Thoughts and Reflections

My last couple of blogs have enabled me to reflect in depth on the prospect of using blogs in a classroom context. This blog will concentrate on blogging as a whole and how this has helped me formulate my ideas throughout the course so far.

The blogs have allowed me to focus on the core subject of ICT closely and the issues within that subject. Overall, the blog process has been highly beneficial to me throughout this course as it enables me to express my views and opinions in a relatively public space if I did not get round to doing so within the ICT lessons. Plus, the blog has enabled me to question any areas of the subject I struggled with or wanted to find more information on.
The PGCE blog has, for me, acted as a scribble pad in cyber space! It has allowed me to "scribble" my thoughts and ideas down, but in an organised fashion. If this were an ordinary pen-to-paper scribble pad, I would have misplaced the random pieces of paper weeks ago. The fact that all my thoughts and ideas can be kept in one place and is easily accessible has been of great benefit to me in the past weeks.

Blogging has given me an arena in which to question ICT in terms of my own experience and understanding, which has been of great use considering that I tend not to speak up within lessons (of all subjects). The blogs have therefore allowed me to organise my ideas clearly, making it easy to refer back to if needed.

At first, I was sceptical about the idea of keeping a blog. However, it has proven to be of great use to me over the past few weeks and is something that I would consider using with my own class in September and further in my own life to help with my own ideas and reflections on any subjects I encounter.

ICT in SBT1

ICT has played a huge part of my life at school in SBT1 already! Not only is the IWB used often (and I have managed to incorporate this into all of my lessons so far), but the ICT suite is booked so that each class has a proper ICT lesson at least once a week, with extra time for it to be booked out as and when class teachers feel they may need it.

On wednesday I was supposed to teach my first ICT lesson. This lesson was to be a follow up to the lesson taught the previous week on romer. As there were problems with the romer programme last week, my lesson was to focus on this ensuring that all children had a chance to practice on the programme. However, having planned this lesson and checked it over with my class teacher, the programme had been uninstalled when it came to wednesday morning. Therefore, my lesson didn't go ahead. I was disappointed by this as I didn't think I would get a chance to teach a proper ICT lesson, perhaps only to incorporate it into the lessons I do teach. But, if while on this placement the programme is reinstalled, I have a lesson ready planned that I can carry out with the children before I leave!

My class teacher mentor was also excited to show me the teaching time resource on the schools computer. This resource not only has games that the children can enjoy, but also mocks up worksheets allowing you to click 'change' to get the times u want on the clocks for the children to read. Genius! This resource, therefore, has been central to all the maths lessons carried out on time this past week, and will continue to do so this coming week. The large analogue and digital clock is handy for leaving on the IWB throughout the lesson on time, and it was in fact this programme that enabled my class teacher and I to carry out an initial assessment before beginning the unit in order to establish how to group the children during the maths sessions (this was carried out during the class's ICT suite time in which I would have carried out my lesson). Therefore, this has enabled me to get to grips with how to assess children a bit more, and was something I really enjoyed!

I am keeping my fingers crossed, though, that I will be able to carry out my planned lesson before I leave.

Blogs In The Classroom

The more I think about it, the more I begin to like the idea of using blogs in the classroom. Considering that more often than not, all children are likely to have a computer at home, this would be a great way to share work they do at home.

I, personally, have found this blog a great way to organise my thoughts and ideas on the various sessions we have carried out in uni before embarking on placement in January (it's tomorrow now...eek!). This blog has enabled to create stances and opinions over topics I would otherwise struggle to form opinions over. If I have found this, i'm sure that blogs can benefit children in a similar way.

However, it is of course important to protect children when they work online, so it would therefore be necessary to set up the blogs with the children, rather than allowing them to surf the internet themselves. Also, guidence for parents would be needed allowing them to see why the children are being encouraged to blog.

Such blogs would enable children to post thoughts and queries they have about work they have been asked to carry out at home, or even any extra work they have chosen to carry out outside of schools themselves. From here, the class teacher would be able to keep up with the work the children are doing outside of school, incorporating the children's 'digital native' postion, and comment back on work they do produce/make comments on.

THIS website provides a great example for what I am trying to describe here. A virtual space which enable children and teacher to communicate, yet one which is safe for the children to use and that will not worry parents about their children using the internet.

Also, blogs would be a great way to keep in touch with children from schools in other countries. When I was in primary school, we had pen pals from a school in America, who we would exchange letters and photos with via the schools. Blogs would be a perfect way for this to be carried out and be brought more into the 21st century!

Perhaps this is something to keep in mind for when I have my own class in September...??

Interactive White Boards

The recent session on use of interactive white boards in the classroom enabled me to gain more of an understanding of how to create teaching resources to use on the white board. Handy for this piece of ICT is that they link up to the internet (in my school they do at least), which means that resources found online can be easily shared with children in the classroom, without having to disrupt the class to get to the ICT suite. However, this "disruption" may be extremely important if children are required to play around with this resource themselves.

During our last PSHE lesson, we were introduced to the gogivers website, which highlighted many resources that could be used in the classroom and on the interactive white board.

Plus, whilst carrying out the serial weeks in school, I saw the interactive white board used several times to show resources to the class. For example, during a literacy lesson, a picture was put up on the IWB for all to see and the children were required to build up their own story around this picture. Here, the IWB enabled all the children to see the picture, and discuss as a class what they can see and therefore what they could write about. It allowed the teacher to acknowledge what the children know, and expand on what they were saying. However, following this, the picture was also placed on each table so that the children could get a clearer look at the picture. It is becoming apparent, then, that IWBswork across all subjects. The fact that the smartboard software comes with banks of pictures and animations to use that span across all subjects, from history, to maths and science (plus others) also backs this up.

Yet, IWBs not only present a great way to plan, teach and share with children resources found for the teachers, but also a great way for children to learn. Resources can be made using the smartboard programmes that allow children to come up and place answers in correct boxes, or underline the answer they think is correct, for example. Children very much enjoy doing this and teachers should try to incorporate this into their teaching as much as possible as this begins to create a friendly learning enviornment in which everyone is learning together. Also, as children get so excited about using the interactive whiteboards, so they will look at the topic they are learning with fondness and excitement....or you would hope so!

However, with all the good the IWBs bring, during my serial days, it became apparent that it is important not to rely to heavily on them as teaching aids. Like all ICT, they very often have a mind of their own and can break down when they fancy. It is therefore important to either have a back up plan, or ensure that the lesson can continue as normal without the white board element. Thus, as great as it is that all classrooms appear to becoming kitted out with IWBs and corresponding equipment, it is important not the forget about the good that a non-interactive whiteboard can do in the classroom also. Normal boards can still hold the interactive element to learning, enabling children to come out and write on it, or pick the right answer.

But perhaps that is the digital immigrant in me fighting to get out!!