Reflections of learning from the module - Week 12

This blog post aims to be reflective on my own learning from this English/ICT module identifying its implications for my role as a future ICT subject leader. As a formal blog post, personal reflective language will used picking at only a few things due to the restrictions of the word count. 

My first point of reflection is that throughout the whole module it has been evident that working with technology and incorporating English into this is a refreshing change from the more routine elements of the curriculum (Stafford, 2011). Stafford (2011) explains that we are continuously surrounded by information conveyed to us through a variety of visual media, where the learning during this module that we must incorporate technology into our teaching has been apparent. The outlook to my future as an ICT subject leader has been greatly looked and thought upon through this module. The considerable amount of learning and reflecting upon different aspects of technology which incorporates English, such as advertising, multimodal texts, copyright and many more has had a clear position on how personally I see technology being used and how in the future as a subject leader the different technologies which could be implemented into children's learning.

The stance throughout this module that children of today are growing up in a highly multimodal environment (Bearne and Wolstencroft, 2007) has had an impact on the way I will be teaching in future practices. From the start of this module on interviewing adults on their attitudes to popular culture and seeing that people agreed that it should be used in the classroom, to the end of the module where the experience of using all kinds of technology in the classroom with children, has been very beneficial and proven that it is valuable to children’s learning. Stafford (2011) states that visual literacy is an exhilarating way of improving and supporting current literacy teaching in primary schools, which holds valuable educational and life skills. Dondis (1973) agrees with this explaining that the advancement of visual literacy is vital to our teaching of current media as reading and writing was to print, asserting that this is truer than ever before.

Through the learning about inter safety issues has had a great impact on the way I will be cautious when setting children tasks to do with the internet.  Duerager and Livingstone (2012) enlighten that it’s the role of the teacher as well as the parents to educate children on internet safety and has taught myself to be aware of the issues of the internet within my teaching. As a future ICT subject leader I will be taking internet safety very seriously and will implement internet safety teaching with children as well as making other adults aware of this.

In conclusion from undertaking this module of ICT with English has furthered my knowledge on all the different types of technology and the issues which these hold in the primary classroom. This module has definitely enriched my learning with how as a future ICT subject leader I could incorporate a cross curricula approach between English and ICT. For the National Curriculum, as far as ICT is concerned, learning means findings things out, developing ideas and making things happen, exchanging and sharing information, and reviewing, modifying, evaluating work as it progresses (Andrews, 2000). This module has shown to me the great importance which technology brings to children’s learning within these aspects. Andrews (2000) explains that literacy is closely tied in with ICT development through changing patterns in communication, which as a future subject leader this module has enlightened me on all aspects of technology which children need to come across within their education.

Bibliography:

Andrews, R. (2000). Learning, Literacy and ICE What’s the Connection? Journal into English in Education. Vol. 34 (3). Pp 3 – 18.

Bearne, E & Wolstencroft, H. (2007). Visual Approaches to Teaching Writing London: Paul Chapman

Dondis, D. (1973) A Primer of Visual Literacy. Cambridge, MA:MIT Press.

Duerager, A. and Livingstone, S. (2012). [pdf] How can parents support children’s internet safety? Available at: <http://eprints.lse.ac.uk/42872/1/How%20can%20parents%20support%20children%E2%80%99s%20internet%20safety%28lsero%29.pdf> [Accessed on 28/03/2014]

Stafford, T. (2011). Teaching Visual Literacy in the Primary Classroom. Abingdon: Routledge