Table of Contents
Introduction
ICT deals with the use of electronic computers and computer software to convert, store protect, process transmit, and secularly retrieve information. Information and communication technology is sharing and interchanging information such as knowledge, mental skills, motor skills, and attitudes through the mass media and electronics.ICT is an acronym that stands for
- Information
- Communication
- Technology
Information
Information is the knowledge obtained by processing the data or the meaning derived from data. According to ICT act 2000, information includes data, text, images, sound, voice codes, computer programs, software, and database or micro or computer-generated microfiche.
Communication
Communication is a process of sharing experiences till it becomes a common possession. it modifies the disposition of both the parties who partake in it –John Dewy. through communication, people share knowledge, information and experience and thus understand, persuade , convert or control their fellows.
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Technology
The word ”technology” used to refer to a collection of techniques. Technology can be defined as the science or knowledge that leads to practical use to solve problems or invent useful tools.
ICT in education refers to the use of educational technology in the teaching and learning process.ICT is used as an enabler for teaching all subjects ranging from art to mathematics. There is evidence to show that learning is superior when computer-aided learning is used compared to the conventional method. the use of technology can facilitate a more from didactic classroom teaching to participating, decentralized and interactive group of learning. creative use of ICT can also make it possible unify knowledge rather than learning various subjects discretely.
It is argued that the effective use of ICT can help teachers to meet the changing requirements of education in a more efficient way.ICT provides the tools to explore and collect information with greater ease ,thus learning enough time to analyze and integrate information. it makes memorizing redundant by making information at the click of a button.ICT has the potential to promote increased community involvement and can be used to teach about the technology itself, helping people acquire the skills and competencies needed for the future life. technology presents both threats and opportunities for education. This paper explains the importance to develop higher mental abilities of students through proper technologies.
Higher–order thinking is the thinking that is taking place in the higher levels of the hierarchy of cognitive processing. Higher-order thinking by students involves the transformation of information and ideas .This transformation occurs when students combine facts and ideas and synthesis generalize explain, hypothesis, or arrive at some conclusions or interpretations.
Higher mental abilities or Higher order thinking skills
Higher-order thinking is the mental engagement with ideas, objects and situations in an analogical, elaborative, inductive, deductive; and otherwise transformational manner that is indicative of an orientation towards knowing as complex effortful, generative, evidence seeking and reflective enterprise. Creative thinking, Critical thinking, Decision making, Logical thinking, Metacognitivethinking, problem-solving, Reflectivethinking, Scientificexperimentation, Scientificinquiry(inquiring skills),System analysis, Visualization, Reasoning skills, Communicating skills, Conceptualizing skills are considered to be the major higher mental abilities of students.
All these higher mental abilities are very crucial for learners for their academic well-being. In close observation, it can be seen that skills such as reasoning, creative thinking, and problem-solving skills, are very essential for active learning. The higher mental abilities are mainly explained in terms of critical thinking, creative thinking, problem-solving etc. The purpose of this paper is to introduce innovative and trending technologies to develop higher mental abilities among students
Creative Thinking:
Creative thinking is the process which we use when we come with a new idea. It is the merging of ideas which have not been merged before. Brainstorming is one form of creative thinking: it works by merging someone else’s ideas with your own to create a new one. You are using the ideas of others as a stimulus for your own. This creative thinking process can be accidental or deliberate without using special techniques . creative thinking does still occur, but usually in the accidental way; like a chance happening making us think about something in a different way and then discovering a beneficial change. Other changes happen slowly through pure use of intelligence and logical progression. Using this accidental or logical progression process, it often takes a long time for products to develop and improve. In an accelerating and competitive world this is obviously disadvantageous. Using special techniques , deliberate creative thinking can be used to develop new ideas.
Problem Solving Ability
Life is full of problems and the successful man in life is he, who is fully equipped with adequate knowledge and reasoning power to tackle these problems successfully. There are problems and puzzling situations which are a normal feature of a child’s everyday life. These problems grow in complexity as he grows older and older. The solution of these problems grow in complexity as he grows older and older. The solution of these problems enables him to have a mastery of the environment. Therefore, if the function of education is to enable the child to prepare him for life. Children are curious by nature. They want to find out answers of many questions which some times are puzzling even to the adult, revert less they must be helped to satisfy their curiousity, whenever possible by solving various problems. We must teach the pupils, how to think so that they are able to transfer these techniques to a vast number of varied problems situations.
Reasoning:-
Reasoning is that form of thinking which occurs when the individual is comforted with a problem that demands a solution or requires some adjustment. Reasoning involves the kind of thinking one do in his daily lives: Planning, making commitments, evaluating arguments. In such reasoning, important information may be missing or left unstated; the problems involved often have several possible answer, which may vary in quality or effectiveness and the problems themselves are not self contained they relate to other issues and question of daily life. Reasoning plays a significant role in one’s adjustment to one’s environment. It controls not only one’s cognitive activities, but may also influence the total behavior and personality by the proper or improper development of one’s reasoning ability.
Computer simulation
Computer simulation is a powerful instructional technology which aim at providing students with realistic experiences from which to gain and manipulate knowledge in order to better understand the relationships between the concepts being investigated .Computer simulations are programs that allow the user to interact with a computer representation of either
- (a)a scientific model of the natural or physical world ; or
- (b)a theoretical system (weller 1996,p.467)
They provide learner centered environments (Redmond and brown 2004) that allow students to explore systems ,manipulate variables and test hypothesis (windschittle,1998). further, ”these programs can be used as demonstration by teachers ,or they can be used directly by the students to explore various phenomena that would not be readily available under normal situations. ”The learner will be engaged in active exploration and learning is the most important advantage of computer simulation. Learner should be actively involved in constructing and reconstructing their basic knowledge with the help of computer simulation.
E-learning
The use of information and communication technology(ICT),computers and similar devices ,software and the internet in learning atmosphere as a medium for students learning can be described as “e-learning” and is widely accepted and encouraged in all over our nation. There is a large body of evidence which shows that e-learning can have a positive effect on student achievement . e-learning enable a student to learn anywhere and usually at any time ,as long as one has a properly configured computer. e-learning encompass CD ROM based ,internet based, intranet based or network based etc…it may consist text videos ,audio, animation and virtual environments.
E-learning is an entire term generally indicated to refer to computer-enhanced learning, although it is mainly extended to include the use of mobile technologies such as PDAs and MP5 players. it may include the use of web based teaching materials and hypermedia in general, multimedia CD ROMs or websites, discussion boards, collaborative software, e-mail, blogs, wikis, tex that, computer-aided assessment, educational animation, simulations, games, learning management software, electronic voting systems and more with possibly a combination of different methods being used.
Web 2.0 technology
The speedy growth in information and communication technology (ICT) provides tools such as computers ,interactive multimedia,CD roms ,e-mail and internet.the use of such well developed technologies now enable the learner of flexible learning to stimulate a virtual learning and take the learners to virtual campus where in teacher learner interaction becomes possible in the cyber space.the world wide web technology acts as a vehicle for disseminating course materials and for creating active learning experiences to the students.web based learning environments may be arranged for distance as well as face to face learners.in addition to the above described glogster,kidblog,li ,skype,storybird,voicethread,wordle etc are the important web 2.0 tools in the present scenario.infact web2.0 is used to explain the second generation of the world wide web ,where it moved static HTML pages to a more interactive and dynamic web experience.web2.0 is focused on the ability for people to collaborate and share information online via social media,blogging and web based communities.(http://www.technopedia.com)
Computer simulation leads to strengthen higher mental abilities of students in a classroom
Educational literature points at number of instructional strategies inevitable to fostering learning with ICT such as contextual learning ,active learning,social learning and reflective learning.nowadays several ICT applications are available,aiming to virtualizing students lively engagement and offering the opportunity to work under certain conditions which are extremely difficult,costly or time consuming to be created in the classroom.among the various ICT applications,computer simulations are special importance developing the higher mental levels of students in a classroom.simulations provide new educational environments ,which targets to strengthen teachers instructional potentialities and to ease students active engagement.
Mind tools are very important computer applications which is used to “engaging and enhancing multiple forms of thinking among students”.these mind tools require the students to think greatly about the concept they are learning and so are “critical thinking devices”.as a critical thinking device,they are included to engage and facilitate cognitive processing and in the process develop critical thinking skills.in the intellectual association happened in these simulations ,the student has to realize the content ,while the computer execute calculations,stores and retrieves the information.
E-learning strengthens the higher-order thinking skills of learners
E-learning accelerates the higher-order thinking skills of when the technological applications directly support the curriculum. Students those are being assessed and the learning objectives those are presented in an explicit manner for learners’ benefit. E-learning doesnot stand alone as media, rather it is observed34directly support the curriculum. students are being assessed and the learning objectives are presented in an explicit manner for learners’ benefit. E-learning doesnot stand alone as media, rather it is observed as integrated phenomena. students can contact their teachers both in synchronous and asynchronous modes if they have any query;and collect feedback within stipulated intervals. they can even accept their evaluation reports of assignments –responses in the comment form for their future use.with the use of technology in learning aactivities; students benefitted with bless by higher-order thinking and problem-solving skills.these mental abilities encompass the following activities though these are not limited to these skills
- Browse and gather pertinent study resources
- Identify the admissible materials for their use
- Self-evaluation of assignments –responses in reference to questions
- Examine new ideas and thoughts
- Elucidate a fact or phenomenon in different perspectives.
- Reconstruct thoughts as situation requests.
- Evaluate the performances.
The e- learning not only inspires learners to engage in their learning activities but also supports them to achieve the study content areas enable to think rationally and develop problem solving approaches.
Web 2.0 tools and technologies foster the higher level thinking capacity of the learners
The purpose of this paper is to explain the way in which effective use of learning learning technologies can support the development of higher order thinking skills in students.teachers were responsible for the proper utilization of the technology-designing teaching material that infuse the technologies into their lessons.the focus on web2.0 was not on the technology but rather how the technology could be used to promote higher order thinking by using it on tasks that required for example problem solving,reasoning etc…..higher order thinking skills such as creating ,evaluating and analyzing that promotes these skills are varied but include challenging the learner;promoting active engagement, argumentation, problem-solving, conducting investigations, and tuckling subject matter that is complex. (Tytler 2004)
Web2.0 technologies utilize the internet to allow greater collaboration and sharing of resources among a community of students. The technologies include wikis, blogs, RSS feeds, social bookmarking and social networking sites. The question-answering opportunities in blogs lead to develop the analytical and creative skills of students .blog writing provides extreme benefit to foster the creative and reasoning skills of learners in the school environment. wikis are very much helpful to strengthen the higher mental abilities of students. this is mainly due to creating interactive learning environments around the learner, which leads to open dialogue sessions and encourages community building.
Suggestions and conclusions
Higher mental abilities such as reasoning power, creative thinking, and problem-solving skills are essential skills for the cognitive development of a person. In the field of education these skills are very helpful to students in making learning becomes fruitful .there are wide range of technologies are available for teaching and learning. In considering them we get a specific and clear-cut idea that most of them are very help ful to enhance the cognitive structure of learners. But some of them are plays a vital role in promoting higher mental abilities inside the classroom. computer simulation, web 2.0 technologies, e-learning are creates the skills such as critical thinking, problem-solving and reasoning, etc among the students. this is mainly due to the “intellectual participation or active engagement of the learners by the multi-sensory advantages of those technologies. each programme changes the learning environment from teacher centric to student centric .thus indepth studies are very needful in the field of education and technologies and its relation with higher mental abilities of students.
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