d.
Developing Your Own Knowledge of the Resources
Having
made decisions about using some of the resources and opportunities
in tandem, it is important for the teacher in the case study to
get to know the resources well enough to feel confident about
using them in the classroom. It is also important that the pupils
will feel comfortable about using resources.
We
can focus on this with an exercise that requires that you get
to know the CD with Dickens material on it. You will see that
the CD is really a web site, just as it would be on the Internet,
and that it contains a whole range of material beyond the Dickens
- material on Shakespeare, on writing skills and on examination
techniques and coursework production. We shall come back to this
- for now it is important to start with the Dickens material.
First,
you need to get the CD working. In order to do this, load the
CD into your machine and follow the instructions that come with
it. Have a look around it and take a particular look at the Dickens
resources.
Then
answer the following questions - just to give you some focus to
begin with:
- The
text of 'A Christmas Carol' has "hyperlinks" in it.
What is their purpose and what effect do you think they will
have on pupils' learning of the text?
- The
material also contains still photographs from filmed versions
of the story, and a limited amount of video footage. What purpose
do you see these having in the way you would use the CD to teach
the text?
- Look
at the short answer quiz section of the Dickens material. When
and for what purpose would you use this?
- Although
the CD contains tasks, assignments and worksheets on the story,
you might want to develop some of these yourself, or even copy
text from the resource and edit it for your own groups. You
are perfectly entitled to do this, so what would you want to
do to develop the materials you have and what reasons would
you have for changing the materials?
When
you have looked at the CD in the light of these questions, and
perhaps written some worksheets of your own to go with the CD,
you should discuss with your mentor what you want to do with the
resource in the classroom. This can be done in a mentor visit,
over the telephone or by email, and should serve merely to satisfy
you that you are on the right track with your use of the materials.
 e.
Planning the Work of Learners
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