Looking for ideas on how you can make use of ICT in your teaching? These suggestions may give you some fresh inspiration - let us know how how you they work. Better still, share any fresh approaches by contacting us!

The choice of suitable activities will depend on your current skills and on the resources available. Some of the activities here may already be part of your teaching repertoire and others might appear over-ambitious but we hope that you'll find the ideas helpful.

• Use the list of suggested Internet sites to locate, save and print out out some resources for a class. Include pictures if appropriate. Add any new sites you discover that you (or colleagues) might find useful.
  
  
• Involve students in searching for resources on the Internet, providing them with help sheets and advice advice - if possible with hyperlinks they can click on to visit the sites.
  
  Microsoft Word will turn recognise an Internet address, whether you paste it in after copying it from the address bar or type it, and turn it into a link once you press the space bar or the Enter key after it. This means that you can make a list of link just by preparing an appropriate word processor document and making it available to the students on a disk or on the network.
  
  Offer the students guidance on presenting their results. The members' site has a unit for students on research projects with some useful tips.
  
  
• Use a word processor or desk top publishing program to prepare your own worksheets and supporting material for a class or for a specific group of students; the collapsed text technique may have given you an idea.
  
  
• Prepare some PowerPoint slides to introduce a new topic, such as a literacy feature.
  
  
• Introduce students to PowerPoint so that they can make presentations to the class as part of a topic.
  
  
• Review some CD-ROMs available and devise an activity for a class, group or individual based on one CD-ROM.
  
  
• Locate and review some interactive resources for students and incorporate them into a lesson. These could be on a CD-ROM in school or on the Internet.
  The WordLab in English Online is one source - some activities are free to non-members. Why not try the StoryStarter Fruit Machine when you want to stimulate creative writing?
  
  
• Consider running a computer-driven simulation with a class. Actis Project Boxes are excellent sources for tried and tested simulations; run by just one machine with an Internet connection, they provide comprehensive support materials for before, during and after the activity. Once it is running you will find the students become engrossed in the simulation and you can use the opportunity to assess speaking and listening or work with small groups. Suitable across the secondary age-range, they can be used with a few children or even a whole year group at a time.
  
  
• Make resources available to students and colleagues on the school intranet or on the school website so that they can be used by students, parents and staff from home as well. These could be:
  • a research activity for students, with nominated Internet sites to use;
  • worksheets, homework tasks, schemes of work, etc;
  • interactive activities devised in school;
  • a list of useful weblinks for students for coursework, revision, etc;
  • a list of useful weblinks for teachers;
  • a showcase of students' work;
  • and so on - the possibilities are endless!
  
  Take a look at the school sites on the Internet page for ideas. Don't be deterred by the polished presentation - they are the accumulation of many years' work and each will have started with some humble pages for internal use.
  
  
• Find out how the use of computer software can help with departmental administration such as cataloguing and sharing resources, etc.
  
  
• Develop the use of ICT to assist with student assessment.

Any comments? Please contact English Online

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