Podcast

 

Two ways to use ICT in Classrooms

 

One way to modify the classroom for better learning is to have a video for the students to access when they are up to a new section of the project for the semester or year. Often, students in years 7 and 8 have the same project that everyone needs to complete. However, some are bound to be quicker than others and hence work faster. Each time that the fast students finish their objectives and need to move on, normally the teacher takes the time to share with the whole class, even before some students are ready for it. Making sequenced videos that the students can go to for the next section means that the teacher can go and help the few students lagging to catch up to the rest of the class.

 

In design and technology, teachers need to make sure that students maximise the time and quality of their workshop period. As students are responsible for the setup and pack up of their equipment, they tend to have limited time to physically work on their assessments. To aid with this, a podcast about the safety of equipment could be implemented so that the students only had to listen to a podcast before they took a general knowledge test on the safety of the equipment. What this means is that the safety forums which can take up to multiple hours to read and look through can be achieved at home and they don’t have to complete these tasks when the class can or should be running. Ideally, these safety podcasts and tests could be completed before entering the workshop.

 

The effectiveness of both ideas would be quite high as they both present methods to complete tasks that are either very time-consuming or time insensitive.

The first idea for videos to watch is to know how to complete the next task of the design really would help the time sensitive nature of the design workshop. Certain students are bound to finish their projects faster than others, which gives the teacher a better chance to help the students who are struggling.

The second idea of the podcast in place of the textbook for safety information makes sense for the students. Many students don’t like studying from a textbook, however many people listen to music, so the students could substitute the time for listening to music to listening to this podcast and be able to come back the next day to complete a simple safety test before they go and show practical skills.

SAMR Model

 

The SAMR model is a framework that outlines the four degrees of technology and how to integrate them into classrooms. The Letters of the acronym stand for Substitution, Augmentation, Modification and Redefinition.

The first-word substitution means that there is a direct trade between traditional teaching items such as paper, to computer and digital mechanisms.

The second word of the SAMR model is Augmentation. This is very similar to substitution but in this case, it enhances the quality of students learning rather than just a substitution of implements.

The third word of the model is modification. This is building on the last two words, where there is a very distinct change in the content style and delivery.

The last word of the acronym is redefinition. This is where traditional tasks can be rewritten so that people in different areas can all work together using Integrated Computer Systems (ICT) rather than more traditional methods.

Overview

The idea of these blogs and posts is to be able to educate someone on the effectiveness of ICT in classrooms. As well as computers and being able to use them in a classroom setting, flipping classrooms in the sense that the kids can get the practical work they need to achieve done during class time and do the bookwork at home.