Meeting the ICT professional needs of my school is a challenging task. Because of the short length of courses (Foundations courses and some academic courses run for only 6.5 weeks), teachers feel immense pressure to cram as much learning as possible into their short time frames. By using ICT, they feel like it is in addition to their instruction. Furthermore, the teachers at my school do not have any prep time; all of their marking and lesson preparation is done on their own time. Again, this is an almost nightly activity due to the short length of the courses; in order for students to receive feedback so they can improve on the next writing assignment, the previous task needs to be evaluated. There also isn’t any time for collaboration, unless the teachers do it before or after school. We don’t have departments either, so each teacher is autonomous; what happens in each class can be very different.

I do have an administrator who is supportive of technology. Our school has 4 Smartboards (three of which are mobile) and one iPad cart. There are also two computer labs; however, one of them is occupied each morning for a computer skills class. While this sounds like quite a bit of technology, there are usually 20 classes running in each time slot with up to 30 students in each class, so access is quite limited.

So, how can I support ICT in my school when there are so many barriers in place? I have a few ideas.

First, I have developed a webpage for the library (unfortunately, it isn’t published, so I can’t provide the link; it should be up and running when I return to work.) On this webpage, there are several resources that staff and students can use such as links to ebooks and an easy way to access the school district’s databases.

Additionally, I can add a blog to this website. This may be a platform for me to use to distribute information to users of the library; however, because it will be accessed by both students and staff, I’m not sure that this would be the best medium for posting information directed towards the teachers.

 

I would like to create and share some short videos that demonstrate how to use some of the ICT available in the school. In particular, I would like to focus on using the iPads and Smartboards. There are already several really good videos available on YouTube for these resources. Here is a basic example:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s3TK04_aJy4&list=PLDB82588A2B0440F9

I could also show these at staff meetings or run demonstrations that are supported by videos for staff to refer back to at their convenience.

Another option I would like to use would be to create a Twitter account for my staff to follow. Here, I could tweet links to useful articles and videos for my staff to look at on their own time.

Finally, and I think most importantly, I need to make sure I am available to my staff to assist them with their classes in the library, in their classrooms with the iPads or Smartboards, or in the computer labs. I have had some really good lessons with some classes in the computer labs to help students navigate online databases and other electronic resources. The more opportunities I get to work with teachers in their classrooms, the more likely they will be to integrate technology into their lessons. Lots of teachers are keen to try new technologies, but are intimidated by the unknown. The easier I can make it on them, the better. Here is an example of an activity I did with a Foundations 7 Literacy class last year.

Reference

Use the Shape Recognition Pen to Draw Basic Shapes-tutorial for teachers-the virtual school. (201,2 February 7). YouTube. Retrieved February 20, 2014.