c. Selecting ICT Resources

The teacher in the case study is completely at home with the skills behind most of the options we have looked at above, including having first-hand knowledge of a range of sites where images could be found. He has used paper-based images to help pupils clarify their thinking when designing products or dealing with issues, he already has some word-processed materials, he has seen some good sites on the World Wide Web, and he knows how to use a CD ROM.

You may not be in the same position as he is, so we shall look at the options in the context of your school and your experience. Think about the following points as they apply to you:

Use images on paper only, and not use any ICT at all.
I have a bit of a problem with this (I would say that, wouldn't I?) in as much as my own experience of working with this area of work is that it is both hugely enjoyable - on its own, without technology - and very challenging for young people. Especially in terms of the objectives set for this case study, there is such a wealth of material available from the World Wide Web and CD ROM, and so much you can do with the technology to get access to interesting and relevant imagery, that I really would want to get the most out of the syllabus, the technology and the pupils by combining some of the options.

Use a word processor package to create worksheets on the area of work, with 'clipart' type images, or images from a file-bank.
Here the question is one of how much the pupils will learn, retain and organise if the teacher spends his time on creating learning and testing resources using a word-processor, and how much they would have done so anyway. My own view is that the best people in this case to collect the images and/or to manipulate them are the pupils. I would be a little concerned about the use of 'clipart' type images, because they tend to be limited in scope and difficult to relate to specific aspects of curriculum. On the other hand, the pupils can be encouraged to think laterally and imaginatively about the subject area and how to manage images around it, precisely because the images don't do the whole job for them.

Use a CD ROM to gain access to images - either a bespoke image-bank on CD, or a general CD.
The good thing here is that a range of CD products exists from which Key Stage 3 and 4 images can be culled, and that quite legally and easily. Similarly, pupils can find themselves encountering and learning about new areas of the curriculum, simply by looking for specific images in a more general - perhaps encyclopedic - CD. This latter point is especially true if the teacher knows where the images are and what surrounds them in terms of learning opportunities.

Use the World Wide Web to locate image resources, which are then copied into other documents.
The difficult part about this is not the technical act of copying an image from a web site into a document. That is covered in the help-sheet attached to this case study. The important points to remember - and perhaps to discuss with your mentor, are these:

1. Getting a list of sites ready so that pupils don't waste time 'surfing' trying to find them in the first place.
2. Locating images on the sites that are appropriate to the subject areas under discussion.
3. Making sure that the images are in appropriate file formats for copying into documents. I tend to go only for *.jpg files, on the grounds that many other formats produce very large file images that make word documents less manageable.
4. Making sure that the pupil is not breaking the law by copying an image, or that pupils are not otherwise infringing against intellectual property rights. This is an area of Internet use that is often ignored, but you need to be aware of it when working with pupils.

Use the World Wide Web for the resources, and save the resources for later use.
Many of the points mentioned above are important if images are to be stored ready for use in future documents or presentations. Also important is the recognition that these images, once stored, can be used again and again for different purposes. This means that the building up of a bank of resources that can be shared by pupils on a network, or by teachers via shared network drives, intranets and even extranets, is possible for longer-term resource-efficiency.

Have pupils find and save the resources, and then present their findings and views through a PowerPoint classroom presentation, and/or send this presentation to other schools/organisations for sharing and discussion.
However pupils gather image resources, you can have them use a word-processor, email or PowerPoint to express and exchange the ideas. PowerPoint is particularly good in that it allows pupils (and teachers, come to that) to formulate bullet-lists that they can expand on in interesting presentations in the classroom. The more ICT competent of your pupils might even want to email their PowerPoints to each other and to their email participants on the web. If pupils decide to do this, and especially if they decide to incorporate views of their own on the topics, or images/videos they have gathered or produced, the process needs to be very carefully managed.

Now that you've looked at my ideas about the options available, you need to make your own choices. The teacher in the case study has decided to use all options except email, and to combine two or more in particular sessions over a two-week period. You need to plan to do something of this sort. On the next page, make a copy and fill out the summary to help you get focus on what you will do. I've put in some suggestions - you can use these as you like. Think of some uses of your own, and make a short note on what you will have to do to make it work, what you expect the benefit to be to your pupils, and what difficulties you expect to encounter when you do it in the classroom.

Resources Selected for Work on Images in D&T