How do you define ICT? Is it just computers or would you include video, film, photocopiers and film overhead projectors (OHP)? If you are one of the broadminded ones you might be interested in some of the resources that are available from the British Film Institute. One of the themes of BETT, digital video, should be of interest to teachers of English (pp 47-55). The British Film Institute (BFI) has free, downloadable teacher resources on Hitchcock, Macbeth and the Western. All of these are clearly focused on the secondary curriculum and full of stimulating ideas for classroom work. The site also lists some of the other BFI resources that have a price tag.
PowerPoint has assumed a dominant role in some English classrooms and is being used by both teachers and pupils, and is more popular than desktop publishing as an activity. Some departments are creating study packages on poems or novels that are then available to pupils for revision or additional study. The use of presentation programs looks likely to increase as interactive whiteboards infiltrate more classrooms.
PowerPoint is not the only one. Granada has Slide Show and Project Presenter. Softease has just brought out a new package, Textease Presenter, which can be used with whiteboards and works on both Mac and PC. Why should you use this in preference to PowerPoint? If you already have the Textease word processor you will find this simple to use. It is not as elaborate as PowerPoint so it will not encourage the over-use of effects. One startling feature is Active Mark-Up: a teacher can circle or highlight screen items during a presentation.
Images are often a way into writing for some children. Fresco is a new graphics tool from Black Cat. Aimed at the primary market, its interface is clear and not overloaded with special effects. Using the metaphor of paper and watercolour, work produced has a very natural rather than a computer look to it. You can choose to have brushes run out of paint; brush strokes lose their intensity as you go across the paper. Choose a different quality paper and the brush will make a different impression. This is one that you must see.
Cannot wait for broadband and you want to bring topical issues to your lessons backed by full-screen video? Espresso is providing broadband that can be shown on every screen in a network room or on a whiteboard. The BETT show will see the launch of its secondary service. Espresso broadcasts focused broadband curriculum materials from satellite, weekly for primary schools and monthly for secondary schools. No one is as up-to-date and as relevant as this provider, and no one provides better broadband materials to schools on a regular basis. You can even manipulate video on-screen.
Great Ideas For Email is both a CD-Rom and a book from Tag Learning. The creative, amusing and stimulating book has numerous ideas to help teachers develop the use of the powerful technology: games, codes, puzzles, music, cartoons, pictures. There is advice about viruses, Internet safety and technical matters.
Resource Education offers, on one CD, FrameWorks - writing frames for secondary pupils designed to give structure and a sense of progression to writing, along with I Can Write that gives frameworks for primary children. There is also an interesting book, 20 Things To Do With A Word Processor, and a useful, free essay, ICT and the Literacy Hour, is available on the site.
English Online from Actis is a subscription service and it has put some of its work in a free area. If you want to judge the quality of the whole site try the onomatopoeia worksheet. It would make a great lesson! There are 50 more lessons of similar quality in the same place.
The richest of all the subscription services is Proquest Learning Literature. The depth and range of the library is impressive. There are three main areas - 11-16, 16-19 and the teacher area. Although the library is mainly geared to the UK A- and AS-Level, National Qualifications in Scotland and the International Baccalaureate, teachers and students at GCSE level will find much that is both stimulating and useful.
Venturing beyond the word processor we can find new ways of writing. Word will produce Web pages. Microsoft Front Page will do it better but the great program is Dreamweaver. Even average users can produce highly professional pages with this program. Macromedia will show how the program can link with specific curriculum requirements at BETT, and launch a national Web design competition.
Finally, writing for a purpose and a real audience is an excellent way to motivate pupils and The TESNewsday 2002 competition does both. It will be held on March 13 and 14 and students are encouraged to produce a newspaper or news website to real deadlines for a real readership. For more information about becoming involved, see www.newsday.co.uk or call 01642 286 688.
Jack Kenny is a freelance writer and chair of examiners for English for one of the major GCSE examining boards
