Classroom tips for a more effective use of ICT

ICT experts

We all know students thrive off responsibility and we know that there are students in your class that know ICT better than us. Allow students in your classroom that know technology to be the first point of call for any ICT needs, before you. This frees you from a line of student’s as well as

Prepare:

The same way that you would set up any other learning environment set up the ICT environment, by opening the app or plugging in headphones anything that means your students can start their learning right away.

Teach the aspects ICT:

Encourage students use ICT as a learning tool. Teach them about emailing, teach them to research, and teach them that there are apps available. Don’t just introduce them to a program, learn it yourself and teach them how to use the program. There is no point creating an Imovie, if the students are not learning about and using different tools. Be specific in criteria; ensure they use different components of the ICT if they are using it.

Learn on ICT:

As much as we are teaching the students about ICT and how to use it, there are fantastic tools available in the App store and great websites that are engaging that can be done as “activities”. I think there are two sides of ICT in the classroom, one is learning about it and the other is utilising what you’ve got and doing activities on them, purely because it is engaging for the students.

To clarify, I believe opening up “reading eggs” and doing activities on the iPad is NOT teaching the kids about ICT, is it an activity. It is however a fantastic literacy resource provided students are working at the correct levels and challenging themselves. This needs to be monitored by you.

Google it

Let’s be honest, if a child asked me a question and I didn't know the answer, I’d Google it! It is the 21^st century and our reality is the Internet so you need to teach your students how to use it effectively. This obviously can’t be our only source, but sometimes we can get very hypocritical.

Safety first

In schools almost everything on the Internet is blocked but when they get home and turn on their iPad, the safety net is no longer there. Safety should continually be reinforced when using these tools.

Fix it, teach it and pass it on

Those horrid lines of students cued up for some teacher assistance when the same thing goes wrong with every computer or every iPad in the classroom. Instead of frantically grabbing it, fixing it and yelling next. Fix the problem, whilst showing the student how to fix the problem, that way the two you can be fixing the problem for someone else, then suddenly there is 4 in the room that can fix the problem.

Find a happy Medium

As classroom teachers we need to find the happy between not enough technology and too much technology. The reluctant ones, still need to learn as their future will be a lot more “ICT” than it is now and they need to know there way around it. Even though some kids would chose to create a “digital” version of something, they still need to put pen to paper.