Changed Perspective of ICT in the Classroom

I'm approaching the end of week one in my first teaching placement and I can definitely say that I have learnt a lot already. One idea that has interested me is how my perspective on ICT in the classroom has changed since becoming a part of the BEd ICT specialism. As you can imagine before starting my teacher training I did lots of work experience in schools to set me up for what was to come and to build my knowledge on learning. However, I had never thought to question how technology was used around the school before. Throughout the course, we have learnt many ways to teach interactively. This does not necessarily mean teaching ICT as a subject, this means that we have learnt to use technology to benefit learning across the curriculum. For me this is really exciting as my specialism isn't just contained to a specific hour of the day.

Throughout my work experience, before starting university, I had always seen IWB's as useful because they stored previous notebooks and allowed the teacher to show children websites on big screen, and also I had never really questioned why classrooms would need to have more than the standard one computer in the corner of the classroom. 

When going into my placement on Monday morning I was suddenly so aware of which technology the school incorporated around the building, but also the ways that it could benefit each of the pupil's learning. I really don't think I've been able to be so critical or evaluative before until my perspective changed. From first view my classroom had an IWB and two computers. Obviously I questioned why this was. Was it because there were better ways for the teacher to present the lesson? Or was it because she was unaware of the many uses the board could bring? From the BEd I have seen so many ways an interactive whiteboard can be used to benefit the pupils and in this case it is just being used as a fancy way to jot things down. I have learnt technology needs to involve the children to create interactivity in their learning, rather than being used to exchange information.

Despite, the next day I was excited to see use of laptops in the school. At first I was a little negative that there were only enough for one between two in a class of thirty, but in some ways this promoted group work and collaboration as the children had to work together, sharing ideas to produce the piece of work. This was also productive in the few children that I noticed were lacking computer skills as their partner was able to show them new features or tools.

Today was a different experience all together. This afternoon we had a timetabled music lesson, I couldn't remember ever being part of one so I was definitely looking forward to it, although it took me by surprise. A man from the Devon Music Group had set out MacBook Pros around the classroom (he apparently comes in every week to take the lesson). The software was Garage Band, perfect for a music session. He then simply showed them an example from the class before, read out the learning objective and let them go. This was such an effective method as the children were able to be as creative as they liked with software, playing around with synths, bass' or just fun sound effects. Even those who normally find it difficult to concentrate started by adding some crazy sound effects, but later took them out when they found good alternatives. This whole lesson taught me that pupils often need to experiment and be imaginative in their learning and from this they will benefit the most.

Even if I had been a part of this fantastic music lesson before starting my degree, I would not have noticed the ways in which the technology was positively affecting the pupil's progress. After just over two months at Plymouth University I now see the use of ICT in the classroom completely differently as it needs to be a tool for supporting interactive learning rather than a tool to help teachers alone.

So yeah, loving my first teaching placement and hopefully I'll get round to sharing some more thoughts on it soon!

@HannahSheltonTT

Trying to be "a hammer not a nail"

Since last week's TeachMeet everything has been very busy; lots of lectures and seminars, #tmbolton live stream, becoming a part of @theheadsoffice's 100WC, going into a local school to do stop motion animation with the children and generally meeting new people involved in ICT... so lots to discuss!

This time next week I should be in Exmouth! Hopefully I'll be settled down in my accommodation by now and looking forward to starting my first teaching placement the next morning. I'm obviously really excited about getting into school without just being an observer, being able to get involved in what the children are learning will be so interesting. Last Monday afternoon we had an ICT lecture at Plymouth University where the regional manager from Education City, @kierandwyer, came in to tell us all about Education City and go through in depth what all the features do. I found this useful as although we had used it in a seminar it would have been hard to have learnt so much ourselves. 

To be honest, I hadn't thought much about this tweet as it has been my natural instinct (embarrassingly) just to go along with things, trying not to inconvenience anyone. However my lecturer, @ethinking tweeted back.

This got me thinking (and yeah if you've noticed I've quoted that in my twitter bio so that I can continue!). From this, I emailed the teacher that I'll be working alongside on my placement, mentioning the activities that I could contribute to the three weeks that I'll be there and she sounded more than happy for me do so. For me this whole hammer thing is a little bit of a challenge, but something that I've found has benefited me within the BEd course and within my personal learning network already. This definitely motivated me to respond to @theheadsoffice's request for people to become involved with 100WC. A challenge created by Julia Skinner to get under 16's writing one hundred words, through a blog, about that week's topic. So far I've read quite a few posts by the children and they are so interesting to read! You get a wide range of ages and abilities which makes a great variety of posts, some done as a class and presented in a certain way, or others from individuals. All the ideas I have read so far have been very creative, and some have even taken me by surprise with their thoughts.

I'm so glad that I've felt a bit more pressure to influence and become a part of things as I would have completely missed out on these useful and really fun opportunities.

From going to my first TeachMeet (reference to my last blog on here), I gathered at the uni with lots of other BEd students to watch the live stream of #tmbolton on Friday night which was good (with pasties!). And hopefully we'll be doing the same for the TeachMeet in London on Thursday evening (this time with "wine and nibbles" apparently) so looking forward to that and all the other exciting things to come with my teaching placement.

@HannahSheltonTT

TeachMeet Plymouth #tmbehaviour

Last night was my first TeachMeet, and as a first year student I didn't really know what to expect from the evening, except for it being a good opportunity to learn a little bit more about the topic of behaviour management.

It started with the opening slide of the hash tag #tmbehaviour, so I also got involved on twitter to share the opinions given during the evening. The Plymouth Education Society (who had organised the whole evening) started by introducing themselves to everyone, and spoke a little about TeachMeet. Then they got started, pulling a name from the bag as to who would talk first. It happened to be one of one the PES organisers, but she started with a quote from her lecturer recently, "If you have a well planned lesson where the children are engaged there won't be behaviour issues". And led this to an open discussion from us in the audience which was a great way to get started, and involve everyone. There were so many opinions on this topic, some people disagreed as 'you will always get children who find it difficult to engage with lessons', so even if you did have a perfectly planned lesson those particular children will still struggle to concentrate. Another comment was that teachers, in their planning, should plan around specific pupils with certain behaviour issues to engage them in what the class are learning. So many people had experiences of this idea from being in schools, which was really interesting as I haven't really looked at first hand behaviour management techniques yet.

Next out of the bag of names was Oliver who had made a little presentation of the starting with 'why' when making behaviour management decisions. He discussed a book he had been reading, 'Punished by Rewards' by Alfie Kohn in which he discusses how rewards such as stickers are not effective, and that they stop children wanting to work for themselves. An exciting condequence of Oliver's talk though was the discussion it caused afterwards. Everyone was getting involved with so many stories with the good things and bad things about the use of rewards and stickers.



Lots more views on the reward system, things such as a good job sticker, "does that mean that the children who don't get this sticker are doing a bad job?" Another person suggested something she had seen in schools, where the class have to fill up a jar of glass marbles. The glass marbles were given to a child when the teacher felt that they had done something really well and slowly, through a class effort the jar would fill up and they would all get a treat. I quite liked that idea of reward as it benefited the whole class' behaviour.

Later on in the evening the topic of 'ways to get children's attention' came up which was really good. This again became an open discussion with methods people had seen or used, which were effective. An idea that I hadn't heard of before was "I heard somewhere that children don't listen to the first 3 seconds of what a teacher says so shouting isn't always effective". I posted this on twitter at the time and got a couple of interesting responses.




Ideas of counting to ten, wiggly fingers and use of a tambourine came up of methods to quickly gain the whole class' attention. I did learn a very inventive idea last night too, of a train where the teacher says 'woo wooo' and the children reply with 'shh shh'! So clever!

In reply on twitter another lovely idea!


So yeah last night was amazing, so many passionate teachers contributing to the discussion which I loved. Everyone was so enthusiastic about all the topics raised and I learnt lots from the way people contributed with their experiences from in schools. Can't wait for the next one now!


@HannahSheltonTT