Post - the Tenth!

The Use of Digital Cameras in Science

I have now decided that the digital camera is a God send to the classroom. In particular I have found it particularly useful in teaching science.

We carried out an experiment to see which materials will keep an ice cube cold for the longest. To do this we had to wrap ice cubes in various materials and then look at them every 15 minutes to see how much smaller the ice cubes get. But how to get thirty year four children to measure and observe the ice cubes properly? I therefore decided to take photos of each experiment at different stages in order for them to be able to look back over the experiment and write up their observations from a visual source. It also meant that during the experiment the pupils had to do no writing! Always a happy result for a class full of eight and nine year olds!

Because the class were in groups each investigating a different material, it also meant that I could display the photos onto the interactive white board so that all the class could compare and contrast the different materials.

I have to say though that it would have been nice to allow the pupils to take their own photographs. However, with one camera per class this is not very practical so it was quicker and more feasable to do it myself.

I have also used the filming function on the camera to support the less able writers. The science assessment task was to design a fair test for an experiment involving thermal insulators. Rather than getting the less able writers to record their ideas by writing I interviewed them to assess their ideas. This was really motivating for them and they really showed some good scientific knowledge that they would have otherwise been unable to communicate.

Post - the ninth

Pupil run Computer Club

At my first placement school there is a pupil led computer club. This was an idea that a year five pupil had and he wanted to teach the year threes about various applications and features of Windows. He wanted to help the year threes perform better in class. The computer club was given the go ahead by senior managemnt at the school and then the running of it was given over solely to the year fives. The pupils sent round sign up sheets to the year three classrooms and a maximum of thirty were allowed to sign up.



The session I managed to catch the end of was the session on letter writing using Word. The pupils seemed really focussed and I was impressed by the level of expertise from the club leaders. The sessions are set up much like a typical lesson with an intro, an activity and then a plenary at the end. (Not to mention the behaviour policy being carried out throughout the session using the teacher's pens of course!) The pupils had even prepared a simple powerpoint presentation to help with teir introduction.



I was extremely impressed by the computer club. The concept of peer mentoring is one that is held in high regard and this club solely run by the year fives to teach the year threes is a fantastic example of the power of pupil led clubs. The year threes who attend are extremely enthusiastic about their tasks and all seem to think that their ICT skills have improved. It is great to see ICT being implemented so strongly in a school. After all, children are often more competent on computers than some adults so why not let the experts do the teaching?!