Teaching in an age where technology is the norm in schools and amongst the children within them means that e-safety and keeping children safe in the digital world is of high priority for schools. The internet and technology is a great tool for education, networking and entertainment and not only is it about educating children how to be safe on it but also to parents so they can provide this protection at home too. Unfortunately, along with the good comes the bad and people using the online world in an inappropriate way. Bullying, inappropriate content, information protection and unwanted contact from strangers are just some of the issues surrounding e-safety. This can be condensed into the 3 C’s: Contect, Contact and Conduct. I learnt about how some safety measures such as filtering, parental locks, site blocking can work to eradicate children from viewing unwanted content. However, it is not solely on blocking and prohibiting but also about educating children how to trust what they search for, how to keep safe whilst using the internet and thinking about the content they upload. It is also important to be following the guidelines for the school you work in, in terms of what you are teaching about e-saftey but also about taking and saving photos from in the school. I learnt about CEOP and showing children how to report abuse. Somerset ELIM is a website which has good lesson plans on e-safety and the thinkyouknow website can be used when talking to children about this topic. When I go to my BSE1 it will be useful to talk to the teacher about how they taught e-safety and what tools they used to help them.

I can definitely see the benefits of having an IWB in the classroom, in terms of capturing the children’s attention and engaging them. It allows the children to be able to ‘touch their learning’ which plays a big part in allowing them to extend and take control of their learning. The IWB gives the teacher the opportunity to use multimedia, maybe video on one slide and music with pictures on the next. Unlike the television it enables the children to be interactive and not just a passive viewer. I learnt about the 3 categories of interactivity; technical, physical and conceptual, all of which allow the children to be involved in their learning. I was able to use the SMART software to create a simple maths input. It uses a lot of the same shortcuts and has similar elements to other software making it easier to understand and use. I look forward to trying out more of the software’s capabilities.

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