No more nails...

Teacher: Where's your grammar?
Boy: She's in an old people's home.


Sorry, I couldn't help myself this morning with the awful jokes, having emerged blinking and rubbing my eyes from a grammar task that almost put me off my breakfast.




I recently explained the concept of the interactive whiteboard to my elderly mother. I could just as well have been talking about taking a school trip to the moon, so amazed was she. After thinking awhile about the possibility of showing a plant grow from seed to flower and seed again as a speeded up film or animation in front of a class of children, she added:


"How wonderful, now there won't be that horrible scratching noise in the classroom anymore."


My first encounter with an interactive whiteboard took place when I attended my first placement before applying to do PGCE. I was initially struck by how completely at ease the children were with this wonderful mine of possibilities in front of their totally un-astonished faces, and the horror of my own total ineptitude at all things computer-related. Suddenly the comfort of the blackboard, the thing I remember most from my school days, was a thing of the past. No more scratching it to give each other goose-pimples and no more writing naughty words on the back and waiting for the teacher to roll it down and reveal them. 

I actually grew to rather like the interactive whiteboard in my ten days at the school. The children appeared to know how to use it just as well as the teacher and loved any opportunity to get up and demonstrate this. It was tinted to help dyslexic members of the class and when it went out of sync, the pupils took turns to realign it for the teacher; a task of great pride! I was particularly impressed with the way it could be used as graph-paper where needed, a storyboard or a widescreen tv.


Recently I visited a school to observe a phonics lesson, and the interactive whiteboard came into its own again. This time the letters were movable and the children could form words with them, before they were confident at writing them out themselves. The IWB displayed high quality pictures at the same time, absolving the teacher from the embarrassing task of drawing the objects used to demonstrate the phonemes, or messing around with scrappy bits of paper and card.


There are so many different functions of an interactive whiteboard available for the teacher to use. The question for the teacher though, is how interactive does she or he want it to be exactly? This of course depends a lot on the confidence of the teacher with ICT skills and the time he or she wishes to devote to preparing interactive lessons on the IWB. I will try and "mess around" with as many functions as I can personally work out and see if I can produce anything remotely resembling an interactive tool for education. Ultimately it is the children who will benefit from this resource, and their patience with staring at a screen may be better than mine... Hang on, isn't the idea of it being interactive; not just staring at screens? Maybe the advent of interactive technology has finally enabled children to in a sense create their own learning and not just sit and wait for it to come to them. It surely heralds the beginning of a much more inclusive and democratic age in the classroom.


...and finally, something for my old mum who has never used the internet:


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1HYuO0EP5sU

Children and the Internet

I'm not even middle-aged, but I went to school before the internet as we know it, existed. This statement in itself shows how the interactive world has changed completely in the last twenty years. Teachers and parents used to warn us about strangers in the park and lecture us about bullying in the playground and after school. Children today still have these warnings and messages drilled into them, and a child who wouldn't dream of divulging personal information to an adult he has only just met, may not think twice about chatting to all sorts of people online. Similarly a parent may be blissfully unaware that their child is, alone and in her room, making another child's life a misery through cyber-bullying or vicious text messages. Any person who is embarking on a career with children and vulnerable young people needs to be aware of the virtual worlds most children inhabit, in and outside of the classroom.

Web2 has revolutionised the way we communicate. It has also changed the way we learn, and process new knowledge. Children can keep in touch with friends and family all over the world, classrooms in London can interact with classrooms in Lagos. Pupils can access and submit their homework online and in a format that may look to the average adult, more like a computer game than boring old study! There is no denying the fact that children love the internet and what it has to offer them; and why not? Increasing fears over safety have kept many of today's youngsters reclusive in their rooms after school; the internet has come to represent for many, a way to play with others and engage socially. 

Unfortunately, predatory adults and playground bullies have also taken just as easily to the internet as the children who use it to communicate and do their homework. Terminology such as "online-grooming" and "cyber-bullying" have recently entered our vocabulary. A child may appear physically safe but could be subject to sexual exploitation or vicious harassment while sitting in his or her room. 

It may be difficult as a teacher, to police what children do online at home. However the school must promote e-safety and insure that what they do in school is safe. Schools can set up secure networks, accessible only by pupils and teachers and to some extent parents. Children also need to be educated as part of their PSHE about the potential dangers online. Teachers also need to be aware of the way some children might themselves be using the internet for unsavoury purposes such as bullying or accessing content that is unsuitable for them and making it available to others. Violent video-clips are an example of this. Some schools even have set up initiatives across entire boroughs or counties to promote safe use of the internet here is an example of what is going on in Kent:

http://www.kenttrustweb.org.uk/Children/safeguards_esafety.cfm


While the above link is aimed at adults working in the sector, nationwide bodies such as CEOP have introduced colourful and fun campaigns for children. The video clip below tells children how to conduct themselves safely online and empowers young children in their virtual world. 


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=unIo2QVfO0w&feature=player_embedded

Finally, we as adults have to be responsible for our own online presence too. We know how curious children are about us and how easy it is for them to find things like our Twitter feeds or Facebook profiles. What sort of behaviour are we modelling for our students on these pages? 

Introductory Blog Post.

Hello!

It's been several years since I kept a blog. I used to write about music, literature, food and my daily observations. Today I am studying for a PGCE and I hope to be a primary school teacher this time next year. When I first blogged I was not particularly interested in who my readership were, or about how I portrayed myself to the world. As a teacher there are so many implications surrounding my use of web 2. 

The children I will be teaching have grown up with the internet as a totally natural part of their lives and will be completely at home using it. I on the other hand became a regular internet user as an adult and am still rather shaky around certain aspects of the interactive virtual world we are all part of. Not only do I have to consider my own online profile from now on, I must also acquaint myself with the ways in which children will be presenting and behaving themselves online, and learn how to harness the educating power of the internet to my classroom.


I am a somewhat reluctant ICT user and I feel that in many ways, the children may actually be able to teach me to appreciate this resource. In this way I feel that this may be the start of a two-way learning journey!