Catherine's PGCE ICT Blog

Comparison of Two Research Articles

2008-04-06T14:09:00.000-07:00

Compare and contrast the articles by Ed Smeets (2005) and John Robertson (2002). Make suggestions which would help us provide a more meaningful learning environment, based on your own experience of the use of ICT in the schools you have taught in.

Smeets (2005) stated that education must be provided in an optimal environment in which learning is promoted. In order to promote a classroom in which learning and problem solving can take place, there must be co-operation and interaction between the staff and pupils. He stated that ICT has a number of functions which can be beneficial to the classroom environment. Firstly, it can provide an abundance of information for both planning and research. Teachers can make use of ICT to share lesson ideas or to plan lessons with the assistance of others, or others ideas. Smeets also stated that ICT has allows for complex processes to be understood more easily and has allows for active learning and higher order thinking. Within the classroom situation, ICT allows for tasks to be adapted to the needs and capabilities of the pupils which in turn helps the teacher plan for curriculum differentiation.

There are however a number of factors that affect the level of ICT use within schools. One of the main factors it that of accessibility, both regarding the number of computers within a school, but also the location of the technology. Smeets stated that it is essential that they are placed within the classroom to be of benefit to the children. Another major factor is the skill level of the teacher, as well as their confidence to use it in front of children. Children today, are often have more advanced computing skills than the adults who are trying to teach them. The role of the teachers’ use of technology can have a huge impact on the learning impact that they are trying to create within a classroom setting.

For the optimum powerful learning environment, Smeets identifies that :
· Tasks need to be rich in context and as authentic as possible
· Active and independent learning must both be stimulated, as well as co-operative learning.
· The curriculum must be adapted to the individual needs of the pupils (differentiated)
Smeets divides ICT software into two main types. The first type is skill-based transmission software which is designed to enhance skills by administering drill and practice exercises (to assist teachers who support constructivist views). In comparison, open-ended software is a tool used for helping learners to build on previous knowledge and encourages active learning, whilst creating a powerful learning environment. The type of software chosen can have an instrumental effect on the pupils attainment within ICT.

Smeets carried out research within Dutch primary schools and used a sample of 331 grade 8 teachers, to investigate their thoughts on the topic of ICT. He found that 3 out of 4 teachers felt their skills were good or quite good, and many used ICT to stimulate their pupils to work autonomously. 1 in 3 teachers use ICT to stimulate pupils to explore information for themselves, with 93% of teachers used ICT in their lessons – on average at least 55 minutes a week. He also stated that skill-based software is used more often than open-ended software with 59% of pupils are regularly working on computers alone. If they work with others, it is normally as a pair. Smeets claimed that male teachers are more likely to favour open-ended ICT applications compared with females, and that while most teachers are aware of the benefits of ICT within the classroom, few use it to its full potential. As yet, few are prepared to change their pedagogical practices. He also felt that the larger the class size, the more likely the teacher is to use skill based ICT, and that the presence of an ICT suite within a school building, leds to a decrease in the amount of skill-based ICT use.

Robertson examined the state of ICT in primary schools at the end of the twentieth century and the route taken to reach the current levels. Many government initiatives, trainings and research have been carried out in the past few years which examined the use of ICT within primary education, many of which state the benefits available to both teacher and pupil. In agreement with Smeets, Robertson states how ICT can be instrumental in allowing for interactive and personalised learning to take place within the classroom, as well as giving an opportunity for creating simulations, problem solving as well as allowing the children the opportunity to investigate and handle data and information. In reality though, Robertson found that ICT was not being used to its maximum benefit, and instead of providing an interactive, personalised lesson, children were instead taught drills via drills and practice in which passive learning took place.
When comparing the two articles it would appear at first hand that Robertson has a more negative view on ICT in education than Smeets, yet they both state how important ICT could be to the classroom if used to its full potential. Smeets examines current research based in the Netherlands whereas Robertson has focused on the progress throughout the end of the twentieth century in the UK. Holland have very different teaching methods to the UK therefore it is important to bear in mind the cultural differences that are involved, and that Smeets research cannot be directly applied to the UK educational system. Both authors examine that the use of ICT has increased dramatically within recent years, yet realise that with better understanding and with the adaption of teachers pedadogy, ICT can be used to a more full potential.

Suggestions for the future.
ICT has the opportunity to make or break a lesson. It’s unpredictable nature, especially when requiring wireless networks, often put a huge risk on a teacher to rely solely on ICT to carry out a lesson. With improvements in technology, and reduction of cost, then ICT can go from strength to strength, and with young adults from the ‘computer generation’ qualifying as teachers, then hopefully their skills and knowledge can be implemented successfully into the school classroom, however I am still a little dubious about how long this will take to be fully implemented, and with the ever advancing ICT available, I feel children will always be one step ahead of the staff who are trying to teach them.

References:
Robertson, J. (2002) The ambiguous embrace; Twenty years of IT (ICT) in UK primary schools. BJET, 33(4) 403-409.

Smeets, E. (2005) Does ICT contribute to powerful learning environments in primary education? Computers and Education, 44 (2005) 343-355.

Final Post

2008-02-01T09:56:00.000-08:00

Both this blog and SBT1 are coming to an end within the next week. In school I have had the opportunity to use the ICT suite to teach both ICT and geography lessons, and have encorporated ICT into all my core curriculum lessons.

As this is my final blog entry I have been asked to evaluate the exercise. I have found the use of blogs an interesting way to present a weekly report, compared with a written diary, although have found it hard to remember to do it, especially when having spent all day at school! It is nice that you can access the blog from any computer, so I could update my work even when I was in hospital or at home for the holidays. I have found it hard to come up with 'interesting' things to say, as very few 'new' things happened each week and therefore I had little to report on. With regards the actual package, I have found it easy to use and have easily uploaded photos and pictures etc. I think it would be an easy programme for pupils to 'pick up' and learn.

I have found this a useful package to facilitate writing and communication, and would like to use it within my schools, perhaps to help with homework etc. I however dont think I would use it personally as a means of communication as I find it a wierd prospect to be writing about my daily life etc to, potentially, the entire world! If I were to use it in a school, I would want to investigate whether privacy settings could be used, so only the class teacher and other pupils could view the blogs, rather than the world world having access.

School

2008-01-26T07:45:00.000-08:00

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

2008-01-12T05:30:00.000-08:00

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!

ICT use in Hospitals!

2007-12-12T02:09:00.000-08:00

I've spent the last few days in hospital having surgery on my hip so thought this weeks blog could be about the use of ICT in hospitals. When I first arrived the staff were accessing their computer system to re-arrange the surgeons lists and to access blood/scan results. I then had my blood pressure, pulse and oxygen levels measured using a computerised cuff and sats machine.

Once I went down for surgery, I was connected to an ECG machine in order for the anaesthetist to monitor my heart rate throughout the operation. My surgeon used a number of tools in order to reshape and shrink my hip - all through keyholes. He was able to transmit images to a screen in which he could see what was going on/what he was doing.

Even coming back round, I was connected to computers to monitor my levels such as blood pressure and heart rate in case of any complications.

Up until this week, I hadn't really thought about the use of ICT within other situations other than at home or school, yet without it, there is no way I could have been monitored so successfully in hospital, or realised so quickly!

The Use of Discussion Boards

2007-11-27T13:44:00.000-08:00

I have found the discussion boards quite useful for uploading work (eg English) from home rather than having to always go in to hand deliver it. I have also liked the fact that we can view discussions between others such as the ICT help discussion, and add comments if we are able to help others.

With regards the graphs task that was set, I would have found it easier to have had a more face to face discussion, as its quite a time consuming process having to wait for one another to comment etc, although I suppose if you were abroad etc, then it could be a possibility for completing work.

In a school context, I could see a discussion board being used to act as a communication aid between parents and staff, in which parents could ask questions to the staff eg. when are inset days? and other parents would be able to view and take note, rather than everybody asking. Within the classroom, I think I would prefer the children to develop their speaking and listening skills and have face-to-face discussions as with the time constraints of the national curriculum, I do not feel the children/staff have time to wait for a reply! Instead, I would prefer to have a system in which children could complete their work at home, and upload to a school system which would enable me, as the class teacher, to mark remotely and provide feedback directly to the child. I would also like to use blogs as a means of diary for some tasks, for example, when carrying out an experiment over a set time period or writing a diary of life in the war etc, in which the children could regularly update the blog with their experiences or results while they are fresh in their minds. It also provides the children with a different form of task/assessment which many may prefer, and can be used across all curriculum subjects.

I would be interested to read what others write on the discussion board/in their blogs about possible ways of using discussion boards within the primary classroom.

First week of teaching...

2007-11-25T07:14:00.000-08:00

This week I taught my first full maths lesson....I prepared a powerpoint to introduce the fractions topic using various shapes that I shaded in either 1/2, 1/3 or 1/4. I used the IWB to show this PP to the class and they reacted well to the topic, however the computer crashed half way through my introduction so we had to resort to the good old, whiteboard and pen!! Technology is great until it breaks down!! Luckily the teaching went so well, the teacher asked me to plan and teach the follow up lesson. The internet was my life-saver when if came to planning that evening, as I was able to adapt existing lesson plans and resources to suit my class. I plan to add these helpful websites to the WIKI.

I also had the chance to observe the class in an ICT lesson, in which they were learning to import pictures. I think this lesson drew my attention to the vast range of ICT skills children have, as some still are unable to log in correctly, whereas others produced a beautiful document within minutes. The pictures they imported were those they had taken with a digital camera in the previous literacy lesson as part of a combined literacty-ICT piece of work.

This week, I also had the opportunity to watch the children using electronic keyboards in their music lessons. This was a form of ICT that I had not previously thought of, yet the children are able to programme a sound/instrument choice and adapt their compositions using all sorts of background music or instrument sound.

The joys of EXCEL!!

2007-11-15T11:25:00.000-08:00

This weeks ICT lesson was on Excel. I know a lot of people found it a hard package to use, and struggled with it however I have just spent the last three years on a Sports Science degree in which all data was entered onto Excel and manipulated. I have used Excel to establish VO2 max, effects of exercise on HR, gait analysis etc. I am therefore comfortable with entering equations and interpreting the data that is produced. I do however think, that Excel is quite an advance computing package for use at primary school and therefore would be reluctant to introduce it until late in KS2.

Personally this week, I have used my new mobile phone to bluetooth myself a picture which I have uploaded to the internet of a night out with old coursemates! I found this quite an easy exercise to do, and hope to do it more in future as it will save taking a camera and a phone out everywhere!!

Use of digital cameras....

2007-11-05T08:24:00.000-08:00

I had a wonderful week at school and was pleased to see the use of ICT in all lessons.

This last week I have been challenging myself to use my digital camera more and have uploaded some pictures for you to see.

I was also fortunate enough to watch my younger (2nd year physiotherapy student) sister play hockey for the University of Southampton this weekend.....she scored a great goal, and the team won convincingly. I have uploaded a photo that I took with my digital camera during the game. I found it very hard to take pictures during the game as I was too busy watching it myself (too use to playing rather being a spectator!!) but its always nice for her to have photos to look back on - especially as she scored!! It is also a challenge to take action shots but I plan to work on this area further when I watch future games.

I also had a trip to London with my housemates from my last university. We went on a river cruise from the London Eye/Houses of Parliment to the Tower of London. I have added some pictures/scenes below.

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asbndsdaondos

The skills required for photography need some work on - as can be seen by the picture of the House of Parliment/Big Ben, it includes a large amount of sky which could be cropped out of the picture however I felt I would leave it as it is, in order to show my improvement over time!

Digital cameras are wonderful and I hope to use them in a classroom setting. Even during the five days that I was on my school placement, I saw other classes using them therefore I see no problem with my class utilising them. I love the way that you can point and shoot, then if you don't like the picture, you can just delete and re-take!

Life in school....

2007-10-31T09:32:00.000-07:00

I'm so exhausted and I've only spent three days in school!!! The kids in my class are brilliant and the school is very keen on their ICT work so I've had plenty of opportunities to see it in action.

The main use of ICT within the classroom is through the interactive whiteboard which is used in the majority of lessons. The children do a 'wake up, shake up' session every morning to prepare them for the day which is projected onto the IWB. Lesson activities are often prepared before the children arrive but the use of functions within the IWB programmes, allow last minute changes. I think its brilliant how you can save work so that you can revert back to spider diagrams etc in later lessons. If the teacher ever struggles to find a file, or is erasing rather than writing, the children all seem to know how to correct the mistake and love using the IWB themselves!

I have also had the opportunity to go to the library with the class, in which they are all comfortable with scanning in and out their books as if it were a 'proper' library! This kind of technology we had in my sixth form, but I never dreamt of seeing it in a junior school so I was very impressed.....especially as the children are able to use the technology themselves!

Although my class hasn't used them, I know the school uses digital cameras fairly frequently. The other yr 3 class took class pictures to add to their timeline of event and therefore added photos of themselves saying when they were born! This helped them to understand the concept of time! A new girl started in year 5 and was given a digital camera to walk around the school taking pictures in order to help orientate and familiarise herself with the school and the surroundings!

As you can tell....its been a busy week and I've basically just been observing - be interesting when we all start teaching for real in January!! Hopefully I'll be able to use a wide range of ICT resources in my lesson plans, with the existing ICT support from the school.

Lack of ICT use this week.....

2007-10-21T05:53:00.000-07:00

I haven't had as much experience with new modes of ICT this week as I did in the previous week so haven't got too much to report back on!

I've been using the WIKI to look for resources and had a brief look at other peoples blogs - they all look really good - well done group B!!

In our subject lessons this week, we only had the chance to use the interactive whiteboard rather than any other modes of ICT. I also searched for SMART software and downloaded it onto my laptop so that I could practice making materials from home. I had a brief visit to my placement school on Friday and got the shock of them not using SMART IWB but Promethean so I'm a bit worried about that! The school seem very keen on using ICT in all lessons.....they have a wonderful ICT suite, and I saw examples of year 6 movies that they had been working on. This made me realise how children today are so much more advanced than we are, with regards to ICT!!!

With regards personal use of ICT....I've mainly been relying on my word processing skills, as well as using the internet to search for journal articles in preparation for my file checks and masters assignment work.

Hopefully more to report back on next week......!

This week....

2007-10-15T10:44:00.000-07:00

Hi - I've had lots of experience with ICT this week in all subjects so thought I'd document it here! Firstly, in English we got the chance to use dictaphones and video cameras to record radio and TV adverts. This was the first time I had used a dictaphone and thought it was a really effective use of ICT that could easily be implemented into the primary classroom. It also gave us the chance to receive immediate feedback from both our peers and the classroom teacher.

Later in the week, we used ICT in a number of ways during our Science lessons. Firstly we passed the wireless keyboard around so that everyone could contribute to the question that had been placed by the classroom teacher. We were then given the opportunity to use the interactive whiteboard and various packages that could be used. We were also taught how we could turn our word processed documents into our own interactive packages that we could use in the classroom. I found this opportunity a real confidence booster and would feel more at ease, when using the IWB in the classroom on my placements.

Today in ICT we learnt how to use WIKIs - the resource we were shown should be very useful when finding suitable resources when on SBT's. The WIKI seemed very easy to use and I hope to use in more in the coming weeks.

First Post!

2007-10-08T04:04:00.001-07:00

HELLO!!

Hi everyone.....I am new to this blogging thing but will be reflecting each week on the use of ICT in society. I must admit I am very confused by the whole blogging thing - especially uploading pictures!! Hopefully my blogging capabilities will improve with time!

As part of my blog I will reflect on the work I have undertaken in each of the ICT lessons, as well as any directive activities I have done. I will be able to examine relevant news articles that I have read or heard about with regards to the topic of ICT. I will also use the blog as an opportunity to reflect on my own ICT use and the experiences I have had with ICT.

With regards to today's first lesson in 'blogging' I thought the process would be fairly easy however I seem to have failed in completing the simple tasks of adding a picture! Thanks to Monty - I've managed to get it up now!!

Before today, I always thought I was pretty ICT literate having completed an a level in it, but now I realise I have lots to learn.....you'll be able to follow my ICT learning curve over the next few months......enjoy!!