Today’s lecture was highly informative; prior to the lesson I had not considered the benefits of encouraging children to develop computational thinking. Computational thinking is important because it empowers children with an understanding of the importance of planning and thinking through actions – this was modelled rather nicely by the activity that demanded we write a set of instructions as to how to make a jam sandwich, and then put them into practice as a classmate was required to be a ‘robot’ and carry out the instructions we had created. This activity would introduce the children to the concept of ‘algorithms’ and the importance of specificity in our algorithms to avoid ambiguity. The ability to think through a sequence of actions and be precise, efficient and unambiguous in your instructions is a skill that children would develop through their ICT lessons but that would equip them to be better learners in other subjects and in their daily life.

As we were taken through a brief introduction in how to include the IWB in our lessons, I felt fairly confident that my experience with the IWB during my primary education would put me in a good position to comfortably incorporate the IWB into the lessons I give to children. However, there were so many different tools to use – particularly those available in the ‘activity builder’ – that I was overwhelmed! I am determined to put in effort outside of out ICT lesson time to truly get to know more of the functions the SMART board has to offer, and how I can make the most of it to facilitate my class’ learning and move the pedagogy towards whole class teaching.

Below is a screen shot of the activity I planned for a history lesson on Henry VIII. In the centre is a picture of Henry and surrounding him are facts, and images, relating to his life. Some are incorrect and some are correct. Using the ‘activity builder’ setting, I created an activity whereby, when moved on top of Henry’s body, the incorrect answers were absorbed by him (thus removing them from the screen) whereas the correct facts bounced back and remained on the screen.

Using this activity would be a good way to introduce the topic of Henry VIII and gauge a level of understanding that your class already have on a topic, or as a plenary to assess what they have learnt.

Welcome to your brand new blog at University of Roehampton ePortfolios.

To get started, simply log in, edit or delete this post and check out all the other options available to you.