During directed task week I spent 3 days in a local primary school. During these 3 days, I in a year 1 class and was fortunate enough to be present for their weekly ICT lesson. This was interesting to see whether they used any of the resources we have been looking at in our sessions. It turns out they did not, but this just meant I learnt something new. The class went to an ICT suite in the school where they sat at their own computers (some had to share as it was a very big class). They used a program that involved drawing and using various artistic tools. Their task was the represent the four seasons on one sheet divided in to four separate sections. They were using tools such as paintbrush, pencil and shapes to draw their interpretation of the seasons. They had to label each box using text to name the seasons. When the teacher was satisfied that their pictures were full enough, they were allowed to print them off.
This lesson seemed very much like a standard, traditional lesson that I remember doing in school. It used no particularly interesting equipment that we have learnt to use such as animation programs and digital microscopes. However, it was suitable for this particular lesson in representing seasons. Some of the children were very distracted by others work and barely did anything on their own. There were also problems with those sharing computers as they would get bored when it wasn't their turn.
I think using different, more interesting modern equipment would make an ICT lesson far more engaging!
That's a good point about ICT lessons. In the school I am visiting, I once observed an ICT lesson too. They had a personal password and user name with which they signed in to their school page where they had to do their homework, which had the form of an online game. I thought that this was a very interesting use of computers because children can have fun and do their homework at the same time.
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