Lesson 8 HIGHER THINKING SKILLS THROUGH IT- BASED PROJECTS

              - The are four  types of  IT - based projects which can effectively be used in order to engage students n activities of a higher plane of thinking.

Key Elements

1. The teacher creating learning environment.
2. The teacher giving the students tool and facilities.
3. The teacher facilitating learning.

Four IT-Based Projects

I. The Resource- based project - the teacher steps out of the traditional role of being an content expert and information provider, and intend lets the student find their own facts and information.

The General Flows of events in Resource-Based Projects

1. The teacher determines the topic for the examination of the class.
2. The teacher presents the problem to the class.
3. The students find information on the problem/questions.
4. Student's organize their information in response to the problem/questions.

Traditional and Resource-Based Learning

Traditional Learning Model	Resource based learning projects
Teacher is expert and information provide	Teacher is a guide and facilitator
Textbook is key source of information	Sources are varied (print, video, Internet, etc.)
Focus on facts information is packaged in neat parcels	Focus on learning inquiry, quest, or discovery
The product is the be-all and end-all of learning	Emphasis on process
Assessment is quantitative	Assessment is quantitative and qualitative

II. Simple Creations- in developing software, creativity as an outcome should not be equated with ingenuity or high intelligence. Creating is more consonant with planning, making, assembling, designing or building.

Three kinds of Skills/Abilities:

1. Analyzing- distinguishing similarities and differences/ seeing the problem as a problem to be solved.
   
2. Synthesizing- making spontaneous connections among ideas, does generating interesting or new ideas.
   
3. Promoting- selling of a new ideas to allow the public to test the ideas themselves.
   

The Five key task to develop creativity:

1. Define the task- clarify the goal of the completed project to the student.
   
2. Brainstorm- the students themselves will be allowed to generate their own ideas on the project.
   
3. Judge the ideas- the students themselves make an appraisal for or against any idea.
   
4. Act- the students do their work with the teacher a facilitator.
   
5. Adopt Flexibility- the students should be allowed to shift gears and not follow an action path rigidly.

III. Guided Hypermedia Projects- the production of self-made multimedia projects can be approached into different ways:

1. Instructive tool - such as in the production by students of a power point presentation of selective topic.
   
2. Constructive tools - such as when students do a multi - media presentation ( with text, graphs, photos, audio, narration.
   

IV.Web - based projects

                Students can be made to create and post web pages on a given topic but creating new pages, even single page web pages, maybe tool sophisticated  and time consuming fort the average student.