There is currently a substantial expansion planned at my current school, developing new classrooms, ICT areas and a fuller learning resource centre. This means big thinking is required for the development and setup of ICT within these areas.
The main decision seems to be between the ever dwindling resources of Promethean/SMART or to use some newer technology in the form of ipads, apple TV and a stonking great plasma TV.
We were having a discussion about these very options at a meeting last week when it struck me, and it might seem rather simplistic, that ICT's role in the development of teaching and learning must be to provide the best resources possible to suit the particular teachers best teaching style.
The teacher in the classroom has to be the best resource in the classroom, regardless of the toys you chuck at them. The resources that ICT has to provide must be suited to their style of teaching - why would you invest 2.5k in a promethean/projector installation when all it will be used for is for displaying information? Why not spend 1.2k in a plasma/ipad combo which can be used in exactly the same way.
Equally we must ensure that for those teachers that create brilliant interactive content have the resources that they need to ensure their best quality teaching.
My thinking - and my thinking is not always correct - is that as the pupils increase in age they are less likely to require the more interactive style of teaching, so for older pupils we are looking like moving further towards the ipad/tv solution whilst staying with the IWB's for lower down the school.
The only question left is what to do with the cash we save? I'm sure we will manage.
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