MOBILE DEVICE

What are the essential resources for the supply teacher? Sharon Wood, founder of National Supply Teacher Week, takes a look at her absolute favourites.

On supply, normal rules don’t apply. You may be left a set of plans, fully resourced, for the day. Or you may turn up with five minutes (10 minutes after you received the call to go) before the children arrive, to an empty desk, a missing laptop, and no password for the photocopier. You don’t know that the children have some work to finish off in any spare five minutes. You need to make sure that the children are fully occupied and engaging with their task to help minimise fuss and poor behaviour. You may be warned assembly is a 9:30 sharp, only to arrive and discover that it has been cancelled for today. In short, you need help! From five minute time fillers, to whole session activities ideas on the hop, apps are an essential tool for supply teachers.

 

This question is still the subject of many debates, and was at the forefront of my mind when receiving 1:1 devices at the start of my journey with my first Y6 class! After my NQT year, which began in September 2013, I was asked to move into Y6, a daunting thought at the time. Not only that, but a set of brand new 1:1 devices were wheeled into my classroom for the children to use. At first I didn’t know where to start, as there were so many different things the children would be able to do with them. The question that really struck me was ‘what real impact would they have on the children’s progress?’

70% of UK schools are now using mobile devices in the classroom, according to Tablets for Schools. The vast majority of those devices are likely to be iPads, yet how many schools can you name who are standout users of the device? That is to say, how many schools are using the device to deliver true 21st century transformational lessons?

What is the most important change you can make to your BYOD programme? For Principal Eric Sheninger, it was doing away with writing out a user name and password for every student who wanted to gain access to the network. Together with good policies and infrastructure, he argues, trust and respect for students is vital for a successful BYOD strategy.

My first ever post on the topic just provided a small glimpse at the possibilities inherent when students are empowered to use the technology that they already posses to enhance their learning experience.

It was our desire and quest to create a school culture and learning environments that were more reminiscent of the real world that our learners would soon be a part of that drove change in this area.

When I reflect upon how the program has evolved into it's current state I cannot help but to think about the most important change that was made recently.

In order to make our website better for you, we use cookies!

Some firefox users may experience missing content, to fix this, click the shield in the top left and "disable tracking protection"