ICT IN TEACHING AND LEARNING

ISSUES AND CHALLENGES IN INTEGRATING ICT IN TEACHING AND LEARNING IN OUR MALAYSIAN SCHOOL

Introduction

The rapid growth and improvement in Information Communication Technology (ICT) has lead to the diffusion of technology in education. It is believed that ICT would bring many advantages to the students  if it is use under the right circumstances. Due to its belief that ICT can make a changes in education and learning, the Ministry plans to integrate ICT into education on a fundamental level, incorporating systems to facilitate management, information gathering, access, and various forms of communication. However, there are some issues and challenges in integrating ICT in teaching and learning in our Malaysian Schools.

Teachers

People still perceive the lack of ICT-related knowledge of teachers as a major obstacle to the realization of their ICT-related goals. Some kind of skills that teachers may need when integrating ICT in new student-centered learning approaches. The skills of ICT competency included three approaches such as technological literacy, knowledge deepening and knowledge creation. One of the solutions for this issue is the Ministry of Education had sent the teachers to attend the course to enhance their skills that related with using the ICT in the class.  The successful of integrating of ICT into the classroom depends on the ability of teachers to structure their learning environment in non-traditional ways, merging technology with new pedagogies.  This requires a different set of classroom management skills to be developed, together with innovative ways of using ICT to enhance learning.

Management In School

In my opinion, the biggest challenger in integrating ICT in teaching and learning in our Malaysian schools is weak management of ICT. The ICT infrastructure such building, computer hardware and software is well managed. In rural area the infrastructure are not enough even though The Ministry of Education has invested a huge effort. As the consequent, the teacher cannot enable used the ICT in teaching and learning. Other than that, the not proactive maintenance the network infrastructure cause the problem happen when the teacher used ICT equipment. The management must make sure technician always follow the schedule for the maintenance if not, the broken equipment continuously increases from time to time. This problem comes due to lack of expert technician especially in remote area.

Students

Students attitude toward the use of ICT play an important role in integrating ICT in teaching and learning in our Malaysian Schools. Attitude could influence the person on the use of ICT. Nowadays, most the ICT application use the English language as the content. Some students might feel uncomfortable with the new technologies especially students in rural area because of their weak proficiency in that language. This situation might discouraged them to use ICT tools so they feel not motivated. Hence, actions need to be taken to help the students to overcome their problems. Before the ICT can be successfully integrated in students language learning, teacher must at first changed the students’ perception and their attitude towards ICT. Teachers could instil students’ confidence level on ICT through encouragement of using the ICT tools and guide the students step by step on the way to use ICT meaningfully. Parents also should provide all the facilities to their children to access the internet at home.

Conclusion

Implementing academic computing is a long and expensive process. It may take many year for Malaysian Schools to be successful. Although funding is an important factor, many other factors must be taken into account before and during the implementation of academic computing initiatives. Thus, government should take appropriate ways to ensure that the vision 2020 can be achieve.