Part 1:
Preparing to Use ICT in Teaching

a. Aims and Objectives

In this case study, the teacher's aims were to develop her pupils' appreciation of the economic aspects of the film industry and some of the gaps between the economies of Hollywood, the British film industry and TV. The teacher's intention is to use pupils' familiarity with the media world to introduce information about earnings comparisons, and to develop in pupils a sense of the business and economics aspects of the entertainments industries with which they will be most familiar.

This work will serve as an introduction to data management in either the Intermediate or Advanced GNVQ, or could be used to introduce project work. The Unit, Competitive Business Environment, which is mandatory at Advanced level for all three versions of the award, could also be the place for introducing the skills of comparison of earnings within an industry and across industries.

We would want pupils to move quickly from the skills-focus on the media industry that we are developing in this case study to a focus on other areas of business, perhaps using the Bized web site or some of the other sites in the Business and Economics area, but pupils' familiarity with and keenness for the film industry gives us a good place to start.

Specifically, then, the teacher wanted pupils to be able to:

• Investigate the Hollywood industry to gain a sense of its economic importance.
• Describe and explain the respective earnings of a variety of film stars' movies.
• Compare film earnings within the Hollywood sector.
• Compare film with TV in terms of earnings and economic activity.
• Present at least some of their findings in the form of a comparative spreadsheet.
• Transfer some findings from spreadsheet format to Word document format for inclusion in a project.

Questions for Consideration

• If you currently deal with this area of work in the classroom, or with an analogous or related area, how do you do so?
• Do you use real examples of comparisons between industries or within industries, and how do you manage use of and access to these?
• What are the main problems you would expect to encounter when you work with examples of information about the economy of any industrial or commercial sector?

Keep a short record of your responses to these questions for discussion with your mentor.

b. Deciding Whether to Use ICT