A Laptop for Every Child...

In my placement school every child in KS2 has been provided with a laptop from the school. These are taken home but brought into school about two days a week.

I saw them being used in the Yr 4 class with whom I am placed. During one lesson i observed the children were using them to research about WWII.

However, they're use i thought, was a waste of time. It took about 15 minutes for them all to get switched on and up and running. Lots of children had forgotten to charge their laptops and there was no places to plug them in in the classroom so many had to share. About 5 out of the 30 children had also managed to delete their Internet settings so couldn't get online while another 3 children couldn't get there laptops to work at all so they had to be sent off to be fixed by the schools ICT technician.

The lesson was not guided by the teacher and the vast majority of children failed to find the relevant information that they were looking for about the war and also struggled to find anything aimed at children their age. They came out with the most bizarre and wildly varying ideas about the Blitz. Some saying that they had found out that 45 people died in the Blitz while others said it was 675 etc.

I thought the whole lesson rather pointless.

But how could it be improved?

I'm not sure how you could get around all the technical problems with the laptop. However, I do think that there should have been more guidance about where to look for relevant information. I also think that the teacher should have got the class to collectively discuss their findings at the end of the lesson so that some of the random ideas that the children were forming about what the blitz was could be molded into a more accurate set of ideas.

All in all observing a 'laptop' lesson has made me worried about planning a lesson where laptops are used! I fear it could all be a tremendous faff. I would much prefer to use a well laid out ICT Suite so that i can keep an eye on what all the children are looking at and so that all children can have a functioning computer.

Why we blog...

Just read an interesting and very readable article by Nardi et al. (2004) concerning why people blog. It concludes that there are five main motivations....

• Bloggers are driven to document their lives,
• provide commentary and opinions,
• express deeply felt emotions,
• articulate ideas through writing,
• and form and maintain community forums.

I feel that the fourth reason is most applicable to me. I find it far easier to articulate my ideas in writing then through speaking. I suppose this goes back to learning styles... in the test we did in class i only scored 15 for auditory, an average 25 for kinesthetic and a massive 35 for visual. I by far had the highest gaps in my scores than anyone else in the class!

To read the article on Blogging see

http://delivery.acm.org/10.1145/1040000/1035163/p41-nardi.pdf?key1=1035163&key2=0080613911&coll=GUIDE&dl=GUIDE&CFID=40177419&CFTOKEN=48111681

Blogging...

it has just occurred to me that i really enjoy blogging. previous to keeping this blog i had another one which was just a general diary. it got me thinking. why blogging is so popular? why is it enjoyable? and how is it different from keeping a written diary?

i think perhaps, like a hand written diary, the process of recording your thoughts can be cathartic and help you organise and reflect on ideas, information and emotions in a more considered way than if these thoughts were running around inside your head. it also initiates me to ask more questions... quite like i am now i suppose! it also helps you make connections between things and stimulates further enquiry.

like now, i am wondering if anyone has conducted research into why people enjoy blogging. I've read some research studies into what people blog about but it never mentioned why they blog. and surely people blog because they enjoy it. (well unless you are forced to. no doubt some students on this course curse the fact they have to make regular posts, lol).

i shall google scholar it!

My New Laptop

it's not going too badly with my new laptop. Although it still won't connect to wireless in my house because of an encryption problem. And when i'm in the libaray using wireless it disconnects all the time... which is very annoying, especially when there's this tool bar which has the words 'Acer; Empowering Technology' scrolling across it. I don't feel very empowered it must be said. Nor do i understand why my old 4 yr old laptop model had a better built in wireless card than does this one?

I have had a look at some of the extra features on this 'notebook' and realised that it has a built in webcam. I'm not quite sure if i'll ever use this as i don't have skype but it's certainly very clever and easy peasy to use. it's also meant i've had the chance to fiddle around with movie editing which is a skill i will need in school.


I also really like the new Microsoft Office 2007, well, now i've gotton used to it anyway. It is actually more simple to use than the old one once you pick up how to navigate around it.

When Technology Goes Wrong...

I was dismayed on Friday evening when my ever faithful and never faulty laptop of 3 and a half years suddenly went black. Apparently it has a unfixable hardware problem. It suddenly occurred to me how central my laptop is to my everyday life and its death put pay to all my plans for the weekend.

I had to spend Saturday travelling home so that I could go with my mum to buy a new laptop. I now have a lovely shiny Acer with Windows Vista... but I’m finding it tricky to get to grips with. Everything is in different places, I have had to install various software like Microsoft Office, and my various work files are all on my old laptop. To make matters even more difficult this laptop will not connected to internet at my house. It really does not like the BeBox router. It connects to my BT homehub in Bath or to ISS in the library but says its security settings are not compatible with the BeBox.

But what’s to be done? I have no idea. This entire weekend seems to have been spent faffing around with technology. Yet £700 I am still struggling and wishing my dear old laptop was still with me.

Having said all this, it has taught me one thing;

In all my reading I have been highly annoyed at the amount of teachers who are reported to be avoiding using the available technology in their classrooms because they are technophobes. Now I have this new laptop I perhaps appreciate their avoidance of ICT and wishes to stick with their old ways. I mean, if I could, I would revert back to using my old laptop rather than using this new one.

It is very challenging to adapt to new things, especially when they are having teething problems. I am certainly hating using Windows Vista. It just seems like more trouble than it’s worth. I don’t know how it works. It seems totally over complicated.

So what am I learning from this experience? Persistence is the key! I shall keep this blog updated. And who knows, perhaps in a few weeks time i will be shouting from the rooftops about how fantastic Windows Vista is... or perhaps i will not! Only time will tell. In the meantime i will continue to mourn my good old Acer!!

Wikis

Today in ICT we were exploring the world of wikis. We watched a funny llittle video which explained both their purpose and how to use them. It is all very simple. We then played in the Sandbox at http://learningresources.jot.com/Sandbox, adding url links and uploading and linking to photos and documents. I put up a link to a photo of my wellies. Other links included funny ones, like a picture of 'Monty the Magnificant' as well as more useful ones which linked to teaching resources.

I found it all very straight forward and can imagine that children would pick up how to effectively use wikis with relative ease as they won't be scared of doing something wrong like adults tend to be!

When i start teaching in a school i would like to set up a wiki with links to local history resourses.

Reflections on Davis' Article from the Guardian

I was interested to read about the power of the software developer in Davis' article . I had not previously considered the fact that because companies are affiliated with the National Curriculum online they have a say in what gets taught in our schools. Furthermore, i agree that the lack of ICT skills and confidence among teachers is exacerbating the problem because teachers do not modify or individualise the information presented in, or format of, software packages.

My First ICT PGCE Blog

Today we are all playing around with blogs in our ICt Class. The purpose of this blog is to form part of a portfolio to demonstrate that we are all being reflective ICT learners.