Factors that Influence How Literacy with ICT Can Support and Extend Student Learning
School leaders are knowledgeable about learning, teaching and assessing in the context of developing students' literacy with ICT. They understand the instructional factors that influence students' literacy with ICT, including school factors, teacher factors and student factors.
School Factors
Resources and timely access to ICT: School leaders provide opportunities for all students to use ICT to support and extend their learning. While the continuum identifies the cognitive and affective behaviours demonstrated by all students, school leaders also indicate their expectation that all teachers and students will use ICT to learn, teach and assess. For example, school leaders arrange for teachers to have common preparation time, peer coaching and access to ICT and the Internet in classrooms for student use, as well as other resources and supports.
Collegiality and professionalism: School leaders model leadership and collaboration by involving teachers in the development of the school plan and the establishment of procedures for implementing Literacy with ICT, as well as by providing professional learning opportunities for teachers to explore strategies to enhance student literacy with ICT.
Ethics, responsibility and safety: School leaders ensure that their divisional ICT acceptable-use policy is understood and adhered to by staff, students and parents.
Reporting to parents: School leaders share with parents and their parent council the provincial expectations for student literacy with ICT. They provide opportunities for parents to view evidence of their child’s developing literacy with ICT. This could be accomplished in the form of student-led conferences to display work samples in electronic portfolios.
Teacher Factors
Effective use of ICT: School leaders ensure that teachers use ICT effectively to support and extend student learning so that
- ICT is used to add value to teaching and learning and to move students upward, following Bloom's Taxonomy, to higher levels of critical and creative thinking
- ICT is used to provide learning experiences otherwise unavailable to students in order to increase their understanding and their engagement as self-directed learners
Instructional strategies: School leaders ensure that teachers have access to professional learning opportunities to explore how Literacy with ICT can support
- searching, summarizing and note-taking from electronic sources
- higher-level thinking such as comparing, classifying, analyzing, inquiring, problem solving, justifying and evaluating sources
- collaborative learning
- gradually releasing to students, responsibility for their own learning
- differentiating instruction
- providing ongoing feedback and assessment FOR learning
Classroom management: School leaders ensure that teachers establish rules and procedures related to
- general expectations for behaviour and respect for other users of ICT
- using classroom hardware, software and networks safely and responsibly
- creating learning centres using ICT
- plagiarism and copyright with respect to intellectual property
- choosing the most appropriate educational uses of ICT
Professional use of ICT: School leaders provide teachers with timely access to ICT for
- preparation of learning experiences
- development of learning resources
- sharing with colleagues
- collaborative planning
- teaching and assessment FOR/AS learning
Student Factors
Home environment: School leaders provide parents with information about the effects on student learning and safety of time spent watching television, instant messaging and surfing the Internet.
Exposure and prior knowledge: School leaders and teachers are aware that students with home access to ICT may have exposure to and prior knowledge of ICT procedures and that these strengths may be shared and developed at school. At the same time, they are also aware that these same learners may not necessarily understand how to effectively locate and critically evaluate information and information sources.