Information Technology Education
Information Technology Education
1. Computers are an indispensable part of the modern era in that they significantly simplify tasks and boost efficiency. Enormous manpower is saved and real-time communication is rendered a reality.
2. Computer application courses are available in every school to cultivate students’ demand for new technology. Achieve wide application of computer technology by students to speed up the city’s progress of development in information technology.
3. Computer courses in the past required 2 students to share 1 computer. The student-computer ratio then for the municipal schools was 48:1. Upon allocating a generous budget to upgrade schools’ computer facilities, the ratio is now significantly improved to 6:1.
4. In the past few years, given the Department’s dedication and effort to promote information education, one can see marked improvement in students’ IT competency and increases in the number of Internet users. In addition, the Department has completed the construction of wireless network in various school campuses while increasing the bandwidth of external networks to 100M bps. Such convenient environment would effectively improve the results of teaching and learning for teachers and students.
●Important Measures
1. Create an outstanding IT education environment
(1) Upon the completion of “Taipei City IT Education White Paper”, the deployment of computer classrooms at schools of all levels have been completed. The requirement for the deployment of computer classroom is based on the following principles: one computer classroom for every 35 classes in elementary schools; 30 classes in junior high schools; 20 classes in senior high schools and 10 classes for vocational high schools. A total of 650 computer classrooms will be deployed.
(2) Apart from completing the construction of optical fiber backbone network (with a transfer speed of 1G bps) in various campuses, the Department will increase the bandwidth of external network to 100M bps for schools in order to provide better broadband network service and connection quality.
(3) In light of teachers’ extensive use of IT in their teaching, the Department has planned to achieve the goal of “One Single-Beam Projector Per Class” at every school by 2010.
2. Develop digital course material and software
(1) Organize multimedia lesson material selection for junior high schools and elementary schools; selected entries will be posted on the website for teachers to download. The contents will assist teachers in the process of designing diversified course materials and enrich the content of their lessons to inspire students’ interests in learning and achieve the goal of internet resource sharing. By the end of 2007, the multimedia teaching resource center has gathered 1,096 entries.
(2) Design digital astronomy teaching materials for schools; in addition to initiating the remote controlled digital observatory located at Nan-Hu Senior High School, the Department has also implemented “The 1st Senior High School/Vocational Student Astronomy Laboratory for Taipei City’s Digital Remote-Controlled Observatory” and completed 29 digital package courses for astronomy to be used for self-study and lecturing by students and teachers. This is followed by astronomy training courses for teachers, senior high school/vocational school student astronomy classes, parent-child outdoor star observation activities and relevant seminars on astronomy and the universe.
(3) Plan the “Three Year Plan of Online Learning Promotion by Department of Education” and construct “Taipei City Digital Learning Platform”; the platform officially went online and has so far collected over 800 entries by the end of 2007. It not only preserved teachers’ knowledge and teaching experience but also allowed students to acquire additional education resources.
3. Strengthen teachers’ ability to incorporate information technology in various aspects of their teaching
The Department has planned various introductory courses on how to incorporate information technology in teaching. This is along with intermediate courses on the incorporation of information technology in teaching at various schools with emphasis in IT education. The role of Taipei City Teacher Training Center is to instruct teachers on how to create simple multimedia teaching materials and how to incorporate such materials in their lessons. In addition, the Department has also organized various trainings such as the Campus Free Software Training, International Certification Training Courses, IntelR Teach Program: Teaching Thinking with Technology and IT Ethics.
4. Implement various experimental projects for IT promotion
The Department has collaborated with various colleges and universities to promote a number of experimental projects in an attempt to connect teaching to information technology through experimentations and researches. This is an attempt to enhance teaching quality and improve teaching environment to achieve the goals of IT education. Examples include: mobile learning board (i.e. E-school bag) experimental project, campus meteorological station discovery and learning experimentation & activities, E-SCHOOL education environment construction project, digital astronomy education resource construction & promotion in education, elementary school wireless network learning environment and learning history database construction, campus mobile learning gallery, In-depth Reading – Taking Roots project, digital film studio, Electronic Mobile Learning Construction across Campuses in the future, Taipei City Developmental Education Supplementary System and E-Prospects, interactive English learning platform construction and so forth.
5. Innovative IT education activities
(1) Construct the “Taipei City Education Portal Site", a compilation of various educational resources in Taipei City to offer a convenient search interface and rich education resources. Based on the website traffic statistical analysis performed by Alexa in 2007, the website’s traffic ranked 1259 around the world and it came in 51st in Taiwan’s top 100 popular websites. The portal site is also the most popular website amongst all existing government websites in Taiwan.
(2) In conjunction with the e-movement across campuses, Taipei City became the first city in Taiwan to launch the “Digital Student Pass”, which is the integration of the student pass with Easycard. The Department has completed the replacement of student passes at all municipal schools in 2007, and the newly issued student passes allow students to enjoy concession fare when taking buses and MRTs. In addition, the new student pass also allow students to quickly clear entrance controls at campuses while offering useful features such as student attendance management and SMS notification for parents to ensure student safety.
(3) In order to offer more opportunities for students to take part in online competitions and practices to expand their views while facilitating interschool interaction and promoting IT education, the Department has been actively encouraging teachers and students in all schools to take part in international IT competitions. Teams that represented Taipei City to participate in the “International School Cyberfair” and “International Elementary School Student Creative PC Writing Competition” have done well and received numerous awards.
(4) In order to determine the results of students’ learning and ensure that they are given sufficient opportunities to apply the knowledge they learn, the Department has been hosting several IT competitions on a yearly basis in hopes of improving students’ capabilities to apply their IT knowledge. These events include the Taiwan School Cyberfair themed webpage competition, International Elementary School Student Creative PC Writing Competition (for qualification in Taiwan and overseas schools), Taipei City/County Robot Olympiad Qualification, Class Website Construction Competition for Junior High School/Elementary Schools, Online Information Query Competition for Junior High Schools/Elementary Schools, Online Reading Competition for Junior High Schools/Elementary Schools, Taipei Cyberfair Competition, Taipei Kids Online English Contest and so forth.
(5) In order to stimulate student interest in robotic education, the Department has collaborated with Esun Robot Association and Taiwan National University to host the “2007 International Robot Olympiad”, which witnessed the participation of 170 teams from 18 countries. Participating schools from Taipei City fared relatively well in the event by winning 2 gold medals, 1 silver medal and 2 bronze medals.
●Future Prospects
1. Continue to promote information education to offer students and teachers a sound information education environment. Enhance teachers’ skills in integration information technology into daily teaching to equip students with contemporary IT competency.
2. Promote the application of Wireless LAN in information education to achieve borderless learning and applications.
3. Construct designated IT classrooms and flesh out the contents of libraries to turn them into education resource centers.
4. Further expand the services and resources of the Easy Teaching Network for the benefit of teachers.
5. Make relevant plans to equip all classrooms in every school with single-beam projectors in light of teachers’ extensive use of information technologies in their teaching.
6. Actively participate in international IT events and competitions.
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