ICT in SBT1 School - Serial Week

So, having spent a very enjoyable first week in my first school based training school, I feel it's about time to get some of my ICT reflections down on paper... in a manner of speaking!

First off, I should say that this was not a normal week at this school in terms of ICT. I believe usually each class in the school has two hours of ICT a week by a specialist ICT teacher, while the class teacher has PPA time. During the week I was in school, there were a large number of teachers absent on various courses, and so the ICT teacher understandably stood in as a class supply teacher.

The school has a separate ICT suite which I did get to go in for a Spanish lesson. The Spanish teacher used a powerpoint display on the interactive white board (IWB) and the children had space to dance to a song they were learning. There were also two computers in the entrance area/art area/tray area/general-outside-of-classroom-area to the year one classrooms but I didn't see these switched on during the week I was there.

Sadly I didn't get to see the interactive white board used in the class I was observing in. 'My' class teacher was only in the first two days, and when one external supply teacher tried to link up the teacher laptop to the IWB to use some Guy Fawkes related website, she, the TA and I all tried but failed! One of the pitfalls of technology: not knowing which wires to connect where! This is something I will be asking the class teacher about on my next serial days. I was able to look on the websites on the teacher's laptop to find some of the answers to the questions the children were asking about Guy Fawkes. I guess ideally we would be getting the children to do this research, rather than myself, but I expect the reading would be above the level of year 1 children.

One consideration of IWB use was brought to my attention during the week. A step/bench/seat was constructed in the Year 1 and Reception classrooms below the IWB as the boards had previously been placed too high for the children to reach to use them effectively in an interactive capacity!

I saw the teacher laptop used in two other instances during the week. The register was taken morning and afternoon via the computer. I didn't investigate this and will add it to the list for my next days in school.

The other use of the laptop was for playing music. The class had a 'tidy up song'. The children knew when the teacher started playing this song on the laptop, it was time to start clearing away and to be sitting down on the carpet by the time the song finished. Also, the laptop was always used to play the songs during the THRASS (teaching handwriting, reading and spelling skills) lesson. The children (and I!) loved dancing to these songs, each based around one phoneme (a demo of the /j/ sound we were doing last week; i often found myself singing this song!). I hadn't previously seen laptops used for playing music in other schools; it has always been with CD players. My initial reaction was that a CD player was the natural thing to use to play music in school. But reflecting on my own life, I haven't had a CD player for probably about 6 years; any CDs get copied straight onto the computer. I will have to start adjusting my thoughts on what is 'natural' for schools, to make the adjustments from how school was when I was a pupil to the potential that is out there now in all aspects of teaching and learning.

Each class at the school has a digital camera. In a couple of instances during the week the teaching assistant got the camera out to photograph the class in action. She is keeping a book record of the year in the class and has been printing the photos out. The book is kept at the entrance to the classroom and the parents are able to see it when they drop off or collect the children. I think this is a great idea and as I am a keen photo album keeper, I would like to do this in any class I may have in the future too. I will try have the flickr (or the like) collection of photos as well, but i still think it's nice to have the hand held evidence to look through as well.

The final use of ICT I can think of to record, was a special computer that had recently been purchased for an SEN child with Global Development Delay. It had a touch screen which has apparently been a fantastic step forward as he was unable to use the mouse. I often saw him sitting at the computer tapping on the screen when appropriate. Apparently he has been enjoying it so much that they are having to find ways to restrict the time he spends on it or he would do nothing else!

For what I had felt was a very limited view of ICT last week, I seem to have managed to spend a long time writing about it. Overall, I would say I experienced a very adult lead use of ICT but I anticipate seeing more child-centred activities once in school at a 'normal' time.

One last unrelated thing. Received an email today about using hyperlinks. Thought I should try this again, as I got a bit confused doing this on the group wiki. So fingers crossed here's a nice elegant link to the blackboard.