Out-of-school contexts
Kids on the net
Activity summary – Kids on the net
- Work in groups to read and analyse transcripts of children's discussions of their Internet use.
- Design an interview schedule to find out about pupils' use of the Internet (and other digital reading and writing) during pre-placement visits.
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Many pupils have extensive experience of using the Internet and student teachers need to be able to acknowledge this when planning to integrate Internet use within their planning. One way of encouraging them to reflect on the value of out-of-school Internet use is to present them with transcripts of children talking about their own experiences.
We use a number of
excerpts from an interview conducted with a group of Year 6 children as part of a small scale research project investigating children's Internet use out of school. During semi-structured group interviews, the children were asked to discuss how they use the Internet and for which purposes.
We ask the student teachers to analyse these excerpts and discuss what they tell us about these children's Internet use, their relationships with knowledge encountered, and the implications of this for the classroom. The excerpts prompt discussion of issues that include:
- extensive skills and knowledge developed by children out of school (A)
- awareness of functioning of Internet and common problems (A)
- awareness that texts can be manipulated (B)
- playful use of Internet (C)
- awareness of commercial aspects of internet (D)
- ways in which use has been encouraged (E)
- limitations of school use (F)
- salience of visual features (G)
This discussion is used to lead into work on
assessment of children's experiences and discussions of
approaches for supporting these children's further development in the classroom.
