Information Highway.
Information and Communication Technology (ICT) is an essential part of the school. As well as generalising learnt skills, it is a great way for the children to be independent. Most children get a lot of enjoyment out of printing their work and even just the act of going to the printer to collect it. Having their work displayed by putting it up in school or even just taking it home can be very rewarding. Some children are not as artistic as others, therefore, ICT can be used to explore colours and shapes to enable the production of wonderful 'electronic' art by using a software graphics program.
Once at home ICT is also an independent skill your children can use, whilst freeing up their parents during busy times, for instance making dinner or looking after other children. It is work they enjoy, that brings its own rewards. ICT is now a mature part of the curriculum and growing all the time and can improve the quality of teaching, learning and management in schools and so help raise standards. As with any new ideas, techniques or technologies though, it is vital that children are kept safe. An effective e-safety policy is therefore vital in your children's development.
Here are some "Dos and Don'ts" when using ICT within the curriculum, that you might want to consider;
Do...
- Use the National Curriculum as the basis for planning your ICT lessons.
- Plan to use the computers as an integral part of the classwork, and not an added activity that bears no relation to the rest of the curriculum.
- Use computers in a meaningful way to enhance the subject and not distract from it.
- Devise activities that require pupils to share a computer, because computers are excellent for encouraging collaborative learning and also for higher order skills, such as modelling.
- Devise generic activities that can be applied to a variety of computer situations, such as copy and paste.
- Plan your lessons so that the computer-based work and the non-computer-based work are similar in terms of intended learning outcomes.
- Adopt the model of showing the pupils as a class how to do something on the computer, and then getting them to practise it in that lesson and to repeat that practice in subsequent lessons.
- Reinforce your teaching through wall displays of the terms used.
Don't...
- Start an ICT lesson without ensuring that you are familiar with the equipment and, crucially, that it works at that moment.
- Start an ICT lesson without ensuring that you have some non-computer work handy in case something goes wrong with the computers or power.
- Underestimate what your pupils are capable of doing and understanding on the computer.
- Confine your approach to closed, low-level questions, especially during key stage 2 and beyond.
- Focus on dealing with the software at the expense of the real learning task.
- Leave it to the last minute to begin the end of the lesson, especially if the pupils have to print out their work.
- Allow pupils to sit facing the computer screen when you want them to listen to your instructions.
- Leave it until the end of the lesson to give out the homework.
- Give out homework that can be done only on a computer.
- Allow ICT to smother the learning objective.
Some Key Factors In Raising ICT Standards.
- Setting an achievable ICT goal (Mission Statement)
- Providing the right training, not only for the ICT co-ordinator but for all of your staff.
- Obtaining and maintaining the right resources.
- Involving ICT across the curriculum in a manner that improves the education of the children.
- Exploring the use of the myriad of free computer resources available.
- Ensuring that ICT is a contributary factor, not actually a distraction.