Information & Communication Technology in Education

My school and myself have been working towards inquiry-based learning and self-directed learning. These teaching strategies encourage thinking that reaches beyond having students being passive recipients of knowledge and providing opportunities for students to become knowledge builders, capable of creative and innovative solutions to problems, which I believe is a necessary part of our student's education in the 21st century. My ultimate goal in in utilizing technology is to create a classroom that is conducive to this teaching style and allows instructional time to be used as efficiently as possible to support learning. Technology provides opportunities for inquiry learning that did not exist before. With the use of technology, it is important to teach digital citizenship and proper use of technology (especially web 2.0 tools). Additionally, the main set back to the use of technology in the classroom I have found is inequitable access. It seems that funding for technology between schools and boards is not equivalent. This has been a major factor at my school as we are slowly catching up to where other schools have been for years technology-wise.