Penpals?

It seems quite sad that my Nice ICT Blogspot will be defunct in a matter of minutes. Though I haven't made the best use of this tool, it has been useful to read back over the things I have blogged about. I could easily have blogged more frequently with ICT/Education related stories in the news, because it really is all around us. In my experience of SBT1, I have seen ICT used to a certain extent, but perhaps not as an integral part of the school day. This may or may not be a badt thing at KS1, I'm still undecided.

I've found this blog easy to update because I had blogs before - which you can see in my profile page - and have recommended people to the Blogger service because it is easy to understand and use. In all of the things we have studied in our ICT sessions at uni, I have learned more and more how ICT can be used for communication and writing. Blogs are a perfect way to maintain a regular dialogue with your readers on a specific subject, and it is good writing practise for the blogger, too! We can see this progression from simple web-based ramblings, to respected writing in things like the Weblog Awards, and the ever-increasing list of blogs being published as books. So, the blogging process has been a good one.

I have also become a Wiki campaigner. I think they are a fantastic tool! They have a few problems (i'm still a little wary of making things completely public) but are largely very useful. Ideal for coordinating a project or event with people who are across the country, I could see schools connecting with one another by way of a wiki. I have set up another wiki recently, for a slightly silly project that my family decided to embark on, but feel free to take a look - Jacket on a Journey.

More than anything, I have high hopes to get children connecting with one another on school projects, extra curricular stuff, and just generally being able to see what other children their age are doing at school. Because I believe that would make school less of a monotonous daily routine (not that my lessons will ever be monotonous!) and more of an exciting learning process that goes on all over the world! So here's a cartoon by NatalieDee that you have to click on to see all of, but it's kinda fun!

The penultimate week in school

This week in school, I have been using ICT much more in my lessons, though it seems that the school doesn't actually timetable ICT into the week. So, I have had children finding out information on the Great Fire of London using CD-Roms and computer programs, I have created interactive slideshows for maths and literacy lessons, used the ActivPrimary program for the Promethean Whiteboard, and I have shown DVDs and videos in lessons.

I have found powerpoint to be a really useful tool for making simple but effective presentations to help children visualise 2D shapes for example and also in a lesson on alphabetical order. Even though the animations etc are fairly simple in comparison to the capability of the IWB, the children enjoy seeing words zip in and out of the screen, shrink and grow, and change colour.

Working with a year 2 class, I haven't been able to introduce things like discussion boards, blogs, wikis and other web-based ICT, but I am sure there is a time and place for that. In my classroom, the children are all very capable when it comes to finding their way around the computers; there are quite often queues for the computers during choosing time in the afternoon! However, I do not know what level the children are at in terms of ability to use MSOffice programs, for example. At the moment they seem to be working with slightly child-friendly, primary versions of Word and Excel, which is great. In fact, it's probably better than showing them the decidedly business-like Microsoft software anyway. Their time will come!