ICT an opportunity to redefine process in Small Economies

There is a lot to gain from the ICT in Education. For small economies we can identify the top gains as being:
1. Marketing of our destinations using the new media
2. increase productivity through mobile workforce participation
3. Preservation of information/knowledge using affordable media
4. increase sharing of best practices in education
5. increase the Monitoring and Evaluation efforts for project and programme in education.

There are many other benefits to be realized from ICT use in Education.  However, the discussion of  student engagement and involvement in learning using technology  is  on the rise.
Blending learning is a situation where students uses both a mix of the new and traditional methods to learn.
Given that OECS states have set their objectives in the provision of students with a computing devices through various 1 device per child projects, a lot more is desired to realize blended learning environments.
In Grenada, there is not yet a 1 device per child programme implemented in schools. However, there are computers labs both at the primary and secondary level. Thus the present lack of 1 device per child hinders the progress of full blended learning with in the "normal" classroom setting.
In other countries such as Trinidad, St. Vincent, St. Kitts and not Antigua the existence of 1 device per child has been ongoing over the past year.
The use of blended learning may have been quite possible in these Caribbean countries. However the lack of resource on the Internet and few report coming from these countries on their progress  of their  1 device per child projects  leaves  much questions unanswered.
Grenada is seeking to prepare the teaching cohort with the skills necessary for blending classrooms.
A blended classroom is quite an organised random occurrence of students learning at their own pack!
While some may think that it is pretty simple and straight forward, allowing  students to sit behind a laptop, and view learning videos  from the Khan academy website, then one will have to rethink this blending concept again. For blended learning is much more resources intensive that watching a video for entertainment.

The human mind is quite powerful, yet  easily distracted! 

During an entertainment session the focus of the mind is largely on the outcomes, played off as emotional outburst, laughter, pain, cries, etc. However, learning is quite the opposite. Association of emotions may allow memory recall, but learning is quite an active process where the brain seek to push the members to perform an activity.
If one will look at the carpenter building his chair, you will realize that the brain transfers thought into active motions.
Blended learning seeks to do the same to student. A student look at a concepts, and tried to understand it, then begins to scribble notes, drawing and other objects to test the concept design.  Technology best serves to this type of learning style, as Audio, Rich media, Playback, images, text are all used to present the concept to the child. More importantly the child  use the same technology to test his own understanding of the concepts, and further can solidify with the teacher the ideas gathered.

A Blended learner is training the brain to focus on production using self organizing tech

Blended learning is quite planned, controlled and often designed to allow the teacher to be a supportive resource to students who are actively and productively engaged in thinking and solving problems during their classroom sessions.
A blended classroom will allow students to focus on 1 lesson - take eg. Countries in the OECS regions. The lesson will ensure that some core objectives are set and student can demonstrate their understanding through actions such as presentations, writing or assignments.
A blended classroom will  allow student to use the technology, Rich Media and plan old paper books as resources to gather, analyse and report on their ideas from their experiences.
Blended learning is setting the learners experience as best suited for the learner.!
While this sounds great, it is time consuming, resource intensive and can lead to chaotic thinking if the planning process at the classroom level is not set into action by the teacher.
Well drafted core objectives are to be made available to the students - for these students are to learn to focus their attention on specific matters, while a world of distractions allure them. To achieve this, the technology should be controlled, lessons and information during sessions should be made available on portals that are free from distracting advertisements and promotions.
Student should feel comfortable to view, read, listen and interact with others in their search for knowledge.
Today, in Grenada our teachers are the knowledge resource base in our classrooms. This is changing, much is needed to be in place to allow student to gain their best style of learning, after all "learning is a life long process".