Gifted and talented children and ICT

Опубликовано автором

Koptleuova K.

School-gymnasium № 17

Aktobe, Republic of Kazakhstan

Аңдатпа

Жай кластағы дарынды бала жалғыз болуы мүмкін; сондықтан, оның сондай қабілеті бар басқалармен оқуға мүмкіндігі болмайды. АКТ оқушыларға неғұрлым жоғары деңгейлі ойлау дағдыларын дамыту мен қолдану мүмкіндігін ұсына алады. АКТ дарынды оқушыларға барлық әлем бойынша басқа да дарындылармен араласуға жағдай жасайды.

АКТ тек компьютер емес екенін білген маңызды – олар мектептерде қолданылатын оқыту технологияларының кең ауқымын қамтиды. Айналмалы технологиялар арқылы ақпаратты эеклртонлық, сандық түрде сақтауға, шығаруға, қолдануға, беруге немесе алуға болады.

Аннотация

Одаренный ребенок в обычном классе может быть единственным ребенком; следовательно, у него или у нее не будет возможности учиться с другими такими же способностями. ИКТ могут предоставить учащимся возможность развивать и практиковать навыки мышления более высокого уровня. ИКТ позволяют одаренным учащимся общаться с другими одаренными по всему миру.

Важно помнить, что ИКТ означает не только компьютеры – они охватывают широкий спектр технологий обучения, используемых в школах. Кольцевые технологии позволяют хранить, извлекать, манипулировать, передавать или получать информацию в электронном виде в цифровой форме.

Abstract

A gifted child in the regular classroom may be the only child; hence, he or she will not have the opportunity to learn with others of like ability. ICT can provide opportunities for students to develop and practice higher level thinking skills. ICT makes it possible that gifted students communicate with other gifted students all around the world.

It is important to remember that ICT does not just mean computers – it covers broad range of learning technologies found in schools. Ring technology allows you to store, retrieve, manipulate, transmit or receive information electronically in digital form.

Кілттік сөздер: дарынды бала, айналмалы технологиялар

Ключевые слова: одаренный ребенок, кольцевые технологии

Key words: gifted child, ring technology

Gifted and talented children are those who are identified by professionally qualified persons who by virtue of outstanding abilities are capable of high performance. These are children who require differentiated educational programs and services beyond those that are normally provided by the regular school program in order to realize their contribution to self and society. A gifted child in the regular classroom may be the only child in the room; hence, he or she will not have the opportunity to learn with others of like ability. ICT can provide opportunities for students to develop and practice higher level thinking skills. The gifted students are spread around the world and ICT makes it possible that gifted students communicate with other gifted students all around the world. ICT can be used to acquire that type of knowledge which can satisfy the needs of the gifted children. So, the purpose of this paper is to determine the use of technology in education for the learning of gifted and talented students.

In order to make teacher’s observation more systematic teacher should know about characteristics of gifted students. An important characteristic of gifted students is:

  • They have a wide range of interests.
  • Secure emotionally.
  • Good guesser.
  • Achieves good grades in most of the subjects.
  • Learns rapidly, easily and efficiently.
  • Has a long attention span in areas of interest.
  • Likes or loves one or a few areas of knowledge.
  • Likes to study some subjects more than others.
  • Readily guesses and makes hypotheses. • Juggles or redefines elements of a problem or task.
  • Can show intense concentration on a task.
  • Retains own ideas in a discussion or collaboration.
  • Provides multiple solutions or responses to problems. • Intellectually playful. • Always trying to adapt or improve things.
  • Has a keen sense of humour.
  • Humour in situations others don’t.
  • Specific academic aptitude.
  • Creative thinking and production.
  • Leadership. • Psychomotor ability.
  • Visual and performing arts.

It is important to remember that ICT does not just mean computers – it covers broad range of learning technologies found in schools. These ring technologies will store, retrieve, manipulate, transmit or receive information electronically in a digital form. For example, personal computers, digital television, email, robots etc. ICT (Information and Communications Technology) includes computers of all the kinds currently used in schools, the information available via the Internet; all related software, e.g. programs, CD-ROMs; all available and/or related ICT hardware, e.g. headphones, tape recorders, TV, radio, video recorders; and all potentially useful communications technology, e.g. the communications possible via the Internet, video and computer conferencing, intercom systems, etc. Gifted students require a mode of education similar to the approach used by classical humanists. Instead of superficially investigating a topic, students were encouraged to explore information thoroughly. Through exploration, they would become highly engaged and pursue a deeper understanding. So, ICT is very useful for this purpose. Freedman in the article ‘Working with the more able in ICT’ describes that we could simply take the children who are really good at English and Mathematics and ignore the rest, and you’d probably end up with a relatively small group of pupils designated as ‘Gifted and Talented’. But this is likely to be wrong approach – in the sense that we would not necessarily end up with the most gifted and talented youngsters in the group.

Gifted underachiever who hardly ever communicates might be absolutely brilliant in a particular area of ICT. So, the gifted children in ICT are those:

  1. Who has a special aptitude in their use of one or more kinds of ICT and can use their abilities in other areas and subjects could benefit from a use of ICT.
  2. Can learn and apply the new ICT techniques and can use the shortcut keys for routine tasks effectively and quickly e.g. they quickly apply techniques for integrating applications such as mail merge and databases. As the intellectual ability of gifted children is high so they always try to take the benefit of positive transfer of learning. So, they can apply the ICT skills and techniques confidently in new contexts.
  3. Initiate ideas and solve problems, use ICT effectively and creatively, develop systems that meet personal needs and interests. For example, they create an interactive fan club website that sends out a monthly newsletter to electronic subscribers (either working on their own, or collaboratively with peers.

ICT AND GIFTED CHILDRENS How can ICT benefit students with exceptional abilities?

  • ICT can provide opportunities for gifted students to progress at a rate that is appropriate to their individual abilities.
  • ICT can accommodate students’ individual learning styles.
  • ICT can provide opportunities for students to develop and practice higher level thinking skills.
  • ICT can enable students to communicate with other gifted and talented students around the world.
  • ICT can be used as a powerful and up to date information resource when researching any given topic.
  • ICT can provide structured opportunities for individual and small group investigations of real problems.
  • ICT can provide opportunities to participate in collaborative learning experiences.
  • ICT can enable students to engage in distance learning programmes for the exceptionally able. It should be the challenged for the аble pupils to decide for themselves when and whether to use ICT, how, why, and for what purposes; i.e. they should be encouraged to use it selectively and thoughtfully.

Access to experts: ICT can help to speed up the pace of highly able pupils’ learning. ICT can offer access to experts (e.g. via the Internet or conferencing, for example the video conferencing possible with the Motivate Project founded by NESTA, which offers mathematics challenges set by ex-Cambridge professors); it can provide expertise and information at a much higher level than what may be available amongst able pupils’peers or in their classrooms.

Local and networked communication (e.g. databases, e-mail, the World Wide Web) provide valuable opportunities for collaborative learning for all pupils, including the most able. There are several examples of the positive effects that networked communication can have on pupils’ learning.

Provide challenges to use ICT: To maximize the gifted learner’s potential, diverse visual, spatial, verbal, and sensory areas of the brain must be coordinated. By using cognitive strategies, students are able to sort, analyze, and apply information. Challenging, high interest material provides the impetus for students to enjoy learning simply based on the process and stimulation. Studies show that gifted students, who are not exposed to a challenging educational experience, often regress in their ability to think critically and analytically. The results of a study by Nikolova and Taylor confirm that when gifted students are challenged, they exhibit gains in their academic performance. When given opportunities to problemsolve and think critically, their educational experiences are enriched. Gifted students who are permitted latitude in topic selection and in their learning, environment showed academic improvement. Dixon, Cassidy, Cross and Williams found that gifted students produced a greater amount of text and higher critical thinking scores on computer-generated versus hand-written writing samples.

Easy access at home: For children with specific talents, an ICT learning environment can be created at home, making it easier for them to develop their abilities whilst also maintaining their general education. Children in the primary age group particularly benefit from this, as they may not be able to attend a specialist school. Resources such as CD-ROMs, on-line information and the Internet offer a wealth of material in readily accessible form which can be matched to Guidance pupils’ individual needs and enable them to develop a higher level of skill in thinking and handling information. So, Information and communications technology (ICT) will be playing a large part for gifted as it can be used to assist the gifted children both in and out of school which facilitate or take their energy to the positive side.

ICT helps to improve their social communication: It helps to improve social communication and assist their relationships with other children, teachers and parents because it can enable a child to remain in their ownage group and help to relieve peer pressure. Regional or national ICT networks can give the gifted children the broader base of communication for the different cultural background which may reduce the problem of isolation as there are often only a small number of such pupils in a class or even in a school. E-mail or conferencing systems can be used to link these children, so that they can exchange ideas and feel less isolated.

ICT is helpful for teachers of gifted children: The National Association for Able Children in Education (NACE), the Support Society for Children of Higher Intelligence (CHI), and the National Association for Gifted Children (NAGC) are some high ability forums which help the teachers of gifted children for provide the networking of teacher links with projects and the Web sites of organizations dedicated to Gifted children.

Use of Smart Board: It is also a part of the technology which is helpful for the academic growth of gifted students. Touch-sensitive screens are mounted on the wall of the classroom and a projector shows information that can be manipulated and displayed with unlimited capabilities. The advantage of Smart board technology is its design for use in a spacious work area with group interaction where the gifted children can interact with other gifted children. Participants become both visually and physically engaged as they connect with electric content and multimedia in a collaborative learning environment (Smart Technologies, 2004). Using special pens, students and/or teachers write directly on the screens. They can manipulate text and images, view websites, cut and paste research information, view video clips, formulate graphs and charts, and design vivid and creative presentations. Students combine their cognitive and physical abilities tointeract with Smart Board technology.

Arouse the curiosity: gifted children have a burning desire to explore and to know. Any phenomenon they come across in their environment may arouse their curiosity. They touch it and feel it. Their conversation is filled with questions such as ‘why’ and ‘how’, etc. Gifted children’s questions show their superior capacity for observing and thinking. ICT is very helpful for this purpose. Pupils will engage in online discussion to take part in discussion on topics of interest among the classmates.

Support for Gifted and Talented children with a learning difficulty or disability: ICT can help Gifted and Talented children realize their potential where they have a specific learning difficulty or disability. Pupils with dyslexia, for example, can overcome barriers by using a voice dictation system or talking word processor and a spell checker. Assessment software can be a valuable aid in early identification of difficulties.

Reduce the peer pressure: As children develop into adolescents, the amount of time they spend with their peers increases relative to that spend with their parents and other adults. Peer pressure is defined as when people of your own age encourage or urge you to do something or to keep from doing something else, no matter if you personally want to do it or not. Adolescents tend to spend more time with their peers and have less adult supervision. But, using the ICT the child may work under the supervision of his teachers and parents which results in the reduction of peer pressure. CONCLUSION To utilize the brain more effectively, gifted and talented students should be given the opportunity to process information. Schools need to ensure that these intellectually gifted pupils can develop their abilities in a range of areas in order to develop the skills; and also to be able to apply these skills in other aspects of learning. For the proper use of ICT in schools, the schools need to maintain regular communication with parents to ensure that any programmes designed to support gifted and talented children acknowledge the social and emotional maturity of the child. Children may also have abilities, such as advanced social skills and leadership qualities, learning to support wholeschool improvement; teachers and staff should support the gifted children for the use of ICT for other class students so that their qualities and abilities can be utilized. Part of the role of schools is to prepare young people for the world of tomorrow. Co-operative encouragement can now be given to this aspect of children’s education through the use of ICT, which should result in the discovery and encouragement of these abilities in more gifted children.

ICT can play a vital role in meeting the individual needs of gifted and talented students across phases of development in and out of the classroom. It can provide enrichment opportunities for students to engage in and is one strategy for providing differentiated curriculum opportunities. It is important that the use of ICT is educationally led rather than technology driven and it should only be used where it provides the best possible solution to meet individual student needs.

References

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