Well this is blog number 2!! I have had several interesting encounters with ICT in my placement schools so far. In my pervious placement – I witnessed a Year 7 Mathematics classroom which was using ICT in an unusual way. All the students were using their laptops which were linked up to the teacher’s computer through the wireless network. Instead of the teacher writing on the board, she was writing notes/questions on her laptop which were then appearing on the student’s laptops. I think it is called interactive classroom? After the teacher wrote a question, the students would individually write in the solution on their laptops. This meant that they each student automatically got a copy of the notes and could take them home to continue work on their laptop.
In theory, this was a great idea – however there were several technological difficulties! Throughout the class, many of the student’s computers started dropping out of wireless connection and the notes were not appearing on their computers. The students eventually had to just write up the notes on the computer themselves. I personally think that in this case, it would have been much more efficient and practical to have the students write the notes by hand in the first place. Much of the lesson time was wasted with students complaining that their computers weren’t working and needed help. This doesn’t mean that I don’t think this program should be used in maths! I think for quick pop quizzes etc, this would be a great tool (given the connection works). I had never witnessed a program like this in use and would be interested to see other ways in which it could work successfully and enhance learning.
ps. took me awhile to figure out how to post this!
