Blog Post - Week 4 : Reflections on the use of technology/new literacies from our school visit.

I feel my understanding in the use of new technologies in the classroom really developed through this school visit. One aspect which really surprised me, was how confident the children were with these technologies, and in many cases were actually teaching me skills I had never experienced before (Montague-Smith & Winstone, 1998). This may be because children are “being exposed earlier and earlier to electronically and digitally produced texts” which means they treat these with ease and familiarity (Marsh & Millard, 2000: p5). When on my last school experience, the establishment lacked ICT facilities due to budgets. However, our recent visit taught me that some high quality equipment can be reasonably priced and therefore, this is something I would like to develop for my next school experience (Audain, 2014). A child from my group wanted to display his data through a pie chart. It surprised me that he chose to draw this out rather than use an iPad app as he explained he knew how to do this and wanted to draw and colour it for himself. Therefore in this case, technology was a choice rather than a necessity. It became particularly apparent to me how using ICT developed children’s skills in a variety of ways for example the children were able to access, select and interpret their data quickly and relatively easily. Also, each group     successfully communicated their chosen topic and presented their information in a creative way. Through this, the group showed independence and confidence in their abilities to sort and process data efficiently whilst building curricular learning skills throughout (Duffty,2009).

One of the challenges we faced was due to the busy nature of the classroom. Consequently when children recorded sound clips, there was a great deal of background noise. This was a challenge which we used trial and error to address as we identified the issue and then used problem solving to overcome this (Audain, 2014). Another would be the chance of one child dominating with the collaborative working and therefore other members being frustrated and becoming lazy (Baines et al, 2009). Consequently, it would be really important to include detailed plans ensuring all the members of the group have their own role and responsibilities when using technology. 

A question which has now arisen for me is how I can incorporate ICT into my next teaching practice and how I can take advantage of the facilities this school may offer. Following this, how I could potentially encourage ICT in the school if this in area which is not supported as widely.

I have learnt how powerful a school website can be, especially with a blog attached to this. Also, by using real data, the children’s attitudes to their work were very positive and this created purpose to their investigations as they would be later posted on their school blog for all their parents to see. Therefore, the children were very conscious of the standards of work being created.

Marsh,J., Millard, E., (2000) Literacy and Popular Culture- Using children culture in the classroom, London and California: Paul Chapman Publishing Ltd and SAGE Publications Inc.

J.Audain.,(2014)The Ultimate Guide To Using ICT Across The Curriculum, London and New York: Bloomsbury Publishing Plc.

Duffty,J.,(2009) Knowledge in Practice- Primary ICT, London: Learning Matters Ltd.

Montague-Smith, A., Winstone,L., (1998) Supporting Science and Technology, Great Britain: David Fulton Publishers.

Baines,E., Blatchford,P., Kutnick,P., Chowne,A., Ota,K., Berdondhi,L., (2009) Promoting effective group work in the Primary Classroom, Oxon: Routledge.