The PGCE year is packed, what with cramming in the NC, KS3, KS4, KS5, VAK, ECM, G&T, SEN, AfL and every other teaching-related acronym you've heard of (not to mention even some you haven't), there's not a lot of breathing space, let alone time for experimenting with various ICT packages. (Yep there's another acronym.)
With so much ICT out there - some of which is fun and some of which is worthy from an educational point of view, but rarely both simultaneously - it can be hard to make the time spent on this count.
My trainees, however, were in luck last year. I wanted to explore to what extent websites for teachers could enhance a student teacher's experience, so Teachit was the obvious choice.
I had used lots of Teachit's whizzies during the year, particularly for starters to our sessions, but due to the afore-mentioned squeezing on our time was only able to provide the group with one two-hour training session on the different applications. Although I would have liked a lot more, this was to enable us quickly to move progressively from Scramble and Anagram through to Haiku Whiz (one of my particular favourites), before exploring Cruncher and Choptalk.
The trainees ended up raring to be let loose on the interactive whiteboards, digital projectors and computer suites of their unsuspecting placement schools. We're sharing with you here the results of some of their experiences.
From one trainee's whizzy experiments, to guidance on how to get the most out of Teachit's Word Whiz and Choptalk, there's something for everyone. We hope you enjoy them.
Return to The Training Ground launch page
