The British Education Suppliers Association (BESA) believe that schools rely on mobile devices as useful and crucial tool within younger children. Through their research they found that 406 schools acknowledge internet availability at both school and home to be the most useful technology. 75% of teachers also believe that game consoles are beneficial for child development. Ray Barker for BESA stated that the belief to use of mobile phones by young children at home is split between teachers. 39% believe children should have no access to smartphones while 29% think it would be the best option. Up to 69% of pupils would rather use iPads within the classroom an d at home but only 4% of schools supply them. Most schools believe that children use at home laptops and PCs to do online homework (as 64% of schools give homework that can only be done on a computer) and entertainment (Teaching Times,2008)
A large variety of technology is used by children some include; Amazon fire stick, computers, camera’s, Nintendo’s, iPad’s, iPod’s, laptops, mobile phones, Wii and X-box. (Children’s Parliament, 2016)
‘The use of mobile digital technologies in the classroom might be largely unfamiliar to parents, but the benefits can be huge’, stated Drew Buddie, senior vice chair at Naace, he association for the UK’s education technology community ( The Telegraph, 2014)
Today in class we wrote an ‘I am’ poem and recored ourselves reading it using a speaker, we then made a powerpoint presentation based on it. I had a lot of fun working on my partner on this so I can only imagine how much the children would enjoy the task. It was creative but still involved a lot of teaching for the pupils. I think this is a great resource to use in the classroom and hope to try out this lesson in my 2nd year placement!
References-
Children’s Parliament (2016) A Digital Learning and Teaching Strategy for Scotland: The View’s of Children.
[Online] http://www.childrensparliament.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/REPORT_digital-learning-consultation_Childrens-Parliament-1.pdf [Accessed-1.3.18]
Teaching Times (2008) Games Consoles Benefit Children’s Education. [online] https://www.teachingtimes.com/articles/games-consoles-education.htm [Accessed-1.3.18]
The Telegraph (2014) Digital Learning: How Technology is Reshaping Teaching. [online] https://www.telegraph.co.uk/technology/news/11051228/Digital-learning-how-technology-is-reshaping-teaching.html [Accessed-1.3.18]
