This week I am giving training to a group of History PGCE students at the University of East Anglia. I have created the resources below for teachers of any subject who are planning to use an ICT room. There are probably a few good ideas for ICT specialist teachers too!
Planning the lesson
Never work with children or computers! Both can be highly unpredictable and uncooperative. However, if you are foolhardy enough to give it a go, your lesson will depend on how prepared you are. To view a useful document on ideas to consider whilst planning your lesson click here
Lesson Resources
I always start a lesson with a welcome presentation. It gives the students something to do as soon as they walk in the room. Once everyone is logged on and I am ready to proceed I then show the lesson aims on slide 2. At the end of the lesson I show a plenary using slide 3. To view an example click on Welcome.ppt
An effective use of ICT for other subjects is to gather useful information. To maximise the time available it is good to give the students a document to help guide their research. To view an example click on research activity
If you wish students to gather images as well as text it is often better for them to do so using PowerPoint rather than Word. I’ve created a kind of scrapbook template. To understand how it works you will need to save the file and see it in editing view. I have already created some blank slides and inserted instructions to guide them by putting a text box off the slide. The students can also use the notes section to paste in any useful text. To save and view and example right click, save target as Scrapbook . The information can then easily be adapted into any kind of product, or simply printed off to be used in another lesson.
Comments
If you have any ideas or feedback on these resources, click on the comments link and post a comment.
Comment by Nicola Cooper
19 October 31, 2006, 8:58 pm o'clock |
I found the ICT lesson today very interesting and of great practical use. For me, computing has always been something that I have had to simply muddled through with and teach myself, so being able to pick up so many tips from an expert was incredibly useful.
The main points I picked up are:
1. Various classroom management techniques for use in the ICT suite. Alex’s ideas about having a welcome task, the seating plan on the door and the various ways of giving the children instructions was really good. I can imagine that ICT lessons could be nightmere(espiecally when the class is quite new to you and you don’t know all of their names) so to be able to have a handful of planned stratgies in place will be really useful.
2. Soft worksheets/ templates - I thought that this was brilliant. To be able to direct the children to the website that you know will be of use to them and to model and structure thier learning with templates are so important. It means that children learn History in the ICT lesson rather than mastering their skills in cutting and pasting documents. They actually have to think about what they are doing - and read the text/sources/evidence etc.
3. Tips and little snippets - it was so helpful to learn the small things too! Like those quick keyboard moves that people assume that you know when you don’t (and secretly want to) but don’t ask because you look stupid!
4. Movie Maker - I really enjoyed this.I think that I will need more practice though. I can see how enjoyable it could be for the children and how with confidence in the ICT classroom one could use productively in History teaching.
Thanks Alex
Comment by Emily
18 October 31, 2006, 8:09 pm o'clock |
I think todays ICT was very useful and informative. The ‘golden nugget’ that I will personally take away from the session is that with ICT lessons pupils’ are unable to do two things at once; .i.e. if teaching history using ICT, don’t teach ICT at the same time.
I also enjoyed learning how to use movie maker and I hope to be able to put my new knowledge into practice soon!
Comment by Helen
17 October 31, 2006, 6:01 pm o'clock |
Todays ICT seminar was interesting in testing our curent skills in certain programs, and in learning new skills. However, I don’t know how relevant using movie maker would be in the classroom environment.
Comment by Ben Nutt
16 October 31, 2006, 6:01 pm o'clock |
One idea that I found useful from the session today was the idea of soft handouts instead of printed worksheets as a way to administer a tasks. This gives all students a clear sturcture of the tasks set and allows students to manipulate information and data themselves.
Comment by Rebecca Lewis
15 October 31, 2006, 5:59 pm o'clock |
The idea of a welcome task in an ICT lesson, to occupy pupils when they arrive, seemed a good idea as I would be concerned about pupils surfing the internet for information unrelated to the lesson. It occured to me today that different people might work at a different rate. Therefore instructions posted on the white board are a good idea.
Movie Maker is something I’ve never used before and I was interested in how it could be used in the context of a history lesson. I feel as though I would need alot more practice before doing something like this with a class, however the session provided a useful introduction.
Comment by Bob Robertson
14 October 31, 2006, 5:59 pm o'clock |
I found this afternoon’s session highly informative, and it made me consider more carefully the role of ICT in the classroom. Before this afternoon’s session I had not fully grasped the length of time needed for each task. Whilst I think there is a danger of technological overload, I can see the obvious attractions of using video editing equipment. This sort of interactive activity will doubtless appeal to a wide range of children. However, this not something that I would like to try out in the classroom just yet. I think that one has to be very sure of one’s classroom managerial skills before attempting a lesson of this scope. It was iinteresting to learn how to combine audio and visual
Comment by Lucy
13 October 31, 2006, 5:59 pm o'clock |
Key ideas from today:
1. Teaching using the web needs to be extremely focused and directed - it’s very easy for anyone to get distracted by the internet and for Year 8 on a windy afternoon, it’s even easier. Using one website only to start with, will help focus them and provides an easy way to keep tabs on students - you can see at a glance what sites they are on!
2. In order to keep pupils focused on the lesson plan, it is helpful to keep giving them strict timings so that they finish tasks in time but don’t wander off onto other sites.
3. Planning for ICT lessons is even more time-consuming than a normal lesson - they are to be approached with caution and plenty of back-up plans.
Comment by Katie Howell
12 October 31, 2006, 5:59 pm o'clock |
I found today very useful and hope to use some of the programmes and ideas that we have used within my lessons. Some of the most useful aspects were how to use movie maker to create something interesting and exciting. I also found some of the simple but extremely useful short-cuts for windows which I had not known of previously.
Comment by Stacey
11 October 31, 2006, 5:58 pm o'clock |
I found this lesson extremely helpful as an introduction to the use of movie maker in the classroom. I think that the tips that Alex privided on teching using ICT will be very useful and plan to use the Welcome slide containing a mini task in order that the pupils have an activity to get on with as soon as they enter the classroom. I realised that teching using ICT needs alot more structure than I had previously thought and not to be too ambitious about the amount of work to be expected from the pupils. The main thing I have taken from the lesson is that using ICT to teach history needs very careful planning, with very norrows learning aims and absolutely clear guidelines and instructions. Alex has successfully put me off using ICT to tech history.
Comment by Gemma Theobald
10 October 31, 2006, 5:58 pm o'clock |
Some of the most useful things I have brought from today’s session…
Soft worksheets are useful for providing quick access to websites and guiding tasks.
Clear instructions as to time allowed for each section of the task are vital for working in ICT rooms with pupils - ensuring they understand how much they have to get done in the time allowed. For this to work effectively pupils should be given reasonably concise instructions at each interval.
Pupils should not be asked to work in large groups (this fails to ensure complete participation) while pair work can help pupils to work in an assured and confident way.
Reminding pupils to save work is vital to avoid mini disasters!
There is often a huge difference in pupil and teacher perspectives on time - teachers often feel they want to push on with work while, in fact, pupils may feel rushed and pressured to complete work. If done in a balanced way, however, this can encourage pace in a lesson.