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 relations 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
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