ICT in my Classroom

Last Wednesday evening I attended my first TeachMeet event held in the Forth Room at the SECC. Typically I was first out of the hat to do a seven minute talk and kick the evening off – I was very nervous and my careful plans seemed to evaporate as I walked up to the stage. [...]

This week we used Google Forms to collect and share preference data about fruit. We spent Wednesday afternoon’s design and technology session learning about different fruit as a precursor to creating a healthy fruit smoothie. The children had the opportunity to taste about 15 different types of fruit and record their thoughts and preferences. I [...]

Over the last few weeks we have been working with the poem The Highwayman by Alfred Noyes. We have been discussing and exploring it through lots of talk and drama. On Monday we talked as a class about the drama technique of hot-seating, I asked the children to work with a partner to prepare some [...]

Absolutely. One of the children in my class had waited to the end of the session to ask me if they could access Google Docs at home. This afternoon we introduced all of our Year 5 children (60) to Google Apps and we had lots of fun exploring the tool with our new classes.  We [...]

I am thrilled to be travelling up to Glasgow in a few weeks to take part in the 9th edition of TeachMeet alongside the Scottish Learning Festival. (Depending on a few things I may speak at the TeachMeet too) There is a huge amount of innovation going on in Scottish schools, I am looking forward [...]

Last year it was in the Summer term that I finally got my act together and began using more cloud based computing and relying less and less on my memory stick. This year has started with barely a shred of paper in sight and I actually do not know where my memory stick is. I [...]

I have written about Multiflyer before as it qualifies as one of my top 5 Times Tables resources. We begin the year with a test of the children’s multiplication knowledge to ascertain their strengths and where they need to focus their practice, we also like to be able to see how quick they are. Using [...]

A new term a new start and I kicked off the first few days of the term with an upper key stage 2 assembly on Thursday morning. I wanted to talk to the children about the prospects of a new term and what it meant to us all. Twitter was buzzing with well wishes as [...]

Tomorrow sees us begin our Autumn term here in Nottinghamshire, England – most of the English primary schools will be back by next week at least. I just wanted to explain the road ahead for me in terms of the ways I will be using technology in the classroom this year, my classroom cornerstones. These [...]