Matt: I decided to do this lesson er, because we were studying Mary Queen of Scots just now and I felt it would be a good idea, as we were doing database and ICT skills, to tie the two together. We were going to make a, a database of the kings and queens of Scotland, er, where the children can use their skills they already have to input the data into a database and we can then extend it to doing automatic calculations.
To prepare for the lesson, it took round about one hour altogether, about twenty minutes to do the PowerPoint presentation, another twenty to make the worksheet, about ten minutes to find the information on the internet. That will be used in more than one lesson so it's a, a good er, use of time I feel. Er, I would say time spent er, in learning ICT skills to, to benefit a preparation is time well spent and the time I use now is way cut down from where even four, five years ago, I used to have to spend planning, preparing, it's now much, much less.
I do tend to use ICT a lot in teaching anyway to, er, make it more effective. Er, we do lots of er, lessons which involve PowerPoint presentations which I've either made myself or taken from er, other places, from the web or, or so on, er, use animations an awful lot to explain difficult concepts, um, lots of er, maths activities, which er, demonstrate the concepts in a fun way.