ICT for Learning
Vision
Future-ready and Responsible digital learners with skills to navigate, curate, collaborate in the digital world.
Mission
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To equip pupils with the required ICT skills as well as imbuing them with the necessary values towards responsible use of technology.
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To develop an ICT-enriched environment focusing on the following 5 key areas:
- Blended Learning and Leveraging ICT in Teaching & Learning
- Digital Literacies and Computational Thinking
- E-Pedagogy (Professional Development of Staff)
- Resource and Knowledge Management
- Infrastructure Management
Through the 3E (Expose, Enrich, Excel) approach, our school aims to equip students of the various digital skills, provide opportunities for learning with technology, as well as challenge the high ability learners with higher-order computational skills.
Key Programmes
BGPS ICT Curriculum
The BGPS ICT Curriculum aims to equip students with a set of ICT skill competencies. These are essential knowledge, skills and values which students would need in order to thrive in a technology-driven society.
The attainment of the ICT skills is spiral and structured into 2 progressive stages. The skills in the first Key Stage will be acquired from Primary 1 to 3 and the skills in the second Key Stage will be acquired from Primary 4 to 6. The school focuses on teaching thinking and process skills that are common and necessary across all core subjects, such as gathering and organising information. The ICT skills imparted range from basic operations (e.g. opening, saving and retrieving a file) to ICT process skills (e.g. using a spreadsheet to process data for analysis and search engines to retrieve current information).
ICT-enriched Learning Experiences
To enrich students’ learning experiences in the classrooms, the school adopts the active learning process (based on the SLS Pedagogical Scaffold 2.0) and infuses technology in teaching and learning across the curriculum. Through the active learning process, we aim to equip students with the skills and dispositions to be self-directed, collaborative, and future-ready digital learners.
As the school moves towards blended learning, we emphasise on both face-to-face interaction between peers and with the teacher, as well as adopting key applications of technology to promote engagement and efficacy in learning. Varied ICT-enriched learning experiences are planned and customised to better engage students, and also better monitor and assess their learning and close learning gaps.
ICT-enabled Home Based Learning (HBL)
In response to the COVID-19 situation, HBL has been implemented to reduce the risk of transmissions within the students and school. Through ICT-enabled Home Based Learning, the school uses information and communications technology to support, enhance and optimize the delivery of information. With the integration of technology in teaching and learning, students are actively engaged with learning objectives.
We also ensure continuity of learning by minimizing loss of curriculum time while keeping students meaningfully engaged and occupied at home. Through various ICT tools and platforms, teachers continue to engage students and access their learning. Teachers also review students’ learning progress and provide support to help them cope with their learning at home.
Students who require closer supervision or whose parents are frontline workers, can return to school on HBL days. These students will conduct their HBL according to the school’s planned schedule similar to those who are at home. Students can access the BGPS HBL Portal to view the schedule and work assigned to them for each subject for each day.
Tech tools to enhance Teaching & Learning
To enhance teaching and learning of students, the school adopts a balanced array of ICT related tools that aim to develop baseline ICT skills and enhance teacher-student, student-student and content-student interactions.
With the Student Learning Space (SLS), students can now learn better at their own pace. SLS is not only just a tech tool used by teachers in the school, it also empowers students to be engaged in self-directed and self-paced learning. Students can review their lessons at their own time, at the comfort of their home.
With the SLS as the baseline application, teachers in the school make use of other available ICT tech tools in the market to provide a more engaging learning experience to promote collaboration and discussions among students. Some of the tech tools used by teachers in the school are highlighted below:
Flipgrid is a video posting tool where students interact using video, without the pressure of a live classroom. Since students are given the space and time to respond when they’re ready, it makes engagement possible for even more anxious students who might feel left out in class. The ability to add rich media encourages students to be creative and more expressive. By adding emoji, text, and stickers, students can engage with class content as they might interact with friends using social media platforms. On a software level, Flipgrid is great for integration as it works with Google Classroom in which every student in the school has an account, allowing for enhanced collaboration between students in a virtual space that mimics that of the real classroom.
Nearpod is another web-based tech tool used by teachers to make lessons more interactive whether in the classroom or virtual. Quizzes, polls, videos, live self-assessment and Collaborate Boards are some features available for use by teachers. Students can access a teacher’s presentation through a code and the teacher then moves the class through the presentation and lets students interact with the media as they go. Teachers can also opt for Student-Paced mode, where the student controls the flow of the lesson, so students feel less apprehensive and more empowered to express themselves openly, engaging more deeply with the task.
ENRICH
Partnership with Apple SG for 1-to-1 iPad Learning
The 1-to-1 iPad learning experience aims to enhance e-pedagogy by enriching our students’ learning. It also serves to provide opportunities for teachers to design ICT-enriched lessons through active collaboration and consultation with Apple Singapore.
Through this active collaboration, we saw increased student engagement, a greater sense of responsibility in managing the devices and greater leeway given to our teachers to innovate and customise their lessons according to students learning needs. Given the success of the pilot in 2022, the school aims to continue with the implementation in the coming years.
BGPS Open Classroom
As part of the school’s efforts to nurture participatory, connected and reflective lessons with technology in every classroom, it has embarked on the The BGPS Open Classroom (OC) in 2021. It serves as a platform for teachers to collaborate in the design, enactment and review of lessons infused with technology. There are three stages in the open classroom cycle, as shown in the diagram below.
During the lesson, observers are strategically positioned to allow them to closely monitor the students’ learning. These observations are noted down and shared with the enacting teacher as part of the lesson review. Observers also monitor the levels of engagement among the students through key interactions. These include teacher to student, student to student and content to content interactions.
Through the BGPS OC experience, participants can deepen their knowledge of facilitating learning in a technology-enabled classroom and improve teaching practices by using evidence when reflecting on lessons.
Code For Fun (Primary 5)
BGPS recently embarked on an MOE initiated programme, Code for Fun. This programme includes learning of computational thinking concepts using visual-based programming language, combining it with robotic kits and/or microcontrollers, to create an engaging coding experience for the students.
At the start of Term 1, our P5 students were given the opportunity to work with Sphero Bolt. They were taught to use block-based programming to program the Sphero Bolt to complete the following tasks:
- Light up in different colours
- Move around and draw shapes
- Repeat instruction using loop
- React to events using sensors
At the end of this programme, we hope that the students are equipped with basic coding and computational thinking skills, and most importantly, they experience joy and interest in coding through this programme.
Swift Explorers Singapore (SES)
The Swift Explorers Singapore (SES) is an inaugural coding programme organised by Crescent Girls’ School, using resources from Apple and training supported by Tinkercademy, an Apple Professional Learning Provider.
The Swift Explorers Singapore (SES) is a series of free coding related activities that allow students from Primary Schools to Junior Colleges to learn App design and Swift coding on the iPad. This program aims to empower students with critical thinking and creative problem-solving skills through basic coding on the iPad. Students will have access to the same opportunities and resources as real-world developers which will help them identify, design, prototype and build apps.
Around 44 schools, including Bedok Green Primary School, have participated in SES 2022. We are proud to announce that our school’s App idea has made into the Top 20 App design ideas.