My main observation of ICT in an Infant School is that the children know a lot more about ICT than the teachers, and that ICT is such a major part of children's life. I was with a Year 2 class and when talking to them about ICT they were all very excited about the topic, keen to tell me all about the latest gadget that they got for Christmas. Nearly all the children in my class seemed to have a Nintendo DS and many remarked that they had their own website (!). Many children were members of Club Penguin, which as far as I can gather, is a social networking site where children play games with each other and interact online. When I mentioned that I love playing Guitar Hero, they were all buzzing to tell me which songs they like playing and what stage they are at in the World Tour. It was interesting to see how pleased they were that a teacher knew something about what they enjoy doing whilst not at school.
I found ICT to be a very useful teaching tool to motivate and engage the children, thus promoting learning. I used the promethean interactive whiteboard in most lessons, either to show flipcharts that I had made that the children either watched or contriuted to, and to use the many interactive games and software available. The children knew how to operate the whiteboard and loved being picked to have a go on it. It could be used as an effective behaviour management tool by telling them that the best behaved child will have a go on the whiteboard! Furthermore, I used the class digital camera very frequently in my teaching. I used it to take pictures of their work, to put on displays, which boosted their confidence. When we created a shrine in R.E. and when we did science experiments, I took photos of them to put to their books or to give to them so that they can remember that great practical work that they had done. I also found it effective in the way it provided me with ways to make learning more relevant. For example, when it was very cold and snowing, I took pictures of the frozen pond, the frozen water tub, and their snowmans. This material provided me with a great way of introducing the sciene topic of freezing materials, by putting the pictures on the interactive whiteboard and asking some children to explain to the others what they had seen in the water tub a few days before.
I also used the digital camera to promote good behaviour. If a child was being very helpful for example, I would take a picture of them tidying up the classroom and put it on the board with a note saying 'Pupil A is always helpful during tidy up time.' The children loved having their pictures on the wall and it encouraged the other children to be helpful.
With regards to actual ICT lessons, these were very infrequent. However, I did use software programmes in maths lessons such as Bucket and Spade for shape and space, and Money Mice for addition and money. They were an excellent resource in the classroom because some of the children who find it hard to do written work at their tables because they lack the motivation, really loved the software programmes, and therefore their learning was optimised. In additon, the computers were always available during their 'choosing time' for children to play on any of the wide ranging software, and they really enjoyed it.
Saturday 21 February 2009
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