Higher thinking Skills Through IT- Based Projects

1. Resource-based Projects
       In these projects, the teacher is said to be steps out of the traditional role of being an expert and information provider to the students.
          The teacher step in and supply data or information only when necessary for active learning process and instead the students are the one who find their own facts and information. The students are the one who work for their learning and the major role of the teacher is to facilitates and  guide only the students.

         
The general flow of events in resource-based projects are:


 1. The teacher determines the topic for the examination of the class.
 2. The teacher presents the problem to the class.
 3. The students find information on the problem/questions.
 4. Students organize their information in response to the problem/questions.

          The sources is varied because the central principles is to make the students go beyond the textbook and curriculum materials. Unlike to the traditional learning, the textbook is the key source of information.Students are also encourage to go to the library, particularly to the modern library, the internet.
         Resource-base projects focus in learning inquiry and discovery approach. The students themselves are the one who discovers knowledge and personally engaged in learning process.They relate their gathered information to the real world context.
         The product is not the focus in learning but rather to the process.

2. Simple Creations
         Students can also be assigned to create their software materials to supplement the need for relevant and effective materials. In developing software, creativity as an outcome should not be equated with ingenuity or high intelligence. Creating is more consonant than planning. making, assembling, designing, or building.
        Because of simple creation, the students will become more creative with their learning.

Creativity combine three kind of skills/abilities:


 1. Analyzing- distinguishing similarities and differences seeing the project as a problem to be solved.
 2. Synthesizing- making spontaneous connections among ideas, thus generating interesting or new ideas.
 3. Promoting- selling of new ideas to allow the public to test the ideas themselves.

To develop creativity, the following five key tasks may be developed:


 1. Define the task- clarify the goal of the completed project to the students.
 2. Brainstorm- the students generate their own ideas on the project, there is an idea exchange among the                                 students and teacher.
 3. Judge the ideas- the students themselves make an appraisal for or against any idea.Only when students   are completely off track should the teacher intervene.
 4.Act- the students do their work with a teacher only a facilitator.
 5. Adopt flexibility- The students should be allowed to shift gears and not follow an action path rigidly.

3. Guided Hypermedia Projects


         The production of self-made multimedia projects can be approached in two different ways:

 1. As an instructive tool, such as in the production by students of a power-point presentation of a selected topic.
 2. As a communication tool, such as when students do a multimedia presentation ( with text, graphs, photos, audio narration, interviews, video clips, etc. to simulate a television news show.)

4. Web-based projects
        Students can also create and post webpages on a given topic. Posting of webpages in the in the internet is very helpful in the learning of students for it allows the students to have a wider audience. They can also connect with other related sites in the internet.
        But creating this may be sophisticated and time consuming on the part of the learners. Time consuming but has a more learning outcomes.