Week 1

Hello again.....

After one ICT lesson I already feel I have I better understanding of the cyber world.  Things have definitely changed since I was at school.  We've gone from floppy disks to drop boxes and so much else!  And as if the world wide web wasn't vast and complicated enough I have just been introduced to web 2.0.  What on earth is Web 2.0 you may be asking?  Well its quite simple really, its a technological trend which encourages creativity, information sharing and above all the concept that everyone should work together.  This immediately brought up the social networking sites to my mind: Facebook, Twitter, Myspace. But  I learnt that its not all about uploading and tagging your friends in photos from nights out.  

What is it about then?

It's ultimately about sharing and making information easily accessible.  For example, we were introduced to sites such as Delicious.com whereby you can save bookmarks.  This makes life much easier and acquiring information much more efficient.  There's no need to sit there staring blankly at your computer screen trying to remember what that site was you went on that day when you needed to do that thing! Delicious.com has all the bookmarks in an organised way using different folders for ease of reference!  This is great for lesson planning, especially when you need to re-visit things in class.  

http://delicious.com/ 

What I found most interesting about my first PG ICT lesson was watching the video clip of a school who have a blogging club.  Not only did it show a group of children who loved blogging but it highlighted to me just how far technology has advanced.  It also highlighted that the way in which children acquire their information is completely different to when I was a child and it made me wonder what impact this has on teaching as well as learning?  My first thought were that learning must be easier these days.  A click of the search button on Google and away you go.  Thousands, if not millions of pieces of information at your fingertips.  Exercise complete.  Then thinking more about it, it seemed that things aren't that straight forward.  Is this more easily accessible data drawback free?  Are children learning more or are they becoming reliant on information just 'being there'?  Yes, they don't need to walk to the library and trawl through books looking for the answer to their history homework but at what risk? It was brought up in the lesson that not all the information on the internet is accurate, it's not all true and there are a lot of things on there that we would not want our children to see. 

There is also the big issue of e-safety.  How safe is the web?  Anyone and everyone can see your information and anyone can communicate with children. This is where things such as passwords, child safety locks prohibiting certain websites come into play.  But what about Facebook? Despite the apparent 'age restriction' problem (which can easily be overcome) what stops a child from being let out into the big bad web world without an adult to supervise them where they can be in contact with inappropriate chat with children and in some often, worse cases with adults.  We have all heard about cyber bullying and the use of adults to groom children on the internet.  

Surely though it cannot be all doom and gloom...I gathered from my ICT lessons that children can use the internet and they should be using it, but using it responsibly.     

Howard Gardner says that..." As a society, we have no choice but to engage with this new reality and work to ensure that it affects our kids in healthy, responsible ways."  http://edition.cnn.com/2012/05/21/opinion/clinton-steyer-internet-kids/index.html 

There are ways of preventing potential problems on the internet and keeping children safe such as applying passwords and filters blocking out sites that could potentially be inappropriate.  

What I took from my lesson was that the internet is a great and exciting tool for children if used in the correct manner.  I was encouraged by the video clip of the children who enjoy blogging.  I was also able to appreciate what a great release blogging is for children.  Children's work is no longer just written in their exercise books for only the teacher to see but it is potentially open for millions of people to view and appreciate.  There is also the option for people to comment on the blogs.  Although, as stated in the video it is probably best to be filtered by a teacher or IT staff in school.  There are also other advantages, as blogging encourages all children to write, especially some boys who don't like writing.  They can write about their interests and passions developing their ICT skills rapidly.  There is also the opportunity for mistakes to be noticed more readily as the writing is viewed more.  I learnt that using ICT, can apply to all areas of the curriculum and I would like to make as much use of it as possible in my classroom.  Blogging is also good for children on the Autistic spectrum as it allows them to organise their ideas properly.  

I think as long as children are careful and adults supervise what they have access to then I think the internet is a fantastic tool for teaching and for learning.  I think that blogging is a great idea, and it extends childrens' skills in a great number of ways.