Children at Friockheim Primary School have been taught how to use the school's digital camera and take it home to record activities with the class's fluffy toy donkey, Eeyore, the Winnie the Pooh character.
Nursery nurse Tracey Bedwell said, 'It's been superb. The children have taken ownership of the project and learned how to use the equipment. From the start the children record and hear their own voice. The enthusiasm for learning has been great.'
Activities with Eeyore include journeys out in the car and lunchtime or bedtime stories. Once back in the classroom, the nursery teacher uses the images to discuss home activities with the child, who tackles some elementary writing while the teacher puts together a scrapbook with two pages for each child's day with the toy donkey.
Children aged nine and ten in Primary Six then use the scrapbook to help put together a PowerPoint slide show that includes images and sound recordings of each child to present to parents and children.
Last October, the Scottish Executive announced 3m funding for ICT in early years settings, with its strategy spelled out in the document Early Learning Forward Thinking. The three-year strategy aims to help pre-school staff enhance and support children's development through use of ICT and the internet as well as digital cameras, DVD players and mobile telephones.
At the time it attracted criticism that the money could be better spent improving nursery workers' salaries and that focusing on ICT from an early age could be detrimental to other areas of child development such as social interaction.
However, the ICTproject at Friockheim Primary School has brought only benefits, according to nursery teacher Karen Kennedy. She said, 'The digital camera has encouraged children to talk about what they have done at home in a big way, that never happened before.
'The enthusiasm is fantastic. The children have developed in confidence in expressing themselves and in showing work they have done. They have learned about reading from left to right, and linking pictures with words.'
