ICT Suites - a good tool?

I am really impressed with my first SBT placement school and the ICT facilities that they provide. It is a big school, with a 6 form entry roll, so does need a lot of computers.

The format of the school's ICT equipment is predominantly in an 'ICT SUITE' format.

When I was on my introductory school's placement, a comment was made to me that it is impossible to teach the ICT curriculum to a class of 30 children without having suites set up in the school for the simple fact that each of the children needs their own computer and they need to be networked so the children could follow the work set. In that particular school, they had an online learning environment set up, (Moodle) which formed the basis of the lessons. When the comment was made, it was in answer to questions I had about the advantages and disadvantages to such suites, and led me to believe that they are advantagous when teaching ICT.

However, despite having numerous ICT suites, and computers spread throughout corridors in the school, my SBT school initially surprised me with the limited ICT use I saw in class. The yeargroup I am with has one of the first generation whiteboards, which actually isn't interactive and therefore isn't used as much as I expected it would be. Therefore, the only use of ICT they have each week, is a 50 minute lesson in the ICT suite. On reflection, I don't think this is enough given the vast ability ranges with ICT that are present in the class and also doesn't allow ICT to be integrated across the curriculum.

I also think that how much ICT is used in class (outside ICT lessons) is very much dependent on how confident the teacher is using the equipment and how they view it as a learning tool. I have observed in a number schools, teacher not using the whiteboards to their fullest capabilities because they don't know how they work. In addition, my recent reading, in the area maths has led me to research that suggests interactive whiteboard games are simply used as a reward for good behaviour and not as a tool to facilitate the learning of children in the main body of the lesson. [MOYER, P. 2001]

In terms of my own practice, I enjoy ICT, use it daily in my life and consider myself to have a fairly good understanding of it. I would therefore not be afraid to use it in lessons, and hope to be able to teach ICT and use ICT to aid learning in other subject areas.