ICTs in the classroom

This post is about some troublesome practicalities of using ICTs in the classroom and reasons why we should persist with using them. Unfortunately we would all be experienced in the frustrating occurrence of technical issues when trying to work with ICTs! Incredibly (and very very frustratingly) as I was setting up to write this very blog post, my computer crashed three times and my wireless internet has decided to be so intermittent so that i wonder if I will even actually be able to upload this post once I am finished writing!

A fellow EDC3100 student wrote a post about the lack of success of integrating ICTs usefully into the classroom due to the inevitable technical issues that seem to come part in parcel with technology! ( You can check out Jessica's blog here.) As I commented on her post about my common experiences of technical issues and the lack of resources that impede the use of ICTs in schools whilst on my professional experiences i thought about why we should persist in their use and implementation.

Rather obvious and very well supported by literature is the fact that we live in a global community that relies heavily on ICTs and that we need to equip our students with the tools and ability to succeed in any future endeavour. The only way to effectively do that is to seamlessly use the very tools and global communities that they will need to engage with as adults in the classroom.

Another reason that ICT's are worth persisting with is that when used appropriately they support and enhance the learning environment. One such example occurred in a Year 3 class that I had the pleasure to be in for professional experience. The students needed to write a descriptive sentence using imagery and similes. The students could not grasp the concept until we could visually show how we could transform a common item (in this case a bike) into an imaginary bike that they could describe. Here is a picture of our bike that we created as a whole class using the teacher's computer connected to an OHP. The students had lots of fun designing and then describing the bike. With this experience the students could easily transfer their skill to describing other items using imagery and similes.

We used  The Learning Place to design our "Dream Machine!"

I would love to hear other examples of when ICTs have supported and enhanced student learning.