Computer Rooms in Schools

I had my second day of Embedded Professional Learning today (Prac Teaching) in a primary school here in Bundaberg. I am excited to say the school is quite up to date with their technologies and I have already seen one class use the Interactive White Board in Maths!

One issue is that the school does not yet have an IWB in the learning support room. I believe this is one place where students would really feel comfortable using such an interesting tool and learning support teachers would benefit greatly by having the added excitement in their lessons. As I am spending a lot of time with a mentor teacher in the learning support room at the school, I understand that there are a range of students who use the facilities there. Students with Vision Impairment, Physical Impairment, Behaviour Management Issues and students requiring simple learning support all use these facilities. As almost every other classroom has an IWB I'm not sure why one hasn't been installed in the learning support room yet... I brought forward the argument to the learning support teacher who is actually going to look into that for me! Sometimes, half the battle with some of the children using this facility is poor engagement and inability to interest the child. IWBs certainly help these issues.

Another really exciting thing in my school is that in the computer rooms, there is a program installed on the teacher's computer that allows the teacher to access every computer in the room. From the teacher computer, the teacher is able to see the active screen of every student, what programs they have open and they are even able to lock all student computers so that the students have no choice but to avert their attention back to the teacher. The screens at the school I'm at read 'ATTENTION PLEASE' when this happens. I love this. This means that the students are always safe, respected but also observed incase they are straying off topic or behaving badly.

Just a few exciting things about my EPL school for you.

Toni