Time to Talk ICT

Howdy-Ho!

So ICT... Yes... I have had a very mixed experience of ICT in schools.

Year One: My first school I have worked in had some computers in the ICT room (that the year one class I was with did not have a chance to use whilst I was there) and a 'Roamer' in the school's cupboard collecting dust (until I got it out the cupboard to give poor Roamer a chance to Roam). My Second Experience was simular, but without Roamer. However children could use the ICT suite every two weeks, by splitting the class in half and alternating children doing ICT each week.

Year Two: The next teaching practice I was teaching in Finland, the school was moving from a 'spare' school back to their original school after a renovation. Therefore they did not have a lot of resources, particularly ICT. We used Blackboards and a projector onto a pull down screen to teach the majority of the time. They also had a CD player, which was only really used for teaching English off a CD. When I arrived then ofcourse they did not need the CD player any longer as I could ofcourse speak english in an English accent to them!

Year Three: In my third year teaching practice was the first school I have been in that had an interactice whiteboard, therefore the first time I got to use an Interactive Whiteboard in school. I used a Promethian Interactive whiteboard for most lessons, this was great! Well I thought so, occationally it when wrong and tended to not work on the school network very well for doing registers. However the idea of doing registers on the IWB I thought was a good idea, because when it's working it's immediate data onto the schools system, instead of having the office staff have to sort out absences by hand. Half the children had an opertunity to do ICT each week with a part time teacher, the suite was very modern with it's own interactive whiteboard.

Sometimes ICT was used to do what you could do without it, but it would not have looked as good, other times without ICT the lesson would not have got the same result.

How's your experience been? Please Comment :)

See you later