Speakers' corner

April Jones

We all know the web is bursting with free teaching resources. Practically everything, from Pokemon to the Houses of Parliament, has a website. Many have sections specifically tailored to support the national curriculum, and some of these are extremely well designed and informative for both staff and pupils.

The problem is finding and evaluating them. Are they accurate? Are they unbiased? (Not always, but that can be useful for teaching how to evaluate sources.) More important, will the site still be there next week? Unlike books, websites have the capacity to vanish into the ether.

The aim of this seminar is to reduce some of this time-consuming detective work. As a private information and communication technology consultant, Dr April Jones has spent 10 years helping children, parents and teachers find their way around the Internet. From the mass of material available online, she has selected some of the best free downloadable software, and two or three outstanding websites to support every area of the curriculum, from numeracy to PE, and she will be demonstrating how to use them. The object is to provide those who are unfamiliar with the web, or who do not have time for extensive surfing, with practical suggestions for teaching ICT and using it as a tool to explore other subjects.