ICT supports knowledge-building among teams and enables team members to collaborate, inquire, interact and integrate prior knowledge with new understanding.

ICT supports knowledge-building among teams and enables team members to collaborate, inquire, interact and integrate prior knowledge with new understanding.

In the classroom there are many opportunities to integrate ICT in order to enrich students' learning experiences. When ICT is effectively integrated and incorporated within a lesson it supports knowledge-building among teams and enables team members to collaborate, inquire, interact and integrate prior knowledge with new understanding.

In the health classroom ICT can be particularly valuable as it supports learning in teams, a key skill that should be incorporated in every health class. With the use of ICT students' can be given the responsibility to perform guided research in teams. An effective means of executing an ICT based health lesson involves the use of 'expert groups'. Expert groups are formed when the teacher delegates a particular issue or topic to each group who will then report back to the class on their 'expert' area. Expert groups are popular amongst health educators as they encourage the students to collaborate, inquire, interact and integrate prior knowledge with new understanding.

The teacher will provide students with a base level of understanding for each topic and then guide students in their research. The execution of tasks can vary, one method is having students perform their research using a laptop. Students might be allocated a specific time to complete the research and then the task can progress to setting up a presentation that outlines the groups research/findings to present to the rest of the class. There are many different ways of presenting using ICT, for example; powerpoint, webpage, prezzi.
These sorts of task, and those with a similar structure, are a really effective way of engaging students in learning with ICT because they are given a level of independence and responsibility over their learning. Students are not always given this opportunity and will often rise to the challenge with surprising results! ICT promotes inquiry based learning and it is my belief that this form of learning will foster a greater interest and engagement with topics when compared to teacher directed learning.

It is easy for students’ to passively participate when group tasks are involved and it is important, as teachers, that we ensure that each student is engaged and benefiting from the lesson. This can be achieved by allocating tasks to group members – each student has a clear role within the group! This gives each student in the group a sense of responsibility and ownership over the task and really enforces the concept of working as a team.

I have discussed one method of intergrating ICT in the health classroom enrich students’ learning and to foster team work. There are many other ways of integrating ICT within the classroom and there is no doubt  that with careful consideration and planning it can be a powerful learning tool that should be understood and utilised by all teachers.