Schola Europaea European School Brussels II

BACKGROUND AND GENERAL
INTRODUCTION:
Before joining the European School in Luxembourg I worked in a primary school in the UK for
10 years. For six of those years I was the school’s ICT co-ordinator and a Leading ICT teacher
for the county. In this role I introduced interactive whiteboards (“IWB”) in all classrooms,
provided training sessions for members of staff, on both hardware and software, set up an
ICT club and wrote the school’s ICT policy.
I have decided to write this article so that readers will hopefully find it a useful working
document with practical ideas that may be used and adapted for their own teaching.
This article will address the following:
A. The enhancement of a good lesson by the use of ICT and
B. ICT supporting lessons in mother tongue
Due to the word limit the following will be added as an appendix:
Practical suggestions of how ICT can enhance cross-curricular lessons
THE ENHANCEMENT OF A GOOD LESSON
BY THE USE OF ICT
There are a number of ways in which
a good lesson can be enhanced by the use
of ICT. Many teachers will automatically be
considering the features of a good lesson in
the normal course of planning, so hopefully
the following will simply be a reminder. The
points are not in any particular order as
they are all equally important.
The lesson should be planned effectively
with ICT resources noted in the planning.
These may include the use of a CD
player, websites, IWB, pairwork or
individual work on a PC or a visit to
the ICT suite. The use of ICT should be
noted in the long-term, medium-term
and short-term planning documents.
Working notes should be recorded after
the teaching to provide a record as to
the effectiveness of the resources used
for future reference.
The teacher should possess good subject
knowledge and recognise how ICT
supports the learning objectives. There
should be a conscious decision as to
when and when not to use ICT. Therefore
careful planning needs to take place
to ensure that the ICT activity chosen
is not chosen simply because it would
interest the pupils, but also because it
supports the learning objective.
Pupils should be challenged and ICT can
be used effectively for this purpose. It
can extend or support pupils’ learning.
Teachers are able to make good use of
differentiated questioning from a web
address for example when children have
to search, skim and scan for information.
Good lessons make effective use of time
and the use of ICT should be considered.
PANORAMA
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