I believe that with blogging you build up a network of favourite blogs that you like to read. I soon found myself looking forward to reading certain blogs and hearing the bloggers latest views or seeing their latest art work. I’m sure that other people have similar feelings about issues or topics that interest them, such as sport or music, and look forward to reading blogs about these topics and sharing their own views with the author and other readers. It is also nice when people comment or read your blog, knowing that someone has a view or an opinion on your ideas; definitely encouraged me to post my ideas and thoughts.  The main reason for not posting more often was lack of time when on placement; having also to make written copies of reflections for my file. I would prefer to see a system in place where instead of writing lesson evaluations we do a weekly evaluation that we can blog, this would be beneficial for trainee but also reading other peoples blogs will be great for sharing ideas and reflecting on classroom practice.  If these reflections could be done in a blog then I would definitely use my blog more often.  If I had more time I would blog about  issues concerning education in order to get other peoples opinions on my thoughts and feelings.  The fact that blogging is so easy and can be done anywhere in the world only increases the attractiveness of posting and for reading other peoples blogs.

 In the future I would like to do a blog about different subjects taught.  I could blog about different activities that I have tried and hopefully this would help other teachers come up with ideas when planning their teaching. You could also blog about different courses that are available or schemes that are happening in your school or within your subject.  This blog is all about the use of music in education, the blog is about the new things the website has to offer including courses and different ideas http://www.funmusicco.com/musicteachersblog/.  I would hope that other people would a comment on my blogs; offering feedback to me through commenting on the way that I have taught something. This would be a useful tool throughout my teaching experience and something I would use to encourage me to reflect during my NQT year when I know there is still so much to learn from others.

 In one of my placement school’s we had a twitter page. This was great for parents to engage with the children’s learning.  I would definitely encourage my own class to have a blog as I think it would be a great technique for involving parents in their children’s learning. It would also be a good plenary tool; getting the children to reflect on their learning.  Not only would it help the children to reflect on their learning but it would be a useful tool for the teacher because it would give an indication of what worked well and what techniques or games the children did and didn’t like.

 There is no reason why younger children cannot be introduced to blogging.  It can be done as a class activity. The children decide what they want to put into the blog, perhaps  by carrying out a speaking and listening activity during a literacy lesson. They would use recall strategies to summarise what they had learnt that week. Once the children had done this the teacher would type it up on behalf of the class and then publish it. 

 A blog would also be great for parents to see the work that their children had done and were involved with. Recently I observed a Parents Evening and was surprised to learn that often the parents were seeing their child’s work for the first time. Sometimes they were getting ‘nice’ surprises, but other times, they made comment upon how much better they thought their child could write or how much more help they thought they needed to improve weak numeracy skills. In my opinion, it is sad that it had to wait for a termly Parents Evening before parents saw their children’s work. Blogging could be the way to better communication and more regularly feedback between home and school.

There is only one computer in each classroom of the school that I’m in. There are no stand alone computers or a computer suite in the school, but each class does have a laptop trolley which contains enough laptops for each child in the class.  On occasion, laptops were not used due to the time it takes to get the laptop trolley. This is disappointing as there were occasions where I think children would have benefited from using the laptops had they been made accessible.  Due to the huge amount of interest from the children and the good level of facilities available to them, it is my opinion that there should be a Computer Club at the school. This would encourage computer use and it would give children greater confidence to use computers in lessons.  The lack of a Computer Club, again, in my opinion, meant that children were not given effective access to the equipment which had potential to stretch their learning.  I found that time was not allocated within the school day to allow for ICT use. Time is very precious in Primary Schools and there is huge importance placed on Literacy and Numeracy, but I do feel a greater importance needs to be placed on ICT within a school if children’s skills are to improve. Such improved skills would help them in all aspects of the curriculum; in areas such as research, investigation, data collection and many more.

The e-learning facilities that are set up within the school are excellent.  All documents can be read online, as well as newsletters and other documents.  I have seen this facility on a wide range of school websites across the country. Ensuring that all staff have school email addresses helps teachers and support staff to keep in contact with the parents. An advantage of email technology is that work can be put online if the child is off school for a long period of time or is going on holiday. Whilst it must be argued that children shouldn’t be going on holiday during term time, the fact is that they do and so, being able to email them work and keep contact, has potential benefit for both teacher and pupil.

The only problem that I experienced with using computers with the children was that it took them a long time to do a simple task- such as type their name. I believe this to because they are very young and are not used to typing. I can appreciate therefore why teachers are discouraged from doing activities such as writing stories using the computer.  With practice the children will improve their skills, just like any subject in the school.  I believe that although it takes children a long time to complete what we perceive to be a simple ICT task, it is a great tool to use to motivate the children; they love using the computer and they see it as a treat.

I believe that teachers might be keener to use computers with the children if parents were supporting them at home.  Children play on their XBox’s and their wii’s at home but they are not practising skills which are being taught in school. If this could happen, so for example, typing skills were practiced at home, then I think we would see enhanced learning. This, of course, is true of skills such as handwriting and learning times tables!  In consideration of the viewpoint that children are having to ‘power down’ when they get to school, I would, given my experience, disagree. It may be so as the children get older, but after talking to the children that I was teaching in Year 4, they are not having to ‘power down’ at school.

Charles Clark talks about ‘the positive effects sustained use of ICT can have on pupil performance and educational standards…’ I agree with this statement and do believe that ICT helps remove many barriers to learning.  Writing, which many children in my class had significant problems with, were enticed to communicating using ICT.  In my class the children were encouraged to ‘twitter’. Twitter was used so that the parents could see what the children did at school. The children really enjoyed doing this and in my opinion it is a valuable tool; encouraging children to be reflective, make judgments about their day and about what they have learnt. Having given this thought, they then decide how to  update their ‘tweet’.

On the average day for example, I get up and check my emails, followed by downloading my lecture notes for the day and printing them to take into university.  I then go to the train station and buy my tickets using a touch screen computer and my bank card rather than change, this machine then prints my tickets for me. When I arrive in Southampton I then get on a bus using an electronic bus pass.  When I arrive in university I use an electronic key pass to get into different rooms in the university.  The types of technology that I am using here make my day to day life easier than it would be if these technologies weren’t in place.  If I had to go to the ticket office to buy my train tickets in the morning I would have to arrive 5 minutes earlier in order to make my way through the queue.  When on the bus, if I didn’t have an electronic pass I would have to have the correct change everyday to pay for my ticket which would be inconvenient.

On a day to day basis I use ICT for communication.  I use social networking sites such as facebook to keep in contact with people who I see on a regular basis as well as people who I don’t see often.  However, I feel that sometimes sites such as facebook mean that you become friends and talk to people that you normally wouldn’t be interested in talking to or be friends with (article which illustrates this).  I feel people become ‘friends’ with people as they feel they should as they’ve been requested.  Facebook and other social networking sites can be a great way of keeping in contact with people, however, i do feel there is a lack of reality that goes along with it and a detachment from the real world.

I use email on a regular basis.  I often use it to contact companies to ask enquires, I find this incredibly useful as I can email them out of hours and wait for a reply when they’re in the office, this is convenient for both parties.  I also use email as the phone numbers they provide tend to be premium rate and going into the shop or company in person takes time. 

I use online shopping for items such as DVD’s, books and CD’s on sites such as play.  I do this because they tend to be cheaper online than they are in the shop.  The downside to this kind of shopping for me is that it detaches me from the reality of the real world and real money, money becomes far too easy for me to spend when I don’t have to physically hand over the cash or my card.  Although I use the internet to buy technological products and books I would not use the internet to buy clothes of food because I feel food isn’t a standard item, I can choose to buy a fresh cucumber with the longest life on it, whereas online you get what you’re given.   With a DVD there isn’t this concern as it is a standard item which is the same where or whenever you buy it. 

I think technology has huge benefits to make life easier and when an aspect of technology fails I feel the impact instantly, whether it be the internet not working or my mobile phone breaking.  Although I feel the world could not live without technology I am concerned that the amount of technology could lead to people becoming less social.  The use of text messages is a prime example; it is very rare that people now pick up the phone and call.  If people no longer go to the shops to buy their food, no longer go to the bank to pay bills and instead pay bills online, if people no longer talk on the phone and instead send a text message, will people loose the ability to communicate effectively with other human beings?