Before I started my placement I did not think that ICT would be so predominant in a school; I knew that ICT and technology but did not realise that children are exposed to technology all the time. My placement school uses an interactive whiteboard every single day, using a programme called Notebook. Notebook is really useful because you can use hyperlinks and pictures and write on the pages during the lessons with the pens for the interactive whiteboard, and it will save what you have written. I had never used the programme Notebook before, but I asked my teacher if she could talk me through it and I found that it was a lot easier than I had originally thought.
The children in my class are learning how to programme ‘beebots’ and are being exposed to language such as ‘algorithms’ and ‘programming’. I was really anxious about teaching children about coding and programming because I was really unsure myself on how to do it; and wondered if I would be able to teach it effectively and in a way that would be beneficial for the children. After observing my teacher, teach ‘programming’ I felt less anxious as the language she used was really simple and the children understood straight away. I think that teaching children as young as 5 and 6 about coding and programming is a good idea because they are learning from such a small age it will become second nature to them.