learner is presented key concepts and the rules of learning in a direct manner for receptive learning.

In Generative Learning
     Active learners who attend to learning events and generate meaning from this experience and draw inferences thereby creating a personal model or explanation to the new experience in the context of existing knowledge.Motivation and responsibility are seen to be crucial to this domain of learning.

In Constructivism
     The learner builders a personal understanding through appropriate learning activities and a good learning environment.
Learners: are active, purposeful learners. Set personal goals and strategies to achieve these goals. Make their learning experience meaningful and relevant to their lives. Seek to build an understanding of their personal worlds so they can work/live productively. Build on what they already know in order to interpret and respond to new experiences.

LB#5: State-of-the-Art ET Application Practices.

Owing to the development, teachers must therefore acquire or improve on their computer skills, as well as their "computers-in-the-classroom" skills. The following trends should also be recognized by educators:

• Through school or training center computer courses, present-day students have become computer literate. They send e-mail, prepare computer encoded class reports, even make power-point presentations sometimes to the surprise of their media tradition-bound teachers.
• Following the call for developing critical thinking among students, teachers have deemphasized rote learning and have spent more time in methods to allow students to comprehend/internalize lessons.
• Shifting focus from lower-level traditional learning outcomes, student assessment/examinations have included measurement of higher level learning outcomes such as creative and critical thinking skills.
• Recent teaching-learning models (such as constructivism and social constructivism) have paved the way for instructional approaches in which students rely less on teachers as information-givers, and instead more on their efforts to acquire information, build their own knowledge, and solve problems.

In sum, these trends and new levels of learning require the appropriate use of state-of-the art instruction with the use of IT, tapping the computer's information and communication tools ( such as, word processors, databases, spreadsheets, presentation software, e-mail, Internet conferencing, etc.)

LB#4: Basic Concepts on Integrating Technology in Instruction.

There is NO INTEGRATIVE PROCESS if for example the teacher makes the students play computer games to give them a rest period during classes. Neither is there integration, if the teacher merely teaches students computer skills.
External Manifestations of Technology Integration into Instruction are:

• There's a change in the way classes are traditionally conducted.
• The quality of instruction is improved to a higher level in such a way that could not have been achieved without educational technology.
• There is planning by the teacher on the process of determining how and when technology fits into the teaching-learning process.
• The teacher sets instructional strategies to address specific instructional issues/problems.
• The use of technology provides the opening of opportunities to respond to these instructional issues/problems.
• In sum, technology occupies a position (is a simple pr complex way) in the instructional process.

LB#3: Educational Technology in the Asia Pacific Region.

During the last few years, progressive countries in the Asia Pacific region have formulated state policies and strategies to infuse technology in schools. Government with the education and technology sectors, community groups, and industry envisions to support to the development of the capability of schools to use information and communication technologies in teaching-and-learning and in administration. The focus areas are infrastructure for increasing school's access to ICTs to enhance education and Professional development so that school managers and teachers can increase their capacity to use ICT.
The five progressive states/city, namely New Zealand, Australia, Malaysia, Singapore and Hong Kong.

LB#2: Educational Technology 2.

ET-2 is concernced with " Integrating Technology into Teaching and Learning". Specifically this is focused on introducing, reinforcing, supplementing and extending the knowledge and skills to learners so that they can become exemplary users of educational technology.
ET-2 will involve a deeper understanding of the computer as well as hands-on application of computer skills. The course is primarily directed at enhancing teaching-and-learning through technology integration.
The main point is, the course aims to infuse technology in the student-teachers training, helping them to adapt and meet rapid and continuing technological changes, particularly in the thriving global information and communication technology (ICT) environment.

LB#1: A Review of Educational Technology 1.

ET-1 showed the 4 phases of application of educational technology in teaching-and-learning, namely; a) setting of learning objectives, b) designing specific learning experiences, c) evaluating the effectiveness of the learning experiences vis-a-vis the learning objectives, and d) revision as needed of the whole teaching-learning process, or elements of it, for further improving future instructional activities.
The ET-1 course has truly paved the way for the learner to become aware, appreciative and equipped to use educational technology tools ranging from traditional to modern educational media.