ICT in my SBT1 Serial Days

I have spent the past week in a school where I am to complete my first school base training on my journey to teaching! I was really interested in the amount of ICT the children were exposed to or interacted with during their week. During my serial days unfortunately I had two inset days, followed by a special Halloween day and then two days of a science week. So to all intense and purposes this was not a "normal" week and so I don't feel I got a true idea of what ICT the children get to use. However in the three days I spent with them we used the computer suite several times! I think it is really important for children to have continual access to computers and ICT, to make them part of their everyday life, especially as most of these children don’t have access to computers etc at home. They obviously have a good deal of practice at school, as most were extremely confident, which also shows how quickly they can acquire new skills, especially compared to adults.

I was impressed when I first went to see my classroom that attached to it was a computer suite compromising of at least 32 computers just for my class, not all classes have their own suite, but there are several suites around the building. All were flat screen with the most updated software and internet connection. (Although, in saying that none of the classrooms had SMART boards, which was disappointing as I was keen to practice on one). The children had assigned seats and their own passwords (Year 4 class) and were more than able to navigate themselves around the desktop and different programs etc.

I was present and participated largely in one ICT lesson, which was a set up for a Maths/Science lesson the next day. The children were learning how to produce a simple bar chart on an Excel spreadsheet. Initially the teacher explained about the cells, and the types of things you could do with one. He then encouraged the children to create a table and use the borders tool to make a box around the table. One of the two “ICT” staff, (they are teachers but who have more knowledge about ICT) lead the ICT sessions, whilst the class teacher took notes and learned with the children as she was not confident. Fortunately I have had quite a lot of ICT training from my university course and subsequent jobs that I was able to assist and have offered the class teacher support during my placement.

Whilst watching the ICT lesson progress, with myself, the class teacher and LSA's spread throughout the room I found that the lay out of rows and rows of computers was not teacher friendly. The children had computer chairs (meaning those on wheels) which did not help, you were always tripping over someone and the children were much more free to move about and just "pop" over to someone else's computer. I also found that the children at the back of the class were too far away to see the board properly and so some spent the lesson messing around, whilst others went off into their own world and so had no idea what to do when the teacher handed back over to them. I have suggested that they look into a system where the teachers computer takes over the children's computer, the child then has a screen in front of them mimicking what is on the board and it means that their mouse won't work and so they can not be messing around going on things they shouldn't. Hopefully it is something that the school can take advantage of and help any of those lagging behind.

The next day the children were to create bar chats to show the results of an experiment, where they had recorded the time taken to dissolve different sugars (caster, icing, cubes etc) into water. As my group had completed this task first I took them into the computer suite and led the lesson with more children filtering in as and when they had completed the conclusion of their experiment. The class teacher and the LSA, for that day, had some knowledge but were not confident with Excel and the graph process, if problems occurred they were often unsure of how to solve it. This really boosted my confidence in the ICT area as I was able to step in and for the lesson was the “expert”.

The children had time at the end of the maths/science lesson and on some other occasions when they had completed their work to go into the computer room and play on the several games they had. I have not had time to note down exactly what games they used but I saw typing practice, where they had to hold their hands in a certain place and learn to type without looking, which is how I learned at primary school. Something, which as an adult would be quite boring and frustrating, but as a child I used to be motivated to get it right! I saw many playing one game where the computer provides a background e.g. a dentist surgery, a park or outside a café etc, the children have to put people and objects in to create and image. They could alter the size of images to make the overall picture appear 3D, as people could be made bigger and smaller and put to the front and back of the image, they did not seem to have a problem with this scaling to create a certain affect. There were also maths games and science games, where they could label parts of the body etc.

The children also wrote a gruesome poem to do with Halloween, which they then typed up and changed the font to make it look scary!

The classroom had a projector onto the whiteboard, which I think can be easier, as you can use it as you would an interactive board….just without the interactive parts. From my limited use of SMART boards I find it difficult when you want to use it as a normal board e.g. writing on it etc. Having a normal whiteboard means that you can write normally without the board having a mind of it’s own! The class had a digital camera and I saw work that they had done using the camera, and whilst looking at different solids and liquids in groups the teacher went round photographing the children in action!

I do feel strongly that ICT and computers are the future, and I feel that children should not be held back from a world including ICT, due to teachers with a lack of confidence or knowledge. In general I think teachers should continually boost their knowledge as unfortunately technology is changing faster than fashion fads these days, just look at the new Windows Vista, completely different to the current Office system that we use but will soon make the Office system as obsolete as typewriters. If the children come into class with a new hand held game, borrow one from someone. Talk to children about what they experience and play with, incorporate it as much as possible into your lessons. Keep them interested, make it real and relevant, at the end of the day we have a job and it is about them and preparing them for their journey.