Key features of ICT

Below are some examples of how the nine key features of ICT can provide the opportunities for children to use and develop their learning skills.

• Speed – Children get a sense of immediacy and control, which is motivating. They can access information quickly from around the world using search engines. They can handle complex calculations and process information in moments. They are enabled to send messages almost as soon as they are written and communicate with people living anywhere in the world.

• Capacity – Children are enabled to store and retrieve large quantities of images, sounds and text.  They can download resources through the Internet, interrogate CD-ROMs and edit digital video, learning as they do to process large amounts of information and sequence information effectively and efficiently. They can use a wide range of stored information to build up an understanding of the world and develop empathy with people who live in circumstances different from their own.

• Automation – Children can use spreadsheets to record, sort and represent data to investigate possible solutions to problems. They can adapt and amend templates while the technology carries out the calculations, leaving the children to process the information and follow lines of enquiry. They can use ICT to stop and start video clips and animations, ‘cut and paste’, combine text and images, and correct spelling and grammar.

• Communicability – By constructing presentations children can communicate their points of view using different platforms or findings. They can work together to share ideas, and develop their social skills through debate with their partners. They can learn how to manage their feelings when they disagree about an issue or understand other people’s needs and emotions and enhance their own self-awareness.

• Replication – Children can go over a process as often as they wish to ensure they understand and do things in their own time.

• Provisionality – Children can use wordprocessing or related software to record their initial ideas and draft their thoughts before constructing a more formal response. They can review and refine their work, evaluating the effectiveness of their choices to ensure greater precision. They can take risks as the edit and undo tools enable them to make changes with no evidence of early drafts. They can create sounds and change the pitch, tempo or texture to meet their   requirements. They can import pictures that they adapt by changing colours, pattern, tone and shape to create their own images.

• Interactivity – Children can manipulate robotic toys or other objects or carry out simulations in which they are in control and are able to make changes. They receive feedback and see the consequences of their actions while in a safe environment. They can practise techniques and routines in response to randomly generated questions. They can solve problems, deciding on the best way to present their solutions and refine their approaches to achieve greater precision. They can create new problems of their own and test and confirm their hypotheses.

• Non-linearity – Children can gather information from a variety of ICT sources which they can navigate in many ways to find data relevant to their enquiry. They can move between different sections of text and realign their work. They can capture pictures and images and manipulate these to improve their presentations. They are able to make choices based on their reasoning about the different options available.

• Multi-modality – Children can build a website and incorporate diagrams, symbols, text, pictures and sound. They can watch a video clip, stopping the video at various places and annotating it. The children can create their own videos, using handheld video cameras to record and  performance. They can share these videos, evaluating their performance and discussing improvements that could be made.