Week 3

It's late on Tuesday afternoon and I'm exhausted after a day of intense reading. Yet here I am still working...

We didn't have an ICT tutorial this week as we had lectures about our Masters Research project instead. However I have done quite a lot of reading today about the use of ICT. I have read about current educational software, for which there is differing opinion regarding its educational benefit, virtual texts in particular. I haven't seen them in practice myself so I am looking forward to going into school next week and seeing if I can see for myself, it's difficult to make a connection withour any experience. I don't like to just take other's word as truth, I'd much rather find out for myself.

I have been using new technology in the home this week. I have learnt how to connect my laptop to my tv, so that I can view photos enlarged! The problem is that you have to turn off the tv and the computer before plugging in the lead, then you have to turn it all on, and then.. it doesn't recognise the pc input!!! So we have to do it all over again several times and then, miraculously it just works? !! Maybe one day I'll figure it out!

Ooh another thing that I remember reading about was the fact that some children really hate their handwriting, maybe they missed the week that joined up writing was taught, and using a word processor gives them much more confidence. Also helpful for children with dyslexia who struggle with spellings as the spell checker, dictionary and thesaurus can all be used as a guidance tool, although they may need help identifing the first letter sometimes, this also gives them more confidence and helps them focus on the learning, rather than worrying they can't do it.

I have been searching the web for journal articles for my Masters assignment and can't believe how many resources are out there!!! One that I found really good, and went and found it in the journal section in the library is 'Junior' magazine by Scholastic, brilliant resources in a magazine for KS2, there is a KS1 equivalent too.

I am going to download the smartboard software onto my computer this week, so that I can start to use it in schools when I start teaching myself. I hope my school has a smart board, the schools I've been in on teaching practice either didn't have them or didn't use them and I think they can be so beneficial bothe to the learning of the children and to make my lessons more fun, interactive and engaging to the children. I really want to help them become more interactive with their own learning.

Anyway, must be off, dinner is cooking and I need the energy!!!

See you all next week with some exciting news from school I hope!