Schola Europaea European School Brussels II

18
PANORAMA
Should all children be using ICT throughout
the whole of the lesson? Should a group
be undertaking independent research and
then feedback to other class members?
There are many opportunities for the
teacher to make best use of time spent
using ICT within lessons.
Good lessons should interest, engage
and motivate pupils. This is where ICT
comes into its own. ICT should add
to the learning and not detract from it.
There are many wonderful opportunities
to bring topics to life by using sound,
images such as video clips without
sound so that the pupils have to imagine
conversations, and images with sound.
However, it is important that teachers
still consider whether learning is taking
place at an appropriate level for all pupils.
There should be elements of discussion
and different questioning techniques.
Teachers may wish to find still clips to
support an idea being discussed and
project it via a beamer or by the use of
an IWB.
Finally, methods and resources used
should enable all pupils to learn. Here
time should be spent considering whether
the teacher and/or the pupils are able to
achieve something more efficiently with
the use of ICT than without it.
It is important to remember that the
use of ICT within lessons should
enhance the quality of the lesson
and provide useful activities to take
the pupils’ learning forward.
ICT SUPPORTING LESSONS IN MOTHER
TONGUE
Using ICT in mother tongue lessons
provides many effective opportunities
to extend pupils’ learning. The use of
computers is a powerful and effective tool.
Children relish the opportunity to see their
work in print and experience increased
motivation and satisfaction when they have
produced their own work.
This unit will consider the following:
Pupils’ Use of Word Processing
The Use of Interactive Texts and
Resources
The Use of Interactive Whiteboards
PUPILS’ USE OF WORD PROCESSING
Any piece of written work can also be
undertaken using a word processing
program. When introducing a new topic,
pupils are often asked to identify the key
features of a particular genre which are
then recorded on a word document. This
document is beamed onto the wall or
directly onto a page from an IWB. This
writing, created collaboratively by the
pupils and teacher, can be clearly seen
by everyone and has the advantage
of enabling pupils to return to the key
features and add to them on different
days, by simply retrieving the saved word
document. This simple task of saving
work and projecting it onto a wall is
a very powerful tool. Whole class written
work can be undertaken directly into
a word document and saved. This is
turn can be edited to improve the quality