Deployment in Schools

As all teachers and students were invited to take part in this project, the teachers finally involved taught a number of different subjects across the JC curriculum.

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Meetings were arranged with teachers in the two schools to discuss the nature of the deployment. I met with the teachers who took part in the first focus group and then met again with a larger teacher body in both schools in the staff room. A presentation was given about the project and we had discussions about how these ICTs could be integrated into curriculum units. Figure 5.1 shows the initial contact with the schools. During the focus group at the end of Chapter 4, teachers were put into pairs or small groups according to their subject and encouraged to brainstorm ideas on how JC curriculum units in their subject could be further enhanced by ICT.

Teachers focused only on curriculum units that they planned to cover with their students in the next three months. I tried to split the learning support teachers among the groups of mainstream teachers. This was not always possible as the meetings depended on the availability of teachers.

Figure 5.1: Contact with Schools for ICT Integration

Each teacher was given time to come up with a short list of curriculum units and related activities involving ICTs in the classroom which were then discussed as a group. The groups were a mix of mainstream and learning support. The suggestions ranged across using the three types of ICT. As not all teachers had access to every type of ICT, teachers may not have been able to try each idea.

Participants indentified via surveys and focus groups (Ch4)

Teachers / students & ICT types split into three groups Teachers given samples exercises developed in focus groups Observation during class sessions

Surveys and teachers / students invited to to Focus groups

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For example, suggestions for the English JC curriculum novel included:

 Ask students to prepare PowerPoint presentation in pairs on the main themes  Scan novel and use Read and Write Gold to read it

 Allow students time to look up extra resources online  Allow essays to be handed in using MS Word

 Show YouTube (2006) critiques of the novel by fellow students around the world

 Create memory maps on chapters with key quotes on MS Word or PowerPoint  Teacher presentation on exam technique and exam question language for

discussing your novel

 Project – review information on this novel online (on set sites) and present a synopsis.

Most of the ICTs allocated for the project were available in the school however versions of Read and Write Gold and Dragon Naturally Speaking had to be borrowed from education centres. These pieces of software proved difficult to obtain. As a result, each teacher did not begin and end the three-month study at the same time. Both schools were happy for me to be involved in observation work and classes were chosen so I could observe each ICT type.

This meant me going into a classroom or lab once every two weeks to observe:  teacher use of the software

 student use of the software  technical issues

 impact of the technology and teaching style and content  impact of the technology on learning style

 impact on student relationships

Notes were taken during these observation sessions on how the teachers used the software in practise and how the students interacted with the materials.

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The observation of the General ICTs, Special-Needs Focused Tools and Curriculum- Focused online materials in the mainstream classrooms showed that students had no major technical difficulties after the first week. Some extra in-class training and guidance was needed the first observation sessions so that teachers felt comfortable teaching a normal class with these new tools. Teachers were observed setting homework that required ICT. In the smaller learning support sessions teachers were working closely with the students on the materials for the majority of the time.

However, there was a significant problem in that the online curriculum focused websites did not have appropriate resources for learning support students. This resulted in the learning support teachers not using this resource.

There were some issues that there was not enough work to keep everyone in the classroom occupied. These issues were difficult to resolve because of the scope of the integration became too broad. Only so many sample materials could be created. Many of the students had not used one or more of the ICT tools before and enjoyed trying out the new tools. The students seemed mostly engaged in the work however again issues of not enough resources developed came into play.

After the three months of integrating the tools, teachers and students completed questionnaires and took part in focus groups to discuss questionnaire results in depth and to develop design guidelines for developing curriculum-focused ICT materials for diverse students in an inclusive post-primary school.

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Observation 1 School A

Type Number

Type No. Duration Notes Observation

Inclusive class

27 40 mins Using General ICTs

Teachers allowed students to submit homework via MS Word.

Observation 2 School A

Type Number

Type No. Duration Notes Observation

Learning support

3 40 mins Using Special Needs Focused

Many had not used these tools before & found them useful.

Observation 3 School B

Type Number

Type No. Duration Notes Observation

Learning support

4 40 mins Using Online Resouces

Content was not appropriate to students.

Table 5.2: Observation during the ICT Integration