Post - The Eighth

Discussion Boards

Using discussion boards is a really good way of reflecting and commenting on other people's opinions and ideas. We used a discussion board to comment on an activity where we had to comment on graphs.

Using a discussion board in this way allowed us to not only post our own findings but also look at other people's findings. This was a great tool in cooperative learning as we were able to see which aspects we may have missed off our own graphs.

Discussion boards can also be used in this way in the classroom. They would allow children to post their own views and comment on other people's. Group work is a very important strategy used in the classroom today and perhaps these discussion boards create a different opportunity for group discussion. Perhaps these would be more effective with shyer children.

However; in using the discussion board I am sceptical about how much they can be used. I think verbal discussion is far more effective and instantaneous as you don't have to wait for someone to make a post. They are perhaps therefore more relevant when used in a social context like Facebook than in the classroom environment.

Post - the seventh

Uses of Databases and ways in which you might use them to help children learn in any subject at school

Databases are a good way of evaluating and storing information for various purposes. Businesses will often use databases to store a wide variety of information such as contact details, bank details etc. They are useful in that they allow users to ask questions of them for example, how many men prefer to eat hamburgers compared to women. The result can then be manipulated and sorted and can also be transferred into graph format. They are very quick to search, they are easy to edit and to add to, they take up little space but can have contain a huge amount of data, they can also be used in relation to other programmes, for example word to create mail merges and they can be more secure than paper files. In the ICT lesson we saw how they can be used with history and gravestones. I would suggest that they can be useful in other subjects. They could be used by children for geography. This could involve putting details of various countries in the database and then could be searched for the country with the highest population for example. Perhaps they could also be useful in maths in data handling and interpreting as well as spreadsheets. In Science they could set up databases for the properties of plants or butterflies. I would suggest that databases are very versatile and can be used by children in lots of subjects

Other activities using ICT which you could use to make History more relevant to children.

To make History more relevant for children using ICT you could:-
· use websites to take virtual tours of museums
· Use CD-ROMs like Encarta to allow children to research
· Inspiration – to create mind maps or diagrams for certain topics. This is a way that pupils can display their own thought patterns and processes from bits of evidence for example
· Blogs and Wikis could be interesting ways in which children can record their thoughts about topics.

Post - The Sixth

Using Inspiration

I have decided during this post to evaluate the programme Inspiration and discuss its advantages for children in the classroom environment.

Inspiration is a piece of software that allows people to organise their ideas and thoughts in various diagrams. These include concept maps, idea maps, webs and storyboards. The programme also allows users to organise their ideas with pictures and symbols. The programme is also extremely straight forward to use which enables pupils to create effective diagrams in a minimal amount of time.

The programme is also useful in that it allows the diagrams to be exported and saved in various formats. This allows diagrams to be incorporated into other programmes such as word, power-point and even dropped into a web page, as I have done above. This would therefore seem to be an advantage of the programme above pen and paper as the diagrams are easily transferable.

For children this software has various uses. I would argue that children love using the computer so will put a lot of time and effort into making the concept webs so they would be better than if they did their maps on paper because of the novelty. The concept maps are also far more easy to edit if they are on the computer and editing is an important skill for children to master as they need to be able to realise that making mistakes is OK. The process is also extremely visual and this can help meet important learning needs.

Although this idea can be very very useful for children to map out their ideas in an effective, visual way. Also this programme may be faster for children to map down ideas, for me, I would rather use a pen and paper for my planning. I would argue that for some people then the software will never be as effective as a pen and paper, but I think children will really benefit from using this programme.