Use basic ICT tools to support teaching and learning

This topic focuses on developing awareness and understanding of how the Internet can enhance different learning activities. It suggests activities to support educators with their planning for teaching and preparation of resources, while emphasising the importance of evaluating materials and resources in order to assess their practicality.

This topic explains why educators should verify the credibility and accuracy of websites. It lists several criteria for evaluating usefulness and highlights the importance of evaluating websites against school policies to ensure that the content is appropriate for students.

This topic focuses on making educators aware of the risks and benefits of Internet use and how educators should make students aware of these. It emphasizes the fact that a school policy should cover Internet use and the importance of promoting good digital citizenship among students and the wider school community.

This topic focuses on practical actions to protect students from some of the threats posed by the Internet. It looks at making the Internet safer for students and maintaining technical safeguards in school as well as ensuring students understand how to make sure their passwords are safe and secure.

The focus in this topic is on identifying Internet risks and protecting students by providing them with the right information and guidance. It emphasizes that if a student is at risk, educators should encourage the student to talk about what has happened in detail and inform people who need to know, according to their school’s Acceptable Use Policy. It covers the importance of being aware of cyber bullying and taking preventive measures to address issues like these.

This topic looks at the potential dangers posed by the Internet from different perspectives, and supports educators in identifying what actions to take to address these dangers.

This topic is about using the Internet to search for materials efficiently. It reviews ways to search, track and save websites and materials without becoming overwhelmed by the quantity of information available. The importance of evaluating websites and judging the quality and usefulness of the results is emphasized.

This topic focuses on strategies to help educators refine their searches for Internet teaching and learning resources. It looks at ways to navigate between search results efficiently and to organize, store and retrieve them.

The focus of this topic is on helping educators to identify ways in which e-mail can support teaching and learning activities. It includes identifying 'good' passwords, reviewing other skills related to sending, receiving and replying to messages, sending and receiving attachments, and understanding common error messages when using e-mail.

The focus of this topic is on managing e-mail for wider professional tasks. Educators use e-mail to communicate with students after class, connecting with parents, exchanging notes and information with colleagues, as well as for professional development. It covers issues such as folders, using and managing contacts or address books and storage issues and limits.

This topic aims to help educators understand the range of available software to support students’ learning, and emphasizes the importance of matching software to the desired learning outcomes. This includes considering the student’s learning needs and evaluating the impact of technology on learning. Practical issues such as why it’s important to test software before using it with students are covered.

This topic aims to support educators in identifying the advanced features of software applications which they can use to create learning activities. The focus is on understanding how to use them effectively to support learning. It looks in particular at the use of keyboard shortcuts and templates to create activities with interactive features in a program such as Microsoft Word.

This topic focuses on systems for tracking and recording attendance data and other information about students in a class or across a school. It aims to help educators consider which data they could collect for a specific purpose and the best methods to gather, enter, and record it.

The next step is to consider how technology can be used to organize, analyse, and use data to arrive at decisions as a basis for action. It looks at classroom data about students and how this can be analysed and shared so that appropriate action can be taken.

A range of new and developing technology-based collaboration tools are available, and these tools provide opportunities to add value to students’ learning. This topic identifies two basic types of collaboration for learning and teaching: • When students communicate with people outside the classroom to gather information and increase their understanding • When students collaborate to produce a shared output such as a document, presentation, or website (either within their classroom or with other classes)

Learning is more effective when learners share ideas and approaches and build knowledge so that they can teach and learn from each other. Collaboration can provide opportunities to extend the classroom beyond its traditional walls, and add further value to the learning process. This topic is focused on the practical implications and challenges associated with collaborating with educators or classes in other locations or countries. It emphasizes the importance of detailed planning, thorough piloting, particularly with more advanced tools or complex collaborations, to ensure success in meeting teaching and learning objectives.