week 10 and 11- observations and reflections from school visit

After working with children in school, share your observations and reflections. What surprises you? What were the challenges and how might you overcome these? What have you learnt? Make links to relevant readings.

I thoroughly enjoyed working with the children on our second visit to the school. I was working with two other adults and five children. We had decided to pick Article 29: Every child has the right to be the best that they can be (UNICEF, 1989). Before the session, we had decided to work with a superman theme, however, we had decided to let the children come up with some of the ideas in order to have some ownership. Although initially some of the children were more reserved, I was surprised at how comfortable they felt to work with us and how keen they were to get involved. The children were also already used to some of the apps that we worked with. I was not surprised by this as Ofcom (2012) highlights how today’s children are using more and more technology each day.  

Our group had an EAL child who did not speak much English however, I was extremely impressed when she volunteered to be a broadcaster for one of our film clips. This showed me how working with technology in fun ways can help children to feel relaxed and enthused to get involved. This is supported by Lambirth (2003) identifies that using popular, media and consumer texts that children are interested in enhances learning and motivation in children.

One of the challenges that we faced as a group is the amount of time that we were given to create our project. Ideally we would have liked to give the children more ownership and more time to explore the technology and editing process. When we were editing our book, the children had to go off to lunch, which meant they did not get the chance to finish the whole project, therefore we had to make the final decisions to our pages. Unfortunately, due to time restrictions I felt that the children did not have as rich an experience of using the technology as I would have liked them to. I would overcome this challenge by doing the project over a period of time, rather than in a day. This would enable the children to take ownership during all parts of the process and would enable them to gain different skills both within ICT and literacy.

I found it really useful working with the children as I was able to put some of the theory that I have learned on this module and during the first visit to the schools and put into practise. Whilst I was initially worried about working with the children due to a lack in confidence with using the technology, I found the experience fun and invaluable as I was also about to practise some of the new skills that I have been introduced to.

Bibliography:

Lambirth, A. (2003) ‘”They get enough of that at home”: Understanding aversion to popular cultures in schools’ Reading 37(1) pp.9-13.

Ofcom (2012) Children and Parents: Media use and attitudes report. Ofcom.

UNICEF (1989) The United Nations Convention of the Rights of the Child, London: UNICEF UK.