Recently I did a 'deep dive' post looking at the development of the use of the computer in classrooms. As a child of the seventies, my formative years were at the start of the age of the personal computer, and as a teacher and then a headteacher my career ran parallel to the introduction and growth of the Internet and then the mobile technology revolution. Being just the right age to map my life and career in this way made it an interesting exercise, and brought up many long forgotten memories involving my interactions with technology at different points of my life, some of which I want to share in this post.
I want to start by going back to my time as a class teacher in the late 90s and early 00s, when I took on the role of ICT co-ordinator for my school. One of my favourite things to do was find new websites to share with the staff so that they could use them with their children. Even back then, in the dark ages, there was some great content that we used to enhance our curriculum, and it made me a little sad to think of these brilliant websites being lost to the sands of time and replaced by augmented reality, virtual environments and artificial intelligence.
Just for nostalgias sake, I had a look online to see if the sites that I remembered recommending to our staff were still active, and to my surprise most of them are, so I want to share the best of them with you. They might be a little basic, but in my view they still have value and teachers should at least be aware that they are out there before getting the children to strap on their VR goggles!
I'll start with one of my favourites, ictgames.com
This site is made up of two parts, 'maths games' and 'English games'. What I like about it is that there is very little text on screen for the children to read, which makes the games accessible for younger children, plus the games focus on basic skills and are really suited to repetition.
On a similar vein, lets move on to crickweb.co.uk
Crickweb also has sections for other curriculum subjects. I particularly like the French games, which are good for practising key vocabulary. I know that many people have moved on from interactive whiteboards now, but if you still have them then some of the activities on this site would make for effective whole-class plenaries.
For my third 'old-school' recommendation I would like to nominate senteacher.org
As the name suggests, it focuses on resources for children with SEND. Remarkably, this site is now 25 years old! There are lots of really useful printables here, as well as some new SEN-focused apps, so I would strongly recommend passing this one on to your SENDCO.
Finally for today, let's go super old-school with links to some of the educational games that I used when I was a pupil in the eighties. These were the first games to be used in schools to enhance the learning environment, and I seriously think that some of them are still worth a look.
'Tea Shop' and 'Granny's Garden' are two that I remember fondly, and you can still play them online on sites that emulate the old BBC microcomputer. They can still have a use in schools in 2025 in my view, whether simply as historical artefacts, or in the case of Tea Shop, as a valid and entertaining way of enhancing mathematics sessions. I have included links below to both the games I have named, plus a link to a complete archive of BBC Micro Games. Enjoy!
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