ICT Across The Curriculum Example

ICT Across The Curriculum Example ICT Across The Curriculum â€" Essay Example > ICT ACROSS THE CURRICULUMIntroductionThe National Curriculum requires schools to give pupils opportunities to apply and develop ICT capability to all subjects. ICTAC or ICT across the Curriculum aims to provide all students’ access to ICT in a wide range of lesson and purposes. This research will discuss the contribution that ICT can make to develop and support other areas of the curriculum. It will consider the precise requirement of National Curriculum for both ICT and other subjects and the requirements of ICTAC in the secondary strategy and its implications for pupils, teachers, and schools. It will also cover issues in relation to equal access and provisions, and the extent to which schools are being successful in delivering ICTAC. ICT Across the CurriculumWhen we say we are committed to delivering ICT across the curriculum, this means all students have access to ICT in a wide range of lessons and using ICT for many different purposes. The delivery of ICT across the curricu lum was highlighted by OFSTED as “an area of excellence” (Imision and Taylor 2001:20). An important use of computers is for students to prepare records of achievement and CVs. Having a detailed record of their achievements, well presented on disk with easy updating, raises students’ self-esteem. Students learn to work cooperatively together in many lesson using and sharing computers and this improves their social skills. They regularly use e-mail and video conference links with schools in other country. This is necessary because students have to learn to be reliable correspondents. Their social skills are also important when speaking to foreign students in a more formal environment. To ensure that ICT is delivered across the curriculum, a school must have ICT facilities available across the whole school site. They should also have an open house policy for students before, during, and after school where they may come and use departmental and year facilities (Imison and Taylor 2001). Identifying opportunities for ICT across all the foundation subjects is a challenging task, as the wealth of different opportunities that ICT offers are appropriate to different subjects in different ways (Miller et. al. 2004). All state maintained schools according to Leask and Pachler (2006) are expected to have plans in place to support the use of ICT in the specific subjects across the curriculum. Many schools have intranets, which hold the shared teaching material of the departments including images, simulations, and interactive worksheets and so on. Many schools and subject associations also have material openly available on their website, which you will find valuable in developing your understanding about the use of ICT in different subject area. There is a wide range of contexts in which teachers and pupils work and the provision for ICT is one of the most varied. Some schools are able to provide large numbers of specification computers, whilst others are slowly de veloping their provisions. School policies for the development of ICT reflect great differences in the knowledge and expertise of teachers and managers, as well as differences in funding. All these influences will have a considerable impact upon a teacher’s classroom. In the beginning, a teacher should be aware of the information and communication needs of their own subject area. The extent to which their subject requires the retrieval and processing of information and the communication of ideas and knowledge will determines the range of work they are likely to undertake. Working in England and Wales, a teacher should be aware of the demands of the National Curriculum with regard to information technology and their own school’s requirements for the delivery of skills in ICT (p. 5).