Educational Games can provide great benefits
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Educational games have the potential to help a child develop their learning skills.
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ICT
Top 10 tips for online safety
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What are the top 10 tips for online safety?
Children’s internet use is at record high levels. On average, 5 to 15 year olds spend 15 hours a week online. Access to the internet is at an all time high, with almost 50% of 5 to 15 year olds have their own tablet.
But with the knowledge and social benefits that increased technology promotes, it also carries increased risk.
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5 potential career paths for…computer science students
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Your computer science student sits in front of you and asks that ominous question – “where next?”.
While some subjects are an unnatural fit for many careers, you’re going to have good news for this particular student.
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Teaching coding as part of the national curriculum
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The changes to the computing curriculum may well have been lost in the middle of some fairly large scale reform over the last year or so, but will impact learning in many subjects according to those in the know.
The idea of teaching coding is incredibly daunting to those who may have just about grasped how to play Candy Crush on their phone, but is really a question of teaching strategy, logic and thinking – ideas which all educators can see are relevant across the spectrum of subjects.
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Technology and how it can test knowledge and understanding
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Technology in 2015 offers a number of ways to be a motivational teaching aid. It’s a very flexible and customisable tool and can provide incredibly varied ways to expand learning experiences.
The testing of knowledge and understanding of what has taken place in a lesson can be achieved through a good mix of written and verbal feedback, question and answer sessions, written or verbal tests or self-reflective activities and projects such as diaries. Technology adds another layer to be able to assess the levels of understanding and can provide very personalised results.
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The use of tablets in schools
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The use of tablets in schools is currently at its highest ever level, with no sign of a downturn.
Technology charity Tablets for Schools has recently released the results of a study examining the use of the hardware in both primary and secondary sectors. The figures show that of the 671 schools sampled, tablets are in use to some degree in 68% of primary schools and 69% of secondary schools.
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Bring Your Own Device
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For many classroom situations, students producing a phone in a lesson is obviously not required and shows that they are not engaging in the lesson itself. However, there are a number of benefits to asking them to ‘Bring Your Own Device’ (BYOD) as a way of accessing learning information and to be used as tools for engagement and increased technology awareness.
More and more schools and colleges are now setting up dedicated IT provisions so student devices will connect to the in-house network.
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Digital Literacy
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Digital literacy is now a cornerstone key skill for many careers and there is a growing impetus for it to be recognised as being as important as being able to read and write to a level where it felt that it is a comprehensively gained life skill.
In the past, digital literacy was known generically as ICT and was originally untested. It did not sit alongside the core subjects of English, maths and science and was often based around learning packages such as Microsoft Office or activities which included internet browsing or gaming.
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Using Technology to Engage Hard to Reach Learners
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Whilst every year the media applauds those who attain incredible achievements with their GCSE or A level exams, there are many students left in the shadows who are unable to even dream of attaining similar success or may not be interested in attending school.
For many who fall into this category, a disadvantaged background is almost certainly a key element in the issue, there those who require assistance to learn even the most basic literacy and numeracy skills and there are those who become bored because they don’t feel challenged.
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Technology in Education: Mobile Learning
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Mobile technologies are putting a wealth of resources into the hands of pupils and making learning on the move a feasible proposition. Whilst some educators regard mobile learning (also called m-learning) as a way to engage with hard-to-reach pupils, others also relish the chance the technology provides to explore new ways of learning, regardless of students’ abilities and attitudes.
In essence, mobile learning means the use of mobile devices to enable learning any time and anywhere. Mobile devices include tablets, smart-phones, games consoles and media players.
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Careers in the gaming industry
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Sheffield had an exciting event over the weekend to celebrate Britain’s gaming heritage and to inspire a new generation of gamers with Games Britannia Live! The event took place at various venues around the city with plenty to get involved with.
Arcade games lined the Millennium Gallery and gamers young and old gathered round the stalls to partake in workshops and test their design skills.
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Game-based learning
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How can the use of digital games in the classroom support children and young people’s learning?
As increasing numbers of 8-18-year-olds participate in gaming, so has interest in the identification and harnessing of its potential to support learning in schools. EDLounge takes a look at the key findings.
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Safer Internet Day 2014
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Safer Internet Day 2014 is the perfect time to plan your approach to making the internet a safer place for your pupils. Adults and young people alike are exposed to countless threats on a daily basis whilst surfing the net. By identifying these threats and devising methods to combat them, we can start making the internet safer for young people.
Safer Internet Day is a great initiative for raising the awareness necessary to protect young people from the dangers encountered online. The day serves to “promote safer and more responsible use of online technology and mobile phones, especially amongst children and young people across the world.” (Insafe, 2014).
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Computing Curriculum 2014 – Digital Technology in the Classroom
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Digital Technology and its place in the classroom has been a hot topic in education over the last few months. From September, when the new coding curriculum will come into effect, England will be the first country in the world to make this mandatory in both primary and secondary education (The Telegraph, December 2013). One country that embraced digital technology before many other countries is Estonia, where children are already taught programming, robotics and generating QR codes for their smartphones (BBC, 2014).
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