Week 7

Hey everyone, 

So it has all come to an end......doesn't time fly! Well we presented our ICT presentations last week.  I chose to do my presentation on the Science topic Animals and Plants for Key stage 1(as a plenary) and demonstrated some of the skills we had learnt using the Smartboard. Here are some of the Smartboard functions that I got to show my group...

Pull Tabs

Balloon Pop

Upon reflection the presentation went really well, and I received positive feedback from my peers.  Among other things they said that my presentation was colourful and engaging. I have really enjoyed our ICT lessons and have learnt so much about the new technologies that have entered the classroom since I was at school.  I am really looking forward to using all the ICT skills I have developed in School based Training and when I have my own class! :)

Week 6

Hi everyone, 

Last week in ICT we looked at Mlearning and Programming.  We were introduced to a programme called KODU whereby children can create their own computer games. The games can be played on the Xbox as well as on computers in the classroom. 

                        

I had a go at trying to create my own game by assigning different controls on the keyboard to different actions on screen.  Initially when thinking about the educational value of this task I did not really think of it as being very useful.  I thought that children are not really gaining any knowledge and are really just playing.  As I was constructing my own game however, I thought about the skills that I was using.  I was planning, I was trying to be tactical and think ahead, I was using coordination and most of all I was engaged in thinking about how I was going to make my game.  This is where Kodu is different to other programmes, children are not passive receivers in this context but active learners and most of all creators.  I really enjoyed making this game and I think Kodu gaming has its place in the classroom, not in every lesson of course but I would I ask the children to make use of it now and again and would look forward to see what they have produced.  As can be seen from the screen shot below, children can use the keyboard to assign keys to do different functions.

The controls being assigned to keyboard keys

UK Learners - some of the Unhappiest in Europe

"School and education are key factors influencing children’s current and future well being. A higher proportion of children tends to feel unhappy with these areas of their lives.  

More than three-quarters (80%) said that it 

was very important for them to do well in 

their school work.  

This is another area of life where safety is an 

important issue. Around 7% of children do not 

feel safe at school and three-fifths of these 

children are unhappy with their school life 

as a whole". (The Good Childhood Report 2012)

Click  here to see the BBC report on this...

I was quite surprised to hear what we were told about research showing that UK learners are some of the unhappiest in Europe and also some of the least engaged.  I was thinking back to when I was at school in the late eighties and nineties when we did not have nearly a fraction of the resources that children have today.  There seems to be so much effort in recent years to engage young people, to get them to see the fun side of activities through games and colour and pictures and technological advancements.  I wondered whether children were still unhappy, is all this technology making it worse for them to concentrate?  I don't think that is it, I think in the fast changing instant society that we are living, we as educators need to keep up with the times.  I think we didn't have all the technological resources we do, children would be even more unhappy and even less engaged.

So what attempts are being made to engage children?

We were shown the Dance to Advance program.  This is a program whereby children are asked a series of questions on screen and they attempt to answer the question using their feet on the dance mat.  

                             

                                 Dance to Advance

The screen shot above shows how a screen would look where an EYFS or Key Stage 1 child identifies which sound is made by which animal.  

We then had a go at creating our own question and answers.  I based my activity on the 5 times table.

Voki 

We were also introduced to Voki.  At www.voki.com you can create your own virtual character.  

I made my own Voki character, click on the link below to check it out!

http://www.voki.com/pickup.php?scid=7229001&height=267&width=200

Week 5

Hi there, 

This week in our ICT lesson we learnt about modelling, Computer programming and Games based learning.  We were told about the importance of programming in a modern age where the demand for computer programmers is increasing.  

London Paris Milan

.......No, no, not that kind of modelling!!.......

What kind of modelling  then?

In the context of ICT in Primary schools modelling refers to the process whereby children explore 'what happens if'...using computer software.  Software in everyday life allows us to simulate how things would work if they were a certain way before we go to the time, effort and cost of making the real thing!  Examples of this are when engineers use computer software to model an aeroplane or architects 'model' a building using Computer Aided Design (CAD).

To be honest, I knew that adults in the grown up world created 'simulations' before producing the real big thing or at least I hoped they did!  But I had never actually thought about children modelling.  The more I thought about it the more brilliant I thought it was!  Modelling allows children to be creative, be logical and make them think.  There are lots of different simulation programmes.  We took a look at a few...

My Modelling Toolkit 1 

My Modelling Toolkit 1 is very popular in schools for EYFS – For example, you can make a birthday cake. You can vary the level either 1 or 2. Children can practice making a cake before making a real one.  

2simulate 

An example of one of the activities on this site is where children could simulate going into space.  They looked at all the things that they needed to take into space and added them to their space craft.  Not only is this interactive but it is very educational.  

Poisson Rouge 

One of the sites I really liked was poissionrouge.com  This site contained lots of games for example on maths were early years children are encouraged to count and fill in the missing numbers with the aid of popping balloons.

With modelling children are encouraged to try things out and see what happens in real and make believe situations.  Some of the topics on these sites are more serious, for example, what you would do if you were locked out of your house. Children are encouraged to find out the effects of changing values, patterns and relationships.

With regard to modelling programmes it has been said that 

 "The learning activities were presented with a general goal and sub-goals with a storyline encompassing all of these goals. These general characteristics resulted in a fun learning experience. For example, it was observed that children celebrated and congratulated each other after finding a lost child; roared, chirped, and hummed while controlling the motorcycle avatar...and expressed their enjoyment through conversations with their peers. These general characteristics seemed to generate four affordances: exploration, interaction, collaboration, and presence". (The effects of computer games on primary school students’ achievement and motivation in geography learning. Hakan Tüzün, Meryem Yılmaz-Soylu, Türkan Karakus , Yavuz Inal and Gonca Kızılkaya) 

Computer Programming 

LOGO was a programme we used in class to create different shapes.  Whilst this sounds quite straight forward and easy, it really was not.  In order to create the shapes, as shown above you need to provide the program with instructions.  For example, REPEAT 4 [FD 50 RT 90] is just one instruction to create a square.  This needs to be repeated to create more of a shape like the one above.  What I found was really important here was thinking about the processes, you actually have to think about how you are going to do something.  

It is similar to the programmable toys we looked at the earlier session but I would say that this is more complex.  You can attach instructions to patterns which the program recognises.  This allows you to type in 'pattern' instead of the whole instruction.  I enjoyed doing work on LOGO because unlike a lot of other interactive activities the process was more important than the finished article.  This is known as constructionism.  Producing the shapes involved a lot of concentration and care and I think this is good for children to focus on.  It is also great for them to use programmes such as LOGO in Maths lessons, maybe even before they have been introduced to shapes as it makes them really think about the properties of a shape.

Scratch

Finally, we were also introduced to a programme called Scratch.  Scratch enables children to create interactive stories, games, music and art which can be shared online. Children can choose their own characters and backgrounds and add their own music.  

Week 4


Hi everyone, 

Only me again...reporting and reflecting on another fab ICT session.  The topic this week was Digital Imaging: Speaking and Listening. We learnt about the ways in which technology can support speaking and listening in the primary classroom.  

For example, we looked at talking photo albums! I had seen those photo frames that changed photos automatically but had never come across ones that could talk back to you!  We found out that they are particularly good for literacy and can be used as:

• photo sequences
• presentations
• for EAL students – key phrases  
• Digital story book – could do it as part of a group
• word recognition 

We were also introduced to Talk Tins which are good for recording and playing back short sound clips. This is great as a teacher for recording instructions for children to follow.  You could have them already set out on the table ready for children to listen to.  Another way in which they can be used is if they are hidden as part of a treasure hunt.  Talk tins are really useful for developing speaking and listening skills. They come in different colours and different talk times. 

Another activity we learnt about was the Talk Time Cards. These come in a variety of sizes and are also used for recording and playing back recordings.   A benefit of Talk Time Cards is that the recording time is limited so this enables children to stay focused on the task at hand and allow them to record what is really needed. 

Podcasts

I had heard about podcasts, mainly from the radio but had never actually investigated about what they are.  Podcasting, I was told in our lesson today is the art of making audio files online, usually like a radio show. Podcasts allow software to automatically detect new files and download them and they can come in MP3 format.  Podcasts are very popular in schools and are used by children to record their thoughts and ideas, publish interviews, improve their modern foreign language skills as well as developing a whole host of skills.  

Some Year 6 children at Bushey Hill Junior School made a podcast to record some Nonsense poems.  These can be heard and appreciated by all.  Click on the link below to hear some of their poems.

 

 

Bushey Hill Juniors Podcast  

Podcasts are great for childrens' confidence, group work and especially motivation as they know that their work has an audience.

Webcams 

In our lesson we were also told about we can use webcams in school to take still images as well as moving ones. As well as the camera (usually what is known as an eyeball camera) you will also need software to run the camera online. Children can use the webcam to observe things that are going on in the classroom, for example, in Science.  They can observe snails in an environment.  They could also observe birds that visit, the children could be asked to look at what the birds eat and how they behave.

Digital Camera

In our session we were asked to work on one area of digital imaging and produce something creative by the end of the lesson.  My group and I used a digital camera and play dough to produce a moving story board.  We started of by creating a story which involved Bill who was taking his dog Monty for a walk. We created the characters out of play dough and took still images of the 'characters' in different moments in the story.  We then used a software programme called Photostory 3 to create put our still images together.  The result, as you can see below was something like a moving storyboard.