Hi Avril,
I agree that making the lesson engaging and interesting for the students is very important. Also, as you have said, designing a child centered lesson where the students have the opportunity to be creative and make their own decisions is very important.
It is great that the school made the decision to begin collecting funds and investing in ICT a number of years ago. The up keep and maintanance of laptops is costly and difficult. I think it is essential that the school invests in good quality laptops and frequently wipes and updates the software. If the laptops are of a good spec and they are updating frequently then they should last. In our school, when we purchase new laptops for the staff, we use the old ones as student laptops. We are lucky to have an in school IT support that keeps everything working smoothly.I would recommend that the focus is put on updating current staff laptops first before rolling out Office 365 with students.
