e.
Planning the Work of Learners
The
teacher wanted the pupils to find out as much as possible for
themselves, but recognised that they would need some help with
structuring their research. It was important to first identify
the purpose of the database they were going to produce. He decided
to devise the scenario that the local ambulance service wanted
to create web pages which students and other interested people
could access to find out about the work of the service and how
they have been affected by new technology. He felt that this would
provide learning opportunities in various aspects of the course.
He
also decided to show the class a short piece of video about ICT
in the ambulance service and question them about this in order
to draw their attention to the key points that he wanted them
to focus on in their own research. This would enable the less
able pupils to gain some basic information to work with, without
restricting the progress of the most able.
He
contacted the ambulance service and obtained a number of copies
of brochures and technical reports, which were available to the
public. He wanted the pupils to apply their web search skills,
which they had recently worked on if possible. Although the local
service did not have a web site, he found two similar regions
that did. He planned to suggest that pupils accessed the Internet
in the school library, the public library or at home, so that
they did not spend a lot of lesson time looking for the limited
information which was available.
Having
made notes on paper about the information they had collected,
he planned that groups of pupils would continue to work on paper
to devise their web structures. He wanted to emphasise that each
web page is like a separate document, and although they might
design each page on screen, they had to have a plan for how they
would link together. He thus produced a web design form to help
them (see below). The teacher also produced a guide to getting
started with FrontPage Express, indicating how to carry out the
steps listed above. Both documents can be downloaded below.
How
do I download Word documents?
In order to emphasise the need to test carefully, he also planned
to ask groups of pupils to look at each other's web pages and
to criticise them constructively.
Key
skills: The teacher checked through the plans and felt that
in addition to developing IT skills, the work could contribute
a lot to pupils' literacy if they were given support at particular
stages:
-
identifying key points and making notes
- following
instructions
- formulating
comments on other pupils' work
She
also expected the group work to improve their abilities to work
with others, and the criticism of each other's work to improve
their abilities to monitor their own work independently.
Questions
for Consideration
- Consider
the suitability of the ambulance service as an application to
study. List three positive points for this context of study
in an IT examination course.
- Can
you think of any negative points?
 Part
2: Teaching with ICT
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