Room12sBlog2008

Welcome to our first parents’ page.  There will be many more pages as we work through the year and explore and discuss the issues around the safe use of the internet for educational purposes! 

I use a growing range of digital tools to enhance learning in Room12.  We have a Mimio interactive white board and ceiling mounted projector, along with a range of computer games and software to motivate students in all areas of the curriculum.  Last year I introduced a computer game as a stimulus for creative writing.  The results were great!  If you want to see some of this work, have a look at last years room 12 classroom blog.   You’ll need to scroll down a few pages to find the work.  Take a look also at Tim Rylands in the UK.

Children today have grown up in a digital age, where working with computers, cellphones, ipods, computer games, digital photography to name a few, is second nature to them.  We expect children, who operate largely in a digital world outside of school, to come to school and communicate their ideas, knowledge and skills in a non digital way using pencil and paper.  I was in Scotland and England over the summer break and visited Teaching and Learning Scotland to look at what they are doing with gaming in education.  Derek Robertson talks about students ‘powering down’ in school because most of what they are learning is not in their ‘currency’.   

Digital technology doesn’t replace good quality teaching, but provides a platform for learning which is relevant to students today.  There were great teachers around in the days of chalk and slate boards, but no one would suggest that we return to that way of teaching in today’s schools.  Children don’t learn when they are not engaged.  Digital technology engages children in a way that pencil and paper can no longer.  We need to ensure that our children have good access to digital learning technology and have the knowledge and skills to use the information wisely and selectively.

Keep watching this space and make a comment or come and chat to me anytime about what we are doing in Room 12! 

Take a look at the following youtube video.  It is focused on students in high school, but has a strong message for anyone interested in the future of education!

 Lesley