e. Planning the Work of Learners

In the case study teacher's experience, planning the work of learners on the material provided is quite straightforward. He has access to a computer "lab" where each student has access to their own computer, knows the material quite well, and has copied some material from it into his own worksheets. He has also looked at some other World Wide Web sites and can show pupils the relationship between the information on these different resources and their uses.

Your case might be different. Firstly, do you have access to a dedicated computer room? Alternatively, do you have a computer workshop, or learning centre where you can work on IT Key Skills lessons with a full group of pupils? Secondly, can you access the materials on all of the machines using your school's network - you are allowed by law to do this, but will your network support it? There are other, technical questions, but these are less important than the educational questions. Consider those below before you start planning the series of lessons in detail.

• How long will you take to deal with the subject from start to finish, including the production of coursework if this is relevant, along with observation and product creation (printing) tasks?
• How much of this time will you spend using CD-ROM or previously created resources, gaining access to the Internet in a planned and structured way, and using word processed resources of your own?
• How do you want to order the use of ICT for learning and assessment - do you want it blocked or staggered, and will you need to circulate pupils around it in circumstances where not all pupils can use computers at once?
• How will you plan to ensure that all pupils are spending time using ICT for the best purposes in developing IT Key Skills?
• How will you ensure that pupils do not simply 'copy and paste' from the resources they encounter, but learn how to annotate and format text effectively?

These questions are crucial at this stage, and you might want to discuss them with colleagues and/or your mentor before you create a scheme of work that includes the use of ICT, however rough the scheme is at the beginning. Once you are happy that you have a plan of how to use ICT effectively for the work you want to do on word processing, you should go on to consider some lesson plans for actually applying it in the classroom. Remember, when using computers, you need to plan in some 'fudge' time - for when the computers are inaccessible. Have a 'fall-back' scenario ready.

Part 2: Teaching with ICT