I feel that my first placement school is really on top of the ICT in terms of learning and aiding learning. There are two main computer suites around the school, which are 99% of the time occupied. Year 4 have their own computer suite and the head expects them to be in it all times of the day, which is not always possible. However, the educational software on the computers allows for all aspects of the curriculum to be supported by work on the computers. All classrooms have a handful of computers in them so that extension work etc can be on the computers if required. There are also a number of laptops that can be used by children if their projects etc require the use of ICT. Due to the area of the school many children do not have access to computers outside of school time. The school is aware of this and is also aware that the children will require good ICT skills for the future and allow for this. The computers that the school have are rented, this is particularly good as they can upgrade much more easily and at reduced cost compared to if they had bought the computers and had to get new computers in.
I do feel that especially with the Year 4 computer room that the layout is not beneficial to functional teaching. The computers have been fitted into a pre-existing room, rather than the room being built for computers. The computers would be better facing the wall around the outside of the room. The children are currently in lines, back to back with other children. They can too easily interfere with each other’s computers, wires and chairs etc and it is very difficult to move around them.
The school is very keen on personalised learning, having lap tops, cameras, microphones etc available allow the children to decide how to communicate a project, e.g. if they want to make a radio program or film a TV commercial etc the tools are available and very child friendly.
The main issues that will constrain the children’s ability to learn is the teachers lack of confidence with the tools the school has. The classrooms have the ability to make their whiteboards interactive but none of them do, they use the projectors but that is as far as they get. The teachers limited use and excitement to try out new tools is then passed to the children. They often feel that they need to know how to use them in order for the children to use them, but this is not always the case as children can often click buttons and learn through trial and error. The teachers are shown all the new equipment when it comes in and the ICT coordinator runs staff meetings to show them how the new “toys” work. However, if they don’t use them within the next few weeks they forget how they work or even that they are available.
Although ICT has many benefits, there are also many times where the network goes down, or the power goes off etc, which, if you have planned a lesson around using these resources would be impossible to continue. Considering I have only been at the school for 5 weeks, these problems have occurred far to often.
In addition to this considering how much time my current children spend on the computers I am very aware that they are slow to type and many of them their handwriting illegible. I worry that too much focus on computers and using them will in time outweigh the need to work on handwriting. Many children come to me with work and I try to work out what it says in vain, when I ask the child to tell me what it says they look at me blankly. I feel that computers should be the next step, after handwriting (although I don’t fully believe in forcing children to write joined up…but that it another story in itself!) rather than along side or instead of. My children can spend a whole lesson working and will either produce a few lines on the computer, and if they cannot spell they choose a word from the list that appears…and so in some cases still doesn’t make sense, or they can produce more written work but in many cases illegible.
In closing I would like to comment on the use of Blogs. I was a little apprehensive about using the blogging software at the beginning of this project. However, with the right guidance at the start, the blogging journey has been an enjoyable one! I know how to add images and links to video clips, allowing me to make my blog, hopefully, more interesting to the readers!
I have found it interesting to look at the blogs schools are currently doing, two of which I have added links to on my blog. I am really keen to try this with a school. I think the benefit to the children and the school community could be invaluable.
The school I am currently at will be later in the year making contact with other schools with the same name. My class have begun by investigating where these schools are and using google earth to locate them. I think this is a fantastic way to get children thinking about the world outside of their own lives. To think about things that are happening to other children in other areas of the world. I can’t wait to try this somewhere!
Having read articles in magazines about schools that have been using blogs, (see blog written on November 16th 2007, Blogs 4 Schools.) I think that the children and families can really boost their skills for writing, reading, communication, looking at different types of language use etc. Blogs allow children to discuss sensitive issues, behind the safety of anonymity. See the above-mentioned blog for details of blogging and schools and whether it works.
I enjoyed looking into the wiki and I understand, thanks to the video clip we watched, the purpose of wikis, but found the blog much more beneficial to my learning, although I am glad to have had the experience of using one and knowing which websites you can use for free, always important in a school!!!
I have always been fairly confident with ICT and definitely take a hands on approach, clicking buttons and trying things out rather than reading manuals etc. I feel that my degree, which had a large focus on ICT and having to produce our own web sites etc, really helped me to embrace it. We all know how much easier using a computer is to handwriting, especially things like essays, where you can add paragraphs in and change the order without having to rewrite anything. You can make numerous copies, quickly and easily, or could change the colour of each one you print. Having information that doesn’t need to be printed on a memory stick etc allows easy transport and has meant that I don’t have to take my laptop with me everywhere. I could spend all day talking about the little things that ICT has done to improve not necessarily the quality, but more the ease of life.
I have really enjoyed blogging. I think that communication in itself is such an important issue that now it has been made easier and much more user friendly, we should be embracing it. For example people (mainly relatives) that wanted regular blog updates linked to my blog so that they could be emailed whenever I posted something new.
However I do not think that the future will or even should be filled with computers “taking over the world”. Take the image above from the film IRobot, is this how we should be thinking of technology? Should we be thinking of robots as human? As something that can or will become too powerful for us to control? Will we live in coexistence?
Will it become a way of teaching? I remember reading a while back about virtual teaching, a computer room filled with children and a teacher on the screen, is this really the way of the future, is this where we should be taking education? We should work with ICT letting it be part of our world, but we should always remember that we are the creators and although they lived differently cavemen survived without it and at the end of the day so will we.
We cannot replace the value of humans and we shouldn’t begin to try.
(Image is from google images: http://www.aaronwt.net/IROBOT2.JPG)
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