Blog 9: Shirley Warren School visit (Part 1)

This week I was given the opportunity to visit a local Primary School where I was shown how technology and media is used within the school to enhance children’s learning experiences. Research evidence has identified the positive impact of digital technology on children’s learning (Byron Review, 2008; Higgins, Xiao and Katsipataki, 2012) and upon my visit to the school, I was able to see how technology is incorporated throughout the curriculum to engage children in their learning.

Children perceive technology as a natural part of everyday life and learning (Northcote, Dobozy, Swan and Mildenhall, 2007) as they encounter technology in many aspects of their daily lives and thus are coming into the classroom with already well developed experiences of it (Dean 2010; Loveless, 2003). It is evident that the teachers at Shirley Warren are passionate about fostering children’s capabilities in using technology as ICT is used in a range of subjects to enhance learning. My personal experience of using technology in school was limited thus this resulted in a lack of confidence to use digital technologies with children. Teachers need opportunities to explore and discover digital literacies for themselves in order to build the confidence to use them in the classroom (Dean, 2010; Marsh, Brooks, Hughes, Ritchie, Roberts and Wright, 2005) and after visiting Shirley Warren and being introduced to a range of digital technologies, not only has my confidence built but my subject knowledge has also increased. I was introduced to a variety of Apps on an iPad for example ‘I can animate’ which involves taking pictures to create an animated clip, ‘Tellagami’ which enables users to create their own speaking avatar and ‘Veescope’  which can be used for green screening. Having the time to explore these Apps gave me an opportunity to think about how they could be used with children and also how they could be incorporated into lessons therefore this had a positive impact on my confidence.

It was evident from the guided tour and presentation that the pupils at Shirley Warren engage with a wide of range of media and technologies which is important in developing their ability to use them (Marsh et al. 2005). The tour around the school enabled us to observe the facilities available for the children to use to develop their ICT skills, which included an ICT suite, a radio station and a WII console and games area. The children are very privileged to have these facilities within their school as many of the schools I have previously worked in cannot afford such technology.
The radio station particularly interested me as I have never seen this used in a school before however I think it opens up a wide range of opportunities for children. Within the radio station room there was also an area to film news reports where the children could retell a story in the news or could create their own news reports and stories. This develops their skills in story telling but also enhances their creativity and supports the idea that new technologies can be used to do traditional things in a different, possibly more motivating, way (Rudd and Tyldesley, 2006). Not only does it develop specific learning skills in different subjects, but it also enables teachers to recognise the range of ways in which pupils can demonstrate their knowledge, skills and understanding of using technologies (Loveless, 2003).

I feel that this experience has made me more open-minded about using digital technologies with children to enhance their learning. However,  this week we did not experience working with children therefore I feel that this will be a challenge for me next week as I am unsure about how much the children already know about digital media or how to use it. In my future practice I would like to use more technology with children as I have learnt, from this experience and previous seminars, that using ICT can be as simple as using programmes such as Microsoft PowerPoint to create multimodal texts or using a camera to take pictures or video record.

Byron Review (2008) Safer Children in a Digital World. DCSF Publications.

Dean, G. 'Rethinking Literacy' in Bazalgette, C. (ed) (2010) Teaching Media in Primary Classrooms. London: SAGE

Higgins, S., Xiao, Z., and Katsipataki, M. (2012) The Impact of Digital Technology on Learning: A Summary for the Education Endowment Foundation. Durham University: Education Endowment Foundation.

Loveless, A. (2003) The Role of ICT. London: Continuum

Marsh, J., Brooks, G., Hughes, J., Ritchie, L., Roberts, S. and Wright, K. (2005) Digital beginnings: Young children’s use of popular culture, media and new technologies. Sheffield: Literacy Research Centre.

Northcote, M., Marshall, L., Dobozy, E., Swan, P. and Mildenhall, P. (2007) Podcasting: Links to literacy teaching and learning. Practically Primary, 2(2), 17-21

Rudd, A. and Tyldesley, A. (2006) Literacy and ICT in the Primary School: A Creative Approach to English. London: David Fulton Publishers Ltd