THE ROLE OF THE ICT TEACHER

[HANNAH CRAKER]

Would like to know how the teaching of ICT is set up in the US or elsewhere. I am the ICT specialist for 6-12 year olds here in Barcelona, Spain. We still have an ICT suite and the kids come once a week for class. I can't help thinking that this way of teaching has become quite obsolete elsewhere and that you thoroughly integrate technology in your daily routine across all subjects. I have one big hindrance and that is that the majority of my colleagues are technophobes and are thrilled that they do not have to have anything to do with the subject. That said they do have IWB's in the class which they might turn on every now and then to show a movie :-p. 

What is the role of the ICT specialist in your school?? Do you still have separate ICT lessons? 

Would welcome any feedback as I feel that we could be doing it sooooooooo much better.

Cheers.

[Stephanie Flynn]

Here in Queensland, Australia - we are moving towards integrating ICT into every lesson (although we still have a lot of technophones here as well). Our department has just created these placements to show how teachers can integrate ICTs into the classroom and try and get students to use them for higher levels of thinking rather than just typing or game playing http://education.qld.gov.au/smartclassrooms/enabling-learners/digit.... It's difficult where the schools do not have the resources to support this however, most schools I have been in have Smartboards in every classroom now (but still use them as whiteboards!) or visit the computer lap more than once a week.

[HANNAH CRAKER]

Thanks for your feedback Stephanie. I am in the process of trying to plan HOW I can change the way ICT is taught at the school. As I mentioned in my first post, my classes have an hour a week in the ICT suite where I teach them whatever it is I want. More often than not, I struggle to find content for them to use as I teach them how to use these great tools that are available but because we have no cross-curricular integration I find myself inventing topics for them to use. This is what I hope to avoid next year. I want to take a step back as far as teaching the ICT is concerned and have every class teacher come down and take the class with my assistance. The staff are soooooooooooo lazy about using technology and I feel that the ONLY way to get them on board is by dropping them in at the deep end. They don't know this yet mind you and my future boss is worried that it is going to create A LOT of friction in the department when he takes over as Head next year. Do you have any advice?

By the way, thanks for the links, they are great! Hope life downunder is great - I hear you're one of the few escaping this economic crisis!

Stephanie Flynn said:

Here in Queensland, Australia - we are moving towards integrating ICT into every lesson (although we still have a lot of technophones here as well). Our department has just created these placements to show how teachers can integrate ICTs into the classroom and try and get students to use them for higher levels of thinking rather than just typing or game playing http://education.qld.gov.au/smartclassrooms/enabling-learners/digit.... It's difficult where the schools do not have the resources to support this however, most schools I have been in have Smartboards in every classroom now (but still use them as whiteboards!) or visit the computer lap more than once a week.

[Stephanie Flynn]

Well we're doing okay here in Oz.. we've escaped the worst of it I think (so far!).

The only things I have read about integrating ICTs is lots and lots of professional development with the staff and plenty of support to get things going.

If you read Terry Goodison's article in the British Journal of Education Technology called Integrating ICT in the classroom; a case study of two contrasting lessons - you might get some ideas (you might have to google around for it). He outlines key areas where ICT can be integrated and how it should be done correctly - very useful.

However, this report is probably more useful to you http://www.intel.com/content/dam/LAR/Portuguese/PDF/general/guide-f...

At a recent workshop on ICT a presenter said she had encountered a lot of resistance - she talked about an English poetry class (High School) and a student that was totally disengaged. Her students were asked to create a vlog and just rant about poetry, just say anything they liked a bit it.. did they hate, love it, why etc.. just anything. Once this teacher saw the results she was amazed. The boy that was totally disengaged created the most amazing vlog and she showed us - we were blown away by how good it was. After that the teacher realised how useful ICT was for engaging students and never looked back so perhaps it just takes some examples where teachers can see for themselves how useful it can be.

Good luck and let us know how you get on  :)