Facilitate student use of Information and Communication Tools (ICT)
Domain 5: Facilitate student use of Information and Communication Tools (ICT)
This domain focuses on what students do with technology, not what the teacher displays. Exam scenarios ask you to distinguish passive consumption from active construction and to choose tasks where ICT is essential to learning. The 21CLD ICT for Learning progression moves from no student ICT use, to consumption, to production, and toward students using ICT to design and create for authentic purposes.
Core rules
- Students should use ICT to access, analyze, create, collaborate, and communicate.
- Consumption, such as watching or clicking, is lower level than construction, such as building, modeling, or publishing.
- ICT should be essential: the task should be difficult or impossible without the tool.
- Tool choice follows the learning goal; avoid technology for novelty.
- Digital citizenship, safety, and accessibility are part of ICT use.
Worked example
Students watch a video about volcanic eruptions and answer comprehension questions. This uses ICT, but students are consumers; the technology could be replaced by a lecture. A stronger task asks students to use a data visualization tool to plot earthquake and volcano data, collaborate in a shared document to compare patterns, and publish an interactive guide for younger students. Reasoning: students construct and communicate knowledge, use ICT to analyze real data, and produce a resource for an audience. The tool is essential to the analysis and publication.
Traps
- Counting teacher PowerPoint as student ICT use.
- Substituting a digital worksheet for a paper one and claiming transformation.
- Choosing a tool before defining the learning goal.
- Ignoring accessibility features and digital citizenship.
- Assuming more tools mean deeper learning.