CPD Training Session

I attended a 1 day training event in September on the use of ICT in the classroom.

Initially, given my background in IT I thought that I wouldn’t learn very much during the session. However, I was surprised by the content in the session and realised that although I did occasionally use ICT for teaching |I was under using it and hadn’t thought of how flexible it could be. I had been using ICT to present and practice language in a controlled way. I have used my laptop with a data projector as a glorified OHP and have got students to use various software packages to practice language and write essays and letters etc.

During the session I learned how blogs could be created for entire classes and interesting activities they could do with blogs which would enable student to share ideas and learning as well as practicing their skills.

I was interested in part of the session that dealt with collaborative docs. I liked the idea that students could collaborate on written tasks and projects even when they couldn’t work face-to-face. Students could work on their projects in their own time separately, and edit and amend each other’s work before getting back together to work more in college.

Another part of the session I liked was the presentation on how students can use instant messaging to have conversations. I have since used this in class as a fun way of practicing email / chat language. Whole conversations could be printed out and checked and corrected.

One of the most important points for me was that in addition to practicing language skills, and using ICT, students are able to maintain a clear record of what they have done online, and on the student folders so that we could go back and look for areas for improvement. Doing work in this way means that students don’t lose their homework because they are kept on bits of paper which can easily get lost, and ICT provided a more motivating and fun way of reviewing your own learning.

~ by pipm on December 19, 2008.