Creating with ICTs

Creating refers to the process students undertake and the product they produce when they explore.

School students are often reflected as, "digital natives," due to this presumption it is believed that they have had extensive exposure to and interaction with ICTs in their home environment.

When students enter a school environment they bring a wide range of technological experiences. Some may have access to a computer and others may still only have access to a type writer. Regardless every student has a different experiences with technology.

As "digital natives" students experiences may vary from non-users, users to creators. Below is an example of a creator:

There is a boy who is 12 years of age that I've had association with. He is able to program a web page in notepad as well as program a complex lighting desk. When I was his age I was designing websites in MS Publisher and didn't learn to program a lighting desk until grade 15.

Most but not all of us have had exposure to a wide variety of content; Videos, CDs, DVDs, Mobile Phones, PDAs, Mp3s.

In the school environment it is necessary to give young students opportunities to engage with a range of ICTs that are compliant and supplement their pre-schooling experience.

Resources that are open ended and promote communication, interaction, discovery and problem solving.

A variety of electronic media is presented to them but there are 4 main types of resources:

1. Design and Make
2. Work and Play
3. Communicate and Share
4. Online Project

These will be looked at in a future blog post.