English and ICT

1. Look at a range of projects and identify how ICT is used to provide meaningful contexts for writing.
2. Consider opportunities for using blogging in the classroom.
3. Identify opportunities to use digital writing in classroom teaching.

Children in Year 5 worked in groups of four to produce interactive suspense stories. The children in each group worked together to write the first part of the story. Having reached a hinge point in the story, they decided on two alternative events that could happen and then split into pairs to tell the next part of the story until they reached new hinge point. They then split up to write the alternative ending for the story. Some groups chose to create more hinge points and extend the story.

Reception 1 children were asked to prepare a booklet for children joining the school, informing them about the school and the activities which take place there. They discussed what the new children would want to know and then took digital photos of the school buildings, the classroom and activities which took place there. With support, they later added captions and produced copies of the booklet which were given to the children in the nursery. Year 2 children were involved in planning a website for the school using the Freeserve website design facilities. . The website was structured as a 'walk through' their school. The children worked in groups of 3 and were allocated different parts of the school and created a web page about that area. The children took their own photographs using a digital camera and then made decisions about page design (layout, use of captioning and font type and colour, borders, etc). Once complete, the children prepared a poster and letters to inform parents that the website was live.

Year 7 students were paired with Year 6 children in the feeder school. The younger children were encouraged to ask questions about life in the secondary school and to raise any concerns they had. On the basis of the queries raised and the experience of providing information and reassurance, the Year 7 students produced web pages for the school website directed at children in the local primary school. Children in an urban and rural Primary school were paired up in an email project. They used email and digital photos of important possessions as a means to get to know each other. They were then asked to create a Powerpoint presentation for student teachers on the interests and concerns of children of their age group. (For more about this see:)

Year 6 children were involved in creating a school newspaper. They decided what should be included and made decisions about layout, order of articles, font size and type. After the newspaper became established, younger children were involved in contributing to it.

A simulation was created involving children in a Year 5 class who were invited by a creator of a website concerned with mysterious events in the area to report on fictitious strange events that they observed. The website creator then introduced a focus for the mysterious events they had described and asked the children to investigate, providing them with email contact with “witnesses” of events. On the basis of their investigations and observations, the children then produced stories for the website. (For more about this see:)Year 6 children studying life in the Britain during the Second World War. In role as children of the time, they produced a blog to record their experiences. Year 6 pupils worked on producing sword and sorcery fantasy stories in email correspondence with an adult who acted as a remote writing adviser. They sent fragments of their stories for comment and received encouragement and further ideas in Word and image attachments.