School

I've now been in school for three weeks and beginning to challenge myself by incorporating more ICT within my lessons. I often use powerpoint to introduce my lessons but have also started using some of the promethan flipcharts that are available. This week in maths, I had children coming up in pairs to the IWB to practice their symmetry with a computer package while the others completed tasks in their books. It is lovely to see how interested children are when tasks are online rather than in books.

I also had the chance this week to teach the whole ICT lesson on simulations where the children had the chance to make Colins Coffee and also have their first driving lesson. It is encouraging to see how enthuasistic they are when presented with tasks that they would not normal complete, if it werent for ICT.

This coming week, I am teaching a geography lesson which will be based in the ICT suite, where the children will be looking at Southampton, their school and homes using Google Earth packages. I hope this will enable them to relate their location in relation to the entire world, which is often difficult on a 2D poster of the world. I also will be teaching another ICT lesson exploring further simulations.

School based training

I'm back at school now, so that means that this blog is back up and running. The major ICT use that I've experienced this week was the use of the interactive whiteboard. My mentor has been able to teach me about all the functions that they have and has given me the chance to explore and practice using it. I also witnessed the CTM allowing the children to use the IWB themselves, for a mathematics mental starter game which I was pleased to see.

In the majority of the lessons that I have observed or taught this week, the IWB has been used as the sole use of ICT. Personally, I want to introduce ICT into my lessons, but at present, I don't feel I have the confidence to use it. This is one of my targets for the next week, so hopefully I can report back next week with whether I have been able to offer ICT for the children.

The ICT suite that the school has, allows pupils to work in pairs at each desktop. I know many schools do not have this privilege, however even working in pairs, I have noticed that often one pupil dominates despite being told to swap over half way through the lesson. This is one of the major disadvantages of ICT use that I have seen in school. When I teach my first ICT lesson, I hope to plan it so that all pupils have enough time to explore the topic that is being taught and achieve their own learning objectives.

I look forward to trying to use ICT in my lessons next week!