Assignment 5 - Diploma Level 3

Anne-Marie Heaps
Student Number – HEAO11XJ
(Words in total 1,593)
11th April 2012

Assignment 5

Q1

ICT is a valuable tool for supporting the learning as it extends teaching and learning in many ways. It allows teaches and pupils to use visual and auditory media to extend learning and encourage pupils to become actively involved.
Having the ICT technology in schools it encourages the pupils to access a wide range of information and communication opportunities and enables pupils to store and retrieve, draft and redraft, test and analyse. This develops there learning skills that are required for the National Curriculum. These skills include: Communication skills, problem-solving, investigating, evaluating and analysing and critical and creative thinking skills.

Q2
When setting up ICT for the teacher the teaching assistant should consider the following 5 factors,
  * Noise – depending on the activity set by the teacher in the ICT lesson, the teaching assistant may want to get the headphones out for each computer for the pupils to use to reduce distractions and aid concentration. This is because all ICT equipment makes background noise when the power is switched on and even when an item is not in use noise can be heard. So if other ICT users in the ICT suite especially those working in groups can be noisy or distracting that is why headphones would be good to use.
  * Heat and light – The teaching assistant should make sure the room is well ventilated by using air conditioning, where available before the lesson starts this is because almost all ICT equipment gives off heat, which can build up during the day and become quite oppressive for users as well as detrimental to the equipment. They say the ideal temperature of an ICT suite is between 18 and 24 degrees Celsius with humidity between 40 per cent and 60 per cent.
  * Personal Safety – if pupils are using equipment such as photocopiers, fast-moving parts can trap clothing,...