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After reading ‘Redesigning Education: Meeting the Challenges of the 21st Century’ (Hallissy, Butler, Marshall, Hurley, 2013) I felt that in today’s classroom we need to prepare children for working in a fast paced digital world. they need to go out into the working world ready and willing to adapt to the ever changing landscape. The rate of development in technology is staggering and being able to keep up to date with it and not be left behind is essential for the children of tomorrow. In schools then we should focus on developing these skills in children so they are as prepared as they can be.
Here is a link to my Sway that I made about analyzing sources of information.
In today’s world we are bombarded with information on a daily basis. different news sources tell us what they want us to think, different politicians will tell us their own agendas, companies will tell you to buy their products, YouTube and social media drown us in everyone daily lives and give children role models out of people who make videos on the internet. There is a lot going on in the world that children need to kept safe from and it is getting harder and harder to do so. Teaching children how to be smart about what they are being told is becoming a more and more vital skill every day. In the classroom the teacher needs to show the children how they can analysis information and how to question what they are being told. Children are the most vulnerable to just believing what they are being told without question and therefor the most at risk of being manipulated. Schools need to include how to manage information as part of their Digital Learning Policies as a result and hopefully teach children how to be cautious of what they are being told.
I am the lead IT coordinator in my school and it falls to me to update our computers, order new equipment, demonstrate new apps, programs and technology to the staff as well as write up our digital learning policy. In my personal opinion IT is a valuable resource that is very important for all children to become familiar with. The world children are growing up in these days is a digital world and we would be doing them a disservice if we did not prepare them with the skills they need to navigate it. I do not believe however that IT should replace every other toll for teaching. Reading out of a book and writing on paper are still very vital skills that the children need to develop. IT can be and should be used as a tool to enhance any lesson.
Most recently i have bought a supply of iPads for our school. This has proven to be a great addition to the lessons they teacher are teaching. They are using them in conjunction with their own teaching methods and it has really enhanced the children learning. The engagement alone from the iPads has been fantastic. this is how i look at each new piece of technology that comes to the school. how will it enhance the teaching of our staff? will it be too much of a distraction? is it a gimmick that has no long term sticking power? I take this into consideration before bringing anything into the school.
When the recent Digital Learning Strategies came out we took all that information on board when developing our own Digital Learning Policy in the school. Whenever a decision is to be made regarding IT we make sure to consult our policy and apply the School Self Evaluation Guidelines to ensure we make informed choices.
In developing our Digital Learning we found that the children who have special needs benefit the most from their use. Children with Dyslexia or general learning difficulties are more willing to try at lessons as they don’t have to write something down, they feel less afraid of a wrong answer when the questions are presented to them in a game format. This has been great in helping to develop their learning in their needed areas and the SET team have really taken IT onboard after seeing the results.
Here is a link to my OneNote lesson.
I found this to be a great way to keep all my notes in one place and have them easily accessed. I can see this being a very useful tool for planning lessons especially if there is any collaboration required. sharing notes and resources can be very helpful in maximizing the engagement of your lesson. I like that you could put in your own worksheets that the children can then access themselves. this will save a lot of paper and children losing their pages in their bags.
OneNote also opes up a great avenue for child cooperation. They will be able to work on so much more together than just projects. Children could even use this with maths to show each other how they do their work and well as use it in English lessons to collaboratively write stories together. As a teacher i will be able to see what they are doing in real time and help those who need it.
After having used Teams for the first time during this course I can really see its benefits. I can see that it can be a great hub for both staff and children. For Staff it is a great place to share resources and a place to house and access easily all the important documents and files that staff members need on a daily or weekly basis.
for children it is a great way for them to upload homework for the teacher to see. they can also use it collaboratively to work on projects together. The real time communication it provides can be very helpful to children but it would need to be carefully monitored by a teacher.
With PowerPoint i never knew you could record yourself over the slides. this will be a big intensive for the child in my class as we use PowerPoint a lot for their projects and now they will be able to record themselves over the slides. they will enjoy this a lot I imagine. this will really increase their engagement with the lesson and verbalizing what they have studied is a great way to get that information to stick. Below is my own PowerPoint, it is a test run of how to use it.
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Here is a link to my Forums Quiz.
I think forums is an excellent tool that can be used in may different ways to engage children’s learning in the classroom. I think that using this combined with good IT resources can be very useful in helping engage children who otherwise would not be interested in the topic you are doing. this would also be great and helping those weaker children who feel pressured when it comes to writing things down.
I think Sway is an great tool to creative projects. I think it is a great way to promote collaboration in the classroom between the children as well as develop their presentation and oral language skills. I will be using this in the future. I feel like sway can be used to take the sting out of those big projects that children do throughout the year. They will be able to work together with each other and not have to worry about stationary or resources like that. it will also be easier for them to to work on it when it suits them and their daily schedule.