"Students should....
be able to review, describe and analyse their needs in English from long-term study and vocational perspectives"
SO, what are your thoughts on this, in connection with your ICT-skills? By ICT-skills I mean both your ability to search for info, critically examine the information available & react to it, the opportunities to make your voice heard, AND making use of the computer as a writing/presentation tool. How much has the school helped preparing you for this?
 |
| Spyken preparing you for the future? |
 |
| Is it Learning? ;) |
I believe all of the students in my year are good at searching for information on the web. When we first got our computers, we were so excited that we often used them for other things than the school work. But since we have gotten accustomed to our computers and we have a bigger workload, we use them more efficiently. We know which information to trust and which to screen. I believe it is because we have grown up with computers and in some aspect you can say that they have become our friends. Since they are our friends we know how to analyze them and make the most of them. However I don’t think we have learned this skill in school, but I think teachers have in some way helped us to with the critical thinking. The students in Sweden are raised to ask questions like; “Why?”, “How come?” and that is why we can search the web and find reliable information we need for different projects.
SvaraRadera/Annie
Independent of school subject, I think it’s necessary to be able to evaluate one’s strengths and weaknesses in order to improve. Most probably this will apply to life after school, as well. So in order to make it through tougher courses, like English C, you must know how to identify and analyse the areas where you need to improve. However, I guess it must be difficult to know precisely already now which areas I need to focus on in the future; depending on what I will study after school, different aspects will have to be improved. After all, the vocabulary differs between, for example, geology and botany and the level of expertise needed must be higher if I choose to study English literature compared to if I settle for veterinarian.
SvaraRaderaWhen it comes to my ICT-skills, I have at several courses been taught how to search for reliable sources and how to check their truthfulness; this is a recurrent theme at the “samhäll/samhäll” program. We have also had several opportunities to learn how to use the computer efficiently, as a tool for writing and for presentations. However, school has provided me with few, or no, ways to “make my voice heard” on the Internet. For that, I have to rely on my own experience.
I think that the way we work at Spyken, using our computers in so many different ways is very good. Spyken is preparing us for the future! Because as the years pass tecnology keeps developing and todays students need to be able to work with computers and use them to the fullest. By using them in so many subjects for so many different task I believe that we have a good chance to keep up with the tecnological progress.
SvaraRaderaThis task we had this time was very good, because by writing or doing something with a different aim is very similar to a vocational perspective. Because you never know where you will work and what task you get and to who you´re supposed to reach out. It could be varying all the time. Then we are also taught to be critical to what we read and always ask questions and ofcourse this is something we can use later on in our work to never get or give the wrong information. By being critical and examine the sources carefully we can use the right information and not be fooled by missleading or partial writing. I also believe that this is something that employers require and if we are not able to do it we are not right for the job. And I also know that when we read English on a higher level they will not even ask us to reflect over the sources or tell us to be observant with what we read, it is required and they will not be pleased if we fail to do it.
When we read English on a higher level or when we are working we will have less time given on every task, therefor it will be essential that we can find information quick and use that information in a usefull manner. By working with computers we get faster on getting info and by doing it a lot of times we simply get better in using the information.
In one way by learning to be critical to all we read we also get critical to what we are taught in school or what we read in our own educational materials. We also get critical against what the teacher says and that is good, because we will not simply believe in anything we hear without any source. In a working enviroment this could be very necessary and appreciated by bosses as we will not accept anything said or proposed by other personal or companys who are trying to sell products to us.
The school is doing everything in its power to teach us to always rethink what we hear or read or see before nodding and accepting it.