The impact of ICT and the digital age on my teaching has had and is having a huge effect, from planning, resourcing, teaching to assessing. It really makes me wonder and look forward to the impact of ICT on teaching in ten or even five years’ time. I also look forward to more opportunities to use features such as Google Earth and Street View and with cross curriculur links get children to send emails or upload art work created with ICT software. There are so many ICT possibilities that, from what I’ve seen in schools, just aren’t used to their full potential. This is particularly sad when the children know more than some of the teachers and are desperate to use these technologies!

The ease of setting up a blog, one that is easy to navigate and is customisable, is appealing to me, particularly for use as a class blog. I would love to set up a class blog which could be updated as part of an ICT club by the children or me and I think it’s a great way and an instant way to show parents what has been happening at school. It’s something for the children to be proud of and take ownership of as well.

As for me I will continue with my personal, protected blog as normal however I would definitely consider an education blog to share resources and lesson plans/ideas as the blog I mentioned above does. The type of audience reading the blog does make me consider the structure and the content of my writing as blogs tend to be something that is skim read for the most relevant pieces of information. In addition it makes me reflect on what I would like to read about and what are the interesting aspects of what I want to say so that the blog is not full of dry waffle. Using this blog has made me think about the millions of other bloggers out there and has made me consider just how reliant I am on ICT and its growing prominence in my personal and professional life.

All classrooms were equipped with interactive white boards and teachers had their own laptop connected to the smartboards. Teachers also had a digital camera for use in class, for teaching and assessment. Children were also allowed to operate the camera to take pictures, e.g. of their final DT project. All teachers used the IWB as part of their everyday teaching and encouraged children to take part with the use of the IWB. In planning sessions, the team of teachers would plan on one laptop (in a weekly plan) which could then be put on the server for all the teachers to access.

The school was also equipped with a room which was used as an ICT suite, however portable laptop trolleys were used in this room rather than static desktops. Teachers tended to book the use of the laptop trolleys (through an electronic booking system on the network) in favour of using the ICT suite. Despite the good provision of laptops (usually one between two children) they were frequently unreliable in their ability to connect to the network thus presenting problems in logging on.

Although I did not see them being used in class, the school also had Roamers and Pedometers/Heart rate monitors for use in PE.

The school works through a project system where certain subjects (discounting maths and literacy) have more dominance in certain topics. The topic that was taking place whilst I was there had no ICT focus, although children did use the internet for research in a literacy lesson I taught. In a music lesson used software called “Groovy” to make their own compositions, which they enjoyed. Children in my class also used laptops to play BBC Bitesize games and other related interactive games during a science lesson where there was a carousel of activities. Teachers also mentioned having used a programme called Flowol with an electricity topic in science to make a working lighthouse.

I did not see any ICT lessons as such, although children enjoyed the use of the laptops and some attended a computer club after school. Moreover in their free choice time on Friday afternoons, some children voted to use laptops to play online computer games. Also, teachers used their laptops to play music, DVDs and video clips to enhance learning or during Friday afternoons.

The children had real interest in ICT (as their animated talk of Nintendo DS and Facebook showed) and were motivated in topics such as literacy when they had the chance to use it, however monitoring that they were on task and not on alternative websites was an issue at times. I didn’t perceive that ICT was used to its full advantage in teaching or in learning, perhaps due to lack of resources and lack of confidence or expertise by some of the teachers. Issues with laptops really slowed down the pace of lessons and became frustrating and demotivating for staff and children, creating a reluctance to even use the laptops!

In conclusion I would not fully support the notion that ICT does improve standards and performance, simply because the consistency of its use is not in place, nor is the confidence and ability of some teachers to use ICT to its full advantage. Like all subjects the children’s capability in ICT varies and whilst it frees up some children from the chores of pen and paper, it can prove a challenge to those who struggle with distractions and keeping focused. Whilst freedom and unrestricted access to ICT seems ideal and beneficial to learning, it is rarely feesible with a lack of resources and children who stray off task.

ICT is a big part of my life which I find fascinating and exciting. I look forward to using a wide variety of ICT in the classroom and hope to utilise the changing face of technology as much as possible.