Chapter 6

1. What do you consider to be a major factor in fostering curriculum innovation in schools?
A major factor in fostering curriculum innovation in schools is the role of school leaders in technological change. The leaders need to understand the IT infrastructure and curriculum goals of IT use that will affect the implementation of IT in the school curriculum. They are expected to shape the culture of an individual school by creating new visions that school members can believe in and act upon.


2. As teachers in this rapidly changing technological world, what support do you require to make the pedagogical shift towards integrating ICT across the curriculum in a student centred learning environment?

(i) Clear leadership and directions from the Government are important.
(ii) School leaders should establish visions and goals to lead change in integrating IT into school planning, curriculum, learning and teaching effectively.
(iii) Quality digital learning resources and real time technical support in schools can facilitate the use of ICT in learning and teaching.
(iv) Training courses about emerging technology should be provided to teachers from time to time.
(v) More online training courses should be developed to offer greater flexibility in training scheduling and cater for individual learning differences among teachers.
(vi) Sharing and collaboration among teachers on the use of ICT in teaching and learning should be encouraged.


3. Yuen concludes this chapter with this statement, “sustaining innovation in a learning organization is a challenge to many schools”. How do you think schools can meet this challenge?

School leaders should show their commitments and determination to sustain innovation. School leaders and the Government should set up some incentive systems to recognize and reward those teachers who have shares good practices in IT-enriched pedagogy and digital educational resources. Professional development should be provided to let teachers keep abreast of the technology and innovative practice. Different parties from tertiary institutions and private sectors (such as IT companies and publishers) should help to develop quality digital educational materials to promote learning at classroom and school level. Greater effort to communicate and clarify the innovation for parents should also be emphasized. If parent know more about how to use ICT to communicate and learn, they will have a more positive attitude towards using ICT in learning and teaching and so will their children.