• To teach ICT, spend some time reflecting on what your life would be like without it.global technology image by patrimonio designs from Fotolia.com
  
  Information and communication technologies (ICT) have changed the world in an enormous way. In the words of Pulitzer-prize winning journalist Thomas Friedman, "the world is flat" because of them. Some ideas for teaching ICT to others include bringing in examples of new ICT technologies and discussing them, allowing students to manipulate ICT devices on their own and taking field trips to different areas and discussing what life might look like there without ICT.
  
  

Bring in ICT

• Bringing in ICT is an effective and efficient way to introduce the actual technology to students. For example, cell phones are an example of ICT, along with laptops, iPhones, the Internet, email, telephones more generally and even cable television. Exposing your students to those technologies and discussing how they impact on society, how to manipulate those technologies and how those technologies will impact the future is one comprehensive method for teaching ICT.
  
  

Encourage Students to Manipulate ICT Productively

• Have students bring in their own ICT to class and complete various tasks with them. For example, playing hide and seek outside in a broad space and with everyone allowed to use cell phones can help teach in a practical sense how ICT increases the size and usefulness of immediate social networks and reduces the time it takes for one specific piece of information to reach another area. A similar project could include having students use laptops in class, during a talk on how ICT impacts the average person's attention span, to teach students about how ICT has increased the daily amount of "distraction" in life.
  
  

Field Trips

• Take field trips to imagine what life would be like without ICT. For example, take students into the city and ask them to imagine what the city scene would look like if no one had cell phones. Then, ask the students to explain how they would complete tasks without having any phone access at all. Alternatively, take a trip to a place where there is much fewer ICT in general (e.g., a farm or poorer area), and live there for a day or two, allowing students to live life without ICT.