Scenarios

Whilst this Unit is not the place to provide detailed technical instructions on the use of specific applications or equipment, (you will need to consult the manuals for such information), we have identified a number of key skills that are required to carry out activities similar to those described below.

It is assumed that you are familiar the operating system your computer uses and can manage basic tasks such as starting up programs, simple word-processing, and saving and printing work. The key skills, the type of software and any peripherals will be listed at the end of each scenario. These will be linked to the activities, which you will find at the end of this Unit.

For convenience, the scenarios are mainly separated out into two sections (although there is inevitably some overlap), dealing with electronic mail and the World Wide Web.

Scenario 1 - Administrative tools

We live in a bureaucratic world. This is definitely true in the field of education. Individual IEPs, annual reviews, pupil reports and records, letters to parents and other professionals etc, are all part of a teacher’s professional life.

The government when summarizing the consultation on the Code of Practice on special educational needs noted that ‘Two thirds of those who commented supported a review of the SEN Code of Practice maintaining its existing principles but minimizing bureaucracy and paperwork, particularly in Individual Education Plans’. David Blunkett also recognized, by implication, that teachers were overburdened by paperwork by pledging to ‘cut bureaucracy’. Whatever the outcome of the review of the Code of Practice or Mr. Blunkett’s attempts to reduce the load, much of the paperwork will remain and we need to find ways of dealing with it as efficiently as possible.

In what ways can ICT help?

ICT has a role to play in many of the administrative jobs that a teacher has to do. The busy teacher can benefit greatly from the ease with which a computer allows you to store, recall, amend and organize information.

Word-processing

The word processor will be the general purpose tool most commonly used by teachers. If you have to reproduce a document, for example a letter, where there are only a few changes each time, the letter can be written with markers where text needs to be added, and stored as a template. When needed, the template can be opened, the markers overwritten and the letter printed and saved, if required, as a new file leaving the template unaltered. Some teachers may well prefer to write ‘one-off’ letters by hand but using the computer for standard letters will almost certainly save time. When writing reports, IEPs etc, it is possible to produce a pro forma on the computer, standardizing the document and allowing the teacher to complete it either on the computer or by hand.

Just having a writing frame with the main headings listed to focus thoughts can be of as much benefit to the teacher as it is to the pupil. The same can be true of word grids and overlays. Teachers have been known to create phrase banks containing the most commonly used phrases and descriptions they use in their reports. They can then enter them into their text at the click of a button or a press of the keyboard.

There are many other short cuts you can use when using a word processor. If you have kept records of pupils on the computer they can be copied across to reports when necessary rather than being retyped.

One of the strengths of the word processor is this ability to manipulate text – cutting / copying and pasting, sorting tables etc. In addition the use of the keyboard or mouse button short cuts, can, depending on the way in which you work, make using the software much easier.

Spreadsheets and databases

You would use a spreadsheet if you wanted lists and tables of data, particularly if you wanted to analyse and manipulate the data. A spreadsheet will also let you sort your data by name, date of birth etc. Your word processor may well incorporate a table facility which will let you do similar sorting, possibly reducing the need for a spreadsheet.

IEPs and school reports could be produced using dedicated software which contains databanks of statements from which you can choose those appropriate to your pupils.

Where schools use SIMS as their administrative package they could use the SENCO module for administrative tasks related to special needs. This has been designed to help schools in following the Code of Practice. The module can be used to hold SEN information on any pupil and provide a constantly updated SEN register. All the details of periodic reviews can be recorded together with the date of the next review. An advantage of SIMS is that the pupil information is already on the system; a disadvantage is that you need access to the administrative system and this is not always possible. SIMS will let you export information; so if you wanted information about pupils you could extract it and use it in a spreadsheet or database.

Content free databases are less frequently used in schools but they do allow you to search and sort for the information for different purposes. A well designed database of the software and hardware resources of the school could help teachers locate equipment and make decisions on the appropriate software for a particular pupil.

Example 1a – Using a word processor more effectively

A teacher decided to create some letter templates and to spend some time familiarizing herself with the word-processing software so that she could write her letters, reports and lesson plans more efficiently. She drafted her letter, placing asterisks where the date and the names should be, changed the font and size of the text and made sure it was laid out as she wanted it. She then saved it as a template.

She then began exploring the word-processing package, discovering what happened if she used the right mouse button to try and do things instead of the left or if she clicked the mouse button more than once. She was surprised and pleased to discover that her version of Word gave her a choice of spellings when she clicked with the right mouse button over a misspelt word. Her spelling was generally good but she did make typographical errors and she found this a very quick way to correct them.

She also found that when she double clicked on a word she selected the word and she did not have to delete the selected text, since she could just type and her selected text would be removed, replaced by what she typed.

She used the index in the help facility of the program to look up ‘mouse’ and ‘keyboard’, to see if there were any features that might be useful; she was amazed to discover how many keyboard short cuts there were. There was no way she would remember, let alone use all of them but some would be very useful. She made a note of all the features she had found that she thought would prove useful to her and passed the information on to her colleagues.

Key skills and equipment

The key skills for the above example are:

• word-processing skills
• saving a template
• using a help file

• a computer complete with word processor

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