ICT in the classroom
The children on level A-B for instance used software packages like Bailey’s Book House or The Talking Animated Alphabet, and they enjoyed the stories very much. Learning the alphabet became fun and not boring to these young learners, whereas the older children got pleasure from packages such as Children’s Dictionary or Superspell worksheets, which also allowed them to benefit from the ‘cool’ as they would call it games to aid their spelling. The primary 5-6’s made use of the Appleworks 5 application and they were thoroughly enjoying the painting and drawing pages, as it allowed them to create their own masterpiece which was then printed out by them and put on view in the school art gallery. The primary 7’s used Appleworks 6 which had Kid Pix and Grid club where they got immense pleasure from these learning support games and activities that supported their curriculum activities enormously. One boy in particular who was a very disruptive child and a sufferer of APHD, which is a hyper activity syndrome, benefited enormously from ICT as he could concentrate for longer periods when he used the computer to do his work. This also allowed the teacher to carry on with activities without much disruption.
ICT to support teaching
The headmistress and staff all used e mail to report and contact each other within the school. This proved very effective as it allowed them to stay in their classroom, and spend more time teaching rather than running off to deal with certain matters that were urgent. All records were computerised and kept on data bases, which made life so much easier for the teachers and their filing systems. The office staff too were kept busy, sending out regular notices and letters to parents informing them of changes, or important updates on their children’s education, and forth coming project activities. The teachers also word processed the children’s report cards themselves, promoting total confidentiality. This allowed them to follow a child’s progress so much easier with reports and records on computer, as it was an instant procedure with the file to hand, rather than gathering information from files that various teachers had made when the child was in their care. The school was very well organised with their administration and used ICT to support teaching throughout the school.
Evaluation
ICT was used to a great extent in the school and the children benefited immensely. The school is situated in a deprived area, and many of these children need this extra support to help them understand their academic subjects, such as Maths, and English. The majority of them would not have seen a computer, and possible never would have received the chance to use one, until their school introduced them to this new world of learning and ICT. This makes their learning very special as they appreciate the use of the computers so much more. The school is a small school and integrated classes make it difficult to learn computer skills as a class. The children go off to different English sets for example, and they go to another classroom to join children of their own ability and in turn another group of children come to their class to join their set for language. This makes visits to the main computer suite difficult, as they go as a ‘class’ to the laboratory to learn together. Sometimes the curriculum does not allow enough time for their IT learning as a group. The teachers are all very positive about ICT and attempt to fit it in to their teaching schedule as regularly as possible, as they can see the progress the children are making by this method of communication. In the classroom the children all get a turn on the class computer either as reward time or to help their understanding of a curriculum activity. Children in the class with learning difficulties seemed to thrive on the use of the computer as it benefited them greatly, and assisted with their learning problems.
Personal response
The school used their resources well, and the children learned from using Information and Communication Technology. They were creating their own pictures and work presenting it in a professional manner. They took pride in word processing their stories and poems and this gave them self confidence and high esteem. They had their own personal passwords and ‘no-one’ got to see them, not even the teacher occasionally, they were very conscious of the code of privacy. The p6-7’s used the internet and intranet which was filtered for their safe usage. They were amazed as they looked at pictures of the Scottish Parliament and the various pictures of the new building in stages. They clearly were learning about their project on parliament from the web but also learning how to position and control the computer and understand its technology. They controlled and positioned the mouse and learned how to move it, it was all a great adventure for them. They recognised that the computers gave out sound while they listened to a parliamentary debate as part of their project, and that it was also used for creating and presenting their own work. They had their own e-mail addresses and sent each other messages by this method of communication. Importantly they were aware of the School Computer Network Responsible use policy and they watched for “Bad Gateway” which told them this site was not safe. I have great admiration for the children and all teaching staff as they worked very hard to promote learning through ICT.
