This week we had a very interesting session which largely focussed on the different between the internet and the web.

We discussed how the web is basically a system of servers (what we see when we go onto websites) and it is the internet that powers the web.

We discussed what the internet would possibly look like if we drew it, and were shown some images of internet visualizations that showed how the internet has changed over time.

We then thought about possible lessons we could teach in school regarding the internet, and looked at various programmes which could be used in the classroom, such as X-ray Goggles, Thimble, Codeacademy on HTML and EAK. These were some great programmes that I can definitely see myself using with my own class. They are accessible and enjoyable to use.

As Data is currently included in the National Curriculum, this was a very useful session to get to grips with the key concepts.

We looked at different ways of looking at Data in fun and exciting ways in school, including using data loggers to help with experiments in Science and using Data as an accessible way of presenting History (using Log Chart)!

We had a go in pairs at creating a pie chart on the subject on our choice. My partner and I chose to do ours on favourite takeaways, and we used the rest of the people in our tutorial group in order to gather data on this. This was an enjoyable activity, and is definitely something that could be done with a class of primary school children.

I recently completed my first BSE, and am going to talk about my experience of ICT in my placement school.

There was a specialist ICT teacher who taught ICT across the whole school. Unfortunately I did not see many ICT lessons as they always took place during my PPA time, but children did have a weekly ICT slot. There was an ICT suite that the children went to for their ICT lessons.

Each classroom in the school was equipped with an Interactive Whiteboard, so I was able to utilize this in my lessons. I was able to create slides for my lessons on Smart Notebook, which I found a highly effective way of making lessons a little more visually interesting and more engaging for the children. There was a high amount of EAL children in this school, so I attempted to make my slides as visual as possible to make the learning more accessible for them. I received good feedback for this.