First Full Lesson

And boy did it feel like a long one. Year 9s, Monday morning for 100 minutes on the use of emails in business.

I kicked off the lesson with a wordsearch starter about email terms such as inbox, attachment etc, which didn't even go completely to plan *shakes his head and sighs as he types*, one of the words in the puzzle was spelt incorrectly! I had 'replay' instead of 'reply' - shows what happens when you mix too much football into your weekend! Thorough inspection of the lesson material is a must-do for me next time.

After 10 minutes (sorry, 7 since I found out one word was missing), I gave the pupils a presentation on how to use the basic features of Outlook Express. The class had already started a presentation in PowerPoint in the previous lesson on using emails, but having briefly observed them in their previous ICT lesson, I felt that they needed to go over these basics again as some pupils were absent, they had a supply teacher from the PE department with them last time and the entire class was made of SEN pupils. The presentation therefore illustrated how to create a message, sending and receving emails, attachments, signatures and out of office replies, which gave the pupils the ideas and information they needed to pick up from they left off from last week. I picked out random pupils in the class to answer questions I had about Outlook but the majority couldn't recollect what was covered previously.

At the end of the presentation, I provided them with a list of slide titles; 'what is an email?', 'sending and receiving emails' etc, which assisted them in the structuring of their work and what content was needed in their work. I recommend this to my fellow ICT trainees as it can be done in no time, the list can fit on one slide or one side of paper and the titles alone give the pupils several ideas about what to include in their work. Simples!

The pupils had 75 minutes to work on their PowerPoint presentations and although they weren't finished, I managed to get the pupils exploring Outlook Express in further detail and the use of PowerPoint itself gave the class a great opportunity to exploit their creativity. Once the content was in their presentations, I encouraged the pupils to reformat or decorate their work more to make it look more interesting and professional. If someone came up to half-way through the lesson and said; "Sir, I've finished", I'd get him to go back to his presentation and find me five areas of his work that can be improved. Not only did this get them going right to the end but it inevitbaly led to better work being produced. Two boys managed to have their work ready for printing off in the next lesson although towards the end it was evident that they were running out of ideas as they started going around to assist other people. Although this benefited some others who were behind in the task, these two individuals lost focus on their work and it encouraged others to get out of their seats and go around to other work stations too. I got everybody sat down again promptly but I feel that I'll need to emphasize the importance of getting one's own work completed before moving on to somebody's else's in future lessons. Maybe I could've had another wordsearch ready for the pupils who finish early; another on emails or the next assignment to do with business documents about a trip to France.

A seating plan for next lesson will also come in handy - too much noise and disruptions today I felt and people at the far end of the classroom couldn't read certain parts of my presentation at the start of the lesson.

Anyways, I shall quit my jibber jabber and start contemplating on my lesson with Year 7s tomorrow morning, half eight sharp.

Have fun my fellow ICT trainees!