ICT in Primary schools - How the schools are doing it?

From my observation at SR Katok, Brunei III and by asking my other friends from various schools, last week, I found out that the primary schools in Brunei are following the basic directives from the ICT Department of the Ministry of Education. ICT as a lesson is provided for 1 period (30 minutes) weekly for both lower and upper primary classes while selected subjects such as Mathematics, English, Science and Bahasa Melayu have 2 periods weekly of ICT across the curriculum spread over the schooling terms.

ICT as a subject is handled by the designated ICT teacher, while ICT across the curriculum is handled by the subject teacher with the help of the ICT teacher.

The ICT teachers' roles are to help the children with the basic ICT knowledge such as typing skills, using the internet to search for references and components knowledge as well as assisting other teachers in conducting their lessons using ICT. ICT teachers also conduct some ICT workshops for the teachers in the school during the staff development.

Primary schools are now equipped with fast internet connections and also interactive white-boards (IWB) as well as computer projectors for use in classes. Various softwares are also provided for the teachers to use in their lessons such as the HotPotatoes and other interactive activities software. Teachers are encouraged to use the facilities in their lessons.
Some teachers use IWB in their lessons in place of flashcards. The use of powerpoint also helped a lot, especially in saving time for the teachers in which they don't have to write on the whiteboards anymore.

Teachers use ICT to help the children to link from the concrete manipulative to virtual manipulative and help them to think abstractly. Such examples are like using the Youtube to show video presentations on natural phenomena like the water cycle, rain processes and how things work. Some teachers also use ICT to conduct math quizzes and also use various websites for the children to play math puzzles and activities.

Instead of handing the work in written-form, children can now type their work and some of the best work are displayed at a blog so that the children can access it and share it with the others.

More over, with the introduction of MobiTel project, children are now introduced to using MacBooks. The children are exposed to other sort of programs to aid their learning.

Overall, ICT does help the children's learning to an extent as it helps in attracting the children's attention towards the lessons while the use of concrete materials is still needed because some children are not yet developed to think abstractly. Some problems that usually arise in primary schools usually due to the school being short-staffed in the ICT department and also due to the time constraints in handling ICT across the curriculum lessons.