How is ICT Covered in your Primary school? - updated and fixed

How does your school cover the primary ICT curriculum: discretely, embedded in other subjects or a mixture?

Miles Berry has posted this poll online via Twitter - Take part and then watch as the results update below.

What a great use of Twitter

Doctor Who Again

Well, it finally arrived and episode 1 did not disappoint, in fact in went way beyond my expectations as a show opener. But the run up to this years new series has been made even more exciting by the trailers, showing first in Cinemas ( and much bootlegged on YouTube) and now on our TVS. It put me in mind that this trailer could be a great'text' to use with students in Upper Key Stage 2.

In year 4 and Unit 4 of Renewed Framework Literacy we read the following:

Phase 1

Read, compare and contrast a range of paper-based and DVD-based persuasive texts. Discuss and record common features of the text-types. Express views about the persuasive nature of different texts.

Phase 2

Identify elements of a DVD text that would persuade a reader to see a film. Plan a trailer to promote a film using key moments from the film.

Phase 3

Write a written voice-over script to persuade a reader to see a film. Demonstrate how to combine words, music and images to convince the reader.

The trailer for Series 4 combines key moments and effective music beautifully, through scenes of terror in the flying marching and head turning monsters, alongside the faces of past and present characters that display confusion, happiness and fear all at key moments in the music score. This trailer more than fulfills the requirements of Phase 2 above and would make a great text to study.

This could easily be recreated with some stills and good old Photostory 3 or some cheeky use of Movie Maker, granted but then last week I read that there may be another more legal and exciting way.


Doctor Who Magazine reports in the coverage of the new look BBC DW official website that:

Among the new features is an innovative video tool which will allow fans to create 'the ultimate Doctor Who Trailer'. The video tool will allow users to manipulate a wealth of clips, sound effects and music tracks to create their trailers.

How exciting is that! I would have loved to have such a toolset at my disposal back in my Year 4 teaching days. As you can imagine I went straight to the site to check out these features, yet due to some technical difficulties they are not live at present, though I am sure they'll be with is soon, thank you Jo Pearce, BBC Doctor Who new media producer. It is also worth pointing out that there are already scores of fan created trailers and cheesy compilation videos already on YouTube, therefore an activity like this would have added cultural relevance, not just because it is the number one Kids (and big Kids) show.

When these features are live I'll certainly be posting here, but in the meantime there is plenty to occupy a class with in the comic maker area.

And here of course is that trailer

Democratising Knowledge

I was really excited by our Subject Leaders event last week. These are always energising and exciting times, not just for me but also for all those who take the time out to turn up. The day was the usual mix of hands-on with new software, news, advice and web links, but today we added an unconference element. This meant that anybody could stand up and share what had been going on at their school, with or without Powerpoint.

For me this was one of those wow/hair back of the neck moments. It was one of those times when you just step back and get excited by what is happening in some of our schools. It also proves to me that democracy of knowledge is worthwhile and that when we share our ICT knowledge in this way we do not reflect Huxley's typewriter apes in our blogs and thoughts, as Andrew Keen would have us believe. There are still those who say to me, 'so you're the expert'. No I have knowledge and skills, and expertise, I am not the expert. If ICT was guided and inspired and directed just by me, then what a narrow vision we as a borough, and I as a consultant would have.

Below is a selection of some of the things that were shared. Maybe next meeting we should turn the event into an evening with food and drink, a la TeachMeet @ BETT.

Dancing Lego Robots @ South Park Primary :




Thanks to Hermina De Wet


Proper Podcasting- the work of the Redbridge Podcasting Network and the impact of Podcasting @ Redbridge Primary



Thanks to Rob Spriddle @ Redbridge Primary

Anca Pauwells @ Highlands Primary , who showed us how to embed ICT into school, simply by having an appointed ICT advocate in each year group,and thus the applications and innovations are spread far quicker than the lone coordinator/expert. It seems when and if OFSTED comment negatively about ICT in a school, they are more likely to use the comment bank statement,

'use ICT to support teaching and learning in other subjects'

They are doing this in Highlands, without the need to shout about it, what's more through the advocates system many more of the staff are on board.


Thank you Anca

Sue Bell from Churchfields Infants talked to us about the Talk Time photo albums. It was thrilling to hear how these had been used with less able children to promote speaking and listening. A simple tool with a powerful outcome.



Thank you Sue

Lucy at Manford showed us how her school had been using blogs to showcase the schools activity week and visit to Glasbury Outdoor Education Centre centre.





Click here to see the blogs

A further tool for sharing and collaborating is of course GOOGLE docs- and here I have taken my inspiration from Tom Barrett and the wonderful joint presentation on SMART BOARD tips and the more recent GOOGLE Earth presentation. I created a sharing presentation and invited everyone present to create a slide to reflect what is going on at their school. It was very exciting for Nicholas and I to see this slide show update throughout the day and though the finished product is a bit rough around the edges, it does show what can be done.




Here's hoping that next time the finished collaboration is even sharper!! and that I can build on Tom's work with schools in Redbridge that I work in. I am also using a Google Spreadsheet to collect information on dates and preferences for a Video conferenicng project, it is proving a far more versatile data collection tool than survey monkey or a member of my admin team and a phone.

Foundation Stage / NQT Course

Links
Flickr- a good source of images

LGFL Content

• LGFL Content-

(note these will work in a London school but will not work @ home unless you log in)

• iboard- Excellent drag and drop activities ideal for Foundation and Key Stage 1. These activities cover aspects of the Foundation Stage Curriculum, along with Literacy,Numeracy, Science and some foundations subjects for Years 1 and 2. visit : iboard.lgfl.org.uk

• Virtual Experiemnts- each area of QCA Science is covered here with a virtual representation of an experiment, coupled with data charts to interpret and objects to be dragged into the correct place.There are packages for Year 1-2, 3-4 and 5-6 Visit ve34.lgfl.org.uk for year 3 and 4, ve12.lgfl.org.uk for year 1 and 2 and ve56.lgfl.org.uk for years 5 and 6.

• Talking Stories- as mentioned these animated stories and non fiction text are a good means of showcasing multi-modal texts, what's more these texts come in a variety of community languages. Visit Visit www.stories3.lgfl.net ,stories2.lgfl.org.uk or stories.lgf.org.uk

Podcasting
Links and Resources

• A vast range of sound clips can be downloaded from the LGFL Audio Network visit: http://audio.lgfl.org.uk
  

• Podium has an informative website- including training videos and easier definitions of what exactly is Podacsting and how to use it

• Audacity can be downloaded from here

• A redbridge network of primary schools, that are creating and innovating with podcasts are recording their progress on a blog - click here

The LGFL have also put together a new mini-site of their own called Podcast-Central. This does not support Podium, but does give helpful advice on how to create video and audio podcasts. visit Podcast Central here

ESAFETY - Dongle the Rabbit

Youtube Clips shown

Comic Life

Just like children I think that adults go through stages when learning to use new applications. These stages are often a part of my training and are described below:

• Stimulated by or Initial interest- we may be stimulated by an application, perhaps we've seen others use it and we'd like to have a go, or maybe we just sit back and watch others use it. For a while I have watched and read Simon's use of Comic Life on his blog.

• Explore- the playing stage, when we move our eyes along the tool bar and test out the functions. We will create a number of documents, programs, images or programs (depending on the application)

• Practise Rehearse- This is probably the stage I got to yesterday with Comic Life. I had played around with the software and worked at it in order to create something of value.

• Use for intended audience- and by this point you know the application well enough to use it for an audience or a purpose. Hence the comic below was built after a short time of practise and rehearsing until I had gained familiarity with the software and I was happy enough to show you the outcome of my work above.

All that aside Comic life is a great package and I would recommend it all my schools, as I am sure both pupils and teachers alike will love using it.

Comic Life in the National Curriculum

ICT @ KS2

Developing ideas and making things happen

2) Pupils should be taught:

a) how to develop and refine ideas by bringing together, organising and reorganising text, tables, images and sound as appropriate [for example, desktop publishing, multimedia presentations]

Exchanging and sharing information

3) Pupils should be taught:

a) how to share and exchange information in a variety of forms, including email [for example, displays, posters, animations, musical compositions]

b) to be sensitive to the needs of the audience and think carefully about the content and quality when communicating information [for example, work for presentation to other pupils, writing for parents, publishing on the Internet] .

Renewed Literacy Framework
The framework mentions the use of comic strips within the ICT applications document. While the extract below also mentions comics as texts for children to engage with while looking at narrative.

Year 3 Narrative - Unit 1

Stories with familiar settings
(3 weeks)

This is the first of four narrative units in Year 3. Prior to teaching the unit, whole-class collections of stories with familiar settings could be established to support independent reading for pleasure. Texts could include films, comics, picture books and written texts. One particular text could be chosen as a class novel, so children experience how a narrative builds up over a period of time. This unit can be linked to other curriculum subjects or themes.

Granted this is reading the comic and not necessarily creating a comic, but pupils could support their literacy work by creating a comic in ICT. This would be a good interpretation of the QCA unit of combining text and images:

Unit 3A: Combining text and graphics

In this unit children learn how to communicate messages by using a combination of graphics and text. They also learn the importance of saving their work.

Highs and Lows of last week

What I like about Tom Barrett's blog, is that he reports on the success, but he also questions why things may have gone very sadly wrong. I think I have been reticent to include any mishaps in this blog, for fear of looking a bit daft. Yet as you know things do go wrong with ICT and it is important to try to learn from these mishaps, rather than trying to cover them up or gloss over them. If you haven't read Tom's Blog yet, then add it to your Google reader or homepage, as it i makes an exciting , innovative read on wet Saturday afternoon in Ilford.

One of the problems of working as a consultant is that due to the itinerant nature of our work, we are never at the same network of machines or PC. As a result of this I can find audio settings may be unpredictability different or a plug in may be missing.

This week I have seen and trained teachers to make use of technology using applications that fit my criteria of software must haves, that is:

• A clear and easy to navigate interface
• A short learning curve for instant use, but with the possibility of extending use to advanced skills and outcomes
• Intuitive controls

On Monday I delivered training with an excellent ICT coordinator on effective cross-curricular ICT. She began the session with a brainstorming session across the 25 staff who were sat at their PCS. To gather the opinions of all that were gathered, in a spirit of open and frank anonymity, she used 2connect, this created a giant spider diagram of ideas at the front of the classroom , that meant everybody could see each other's ideas, and everyone could have the chance to contribute without fear or the need to develop their points publicly.

As the session was about cross-curricular ICT,I had hoped to get people using a package that could easily be used for Literacy and Foundation subjects. Taking the year 2 Literacy unit, which has the outcome create a website! I began to debunk this by demonstrating how web sites do not operate in a linear fashion, unlike printed texts.




The ICT text on the above provides a number of routes for the reader to take, by means of clicking on the links on the left bar or across the sub headings. While the conventional text above is mostly read form start to finish in a linear line by line left to right procedure.

I had been quite thrown by the Year Two Unit in the Renewed Framework for literacy, which had a rather unexemplified outcome. In particular the line: ' Design a Website', then I met up with one of the authors of the units on some recent strategy training. We talked through the unit and no the suggestion is not that children master Html or Dreamweaver. Rather the point is to demonstrate the non- linear nature of ICT texts/Websites and how they are organised both page by page and how they are linked as a whole.

With this mind, and following my recent focus on providing children with relevance and authetic applications of ICT capabaility I decided to build the bare bones of web site as an exemplar for the teachers I was training. As the school had 2Create, I built this project using this software, though it could be done in Powerpoint and in Textease Studio CT.

The teachers could add extra pages, text and images in the same way that I would have given my Year Two children writing frames to scaffold their writing on paper.




In theory this was all very easy and accessible, but the system and the server was brand spanking new and shockwave/Flash player had not been installed. Therefore the walls of the training session crumbled around us mid session. In true Tim Barrett style, I should learn form this, and I can only say test test and test again and remember to take time to familiarise yourself with another schools system.

There have been some very definite highs this week. I worked with a Year 3 teacher on Chronological reports. The class had already looked at paper based reports and were now thinking about the benefits and ease of use of on-screen chronological reports. In order to do this we used the NGFL Animals database and got the children to answer a range of questions that increased in complexity. This was the first time the children had used a bank of wireless laptops, and indeed it was the first time that children had used mouse pads as opposed to 'proper mice'.

As you'd expect the children took to the new hardware really well and the ICT factor ratcheted a seemingly mundane lesson into something which generated a lot of "ooohs" and "yeahss" from the class.

On Friday I worked one to one with a teacher on debunking Year Six literacy units. The school did not have Podium, so we worked on Audacity, which worked like a songbird on the Teacher's machine but stayed silent on my machine, something maybe to do with my messing around with encoders and codecs earlier this term!! I don't use Audacity as much as Podium, but when I do I remember to pull in the effects, this allows you to change pitch and robotise or Pinky and Perkyise speech. I hope Softease pull in and effects option to Podium 2.0 , alongside the multi layering option.

Ok enough!!

A very long Blog entry, but I want to just mention the Year 6 newsroom simulation unit, got really excited about this last Friday. I have seen a school in Hendon do this using Digi-blue and I am keen to have a go at it with a class myself.

More Fireworks then!

Following my post yesterday the gauntlet of the Firework picture has been picked up by both Simon and Doug Dickinson. I also had a lame attempt at creating far more subtle myself using a picture of my colleagues arriving at NAACE earlier this year.

Here is Doug's rather lovely image using Textease

You can read his response to the challenge in the comments below, but if you are too lazy, and for speed this is what he said:

I had a go in Textease Paint.
You can see it at www.dougdickinson.co.uk/odds/5nov.jpg or if you have Textease you can see it in all of its sound and animation glory at www.dougdickinson.co.uk/odds/5nov.te

Thanks Doug
Then came this rather nice animated scene from Simon


Up until now, I was unaware that animated gifs could be uploaded to Blogger, so it is good to see this little animation, if only for that reason. Thank you to both artists, but I am sure more of you could take part in the Firework challenge. I present my latest effort below, though do bear in mind that I am trying to imitate the style of a Key Stage Two child!!!

Firework Season

It's firework season here in the East bit of London. Eid and soon Diwali and of course November the 5Th. So let's all do some 'clean art' kids using Revelation Natural Art or 2Paint a Picture.

I had a go last night and this is what I came up with:

Now could Simon,Nicholas, Sandra or any of you do better?

Or indeed could your class of year 3s?

ictopus

It's here and I think it is pronounced ict o pus not ICT Octopuss as I have gone round saying for the last 5 weeks. I am very excited about thsi publication as it is simple, readable and above all very useful. Ictopus is made up of members of MAPE, a well established voluntary group of advisory types who seem to have a lot of very creative, but achievable ideas for and projects about ICT across the primary curriculum.

By subscribing to Ictopus, you will receive the weekly newsletter, which is actually intended to be printed off and displayed, not just linked to or blogged about. The magazine editor and website supremo, Heather Govier explains:

As you may have gathered, ictopus is aiming particularly at the more hesitant teachers who have not yet fully embraced the potential of ICT in their teaching and may still need a little hand holding. That is why SGP (Sharing Good Practice) is a printable pdf rather than something more whizzy. I am hoping it will get printed off and put on staffroom coffee tables. We do hope to include some stuff for the leading edge too in due course but we feel that they already have lots of alternative resources -such as your blog;-) so they are not our priority.

At a time when many of us are blogging ourselves silly and desperate to discover the new online tool that will 'work' in the classroom, it is great that this resource is out there for those who still feel daunted by ICT!! ( and there are many)

Not only do you receive the weekly Good Practice magazine, you also get mailed Direct2u lessons, which is a resurrection of the old ICT across the primary curriculum lessons that many of us used to receive from BECTA. These come as complete ICT across the curriculum lessons for the primary age range, these are both accessible and contain relevant web links.

Slight confession here, I have already started printing these off and now store them in a folder, complete with an Octopuss on the spine

Animation Again

Well actually not again, but almost a term ago now I ran a course on the use of animation across the curriculum. We progressed from 2Animate to using Digi-Blue and some attempted to use Stop Motion Pro, particularly for Chroma Key techniques. In preparing the course I have to say that each of the applications had their merits, and their hang-ups. Though for sheer ease of use Digi-Blue won hands-down. This was proven by the satisfaction and quick achievements of those attending the course, who ranged from Network managers to ICT Cos to ordinary (sorry) teachers to TAs ( never ordinary!).

From what I remember we agreed on the following points:

• Animation can be used across the curriculum and should not be limited to just ICT


• When working on a claymation or 2d card scenario, more than one animator is needed, as someone needs to operate the objects, another can direct, while another clicks through the software


• Multiple versions or remixes of an animation can be created when working in a group as some packages allow you to add music or effects


• Plan Plan Plan first


• A lot can be said in a very small space of time- children often try to create epic - remember a TV advert is only 90 seconds and still manages to provide a narrative


• Capture animated scenes in short bites- this makes editing so much easier.

The software As stated above we used three packages and on reflection, I think I would not use the same 3 again, though I still thinking and trying out new and exciting packages all the time ( see the up and coming post). Here are some thoughts on each of the packages: 2Animate- Very easy to use and quick results, however cropping and copying selections proved troublesome at times. For example copying a ship on a bobbing sea and placing it in a new position proved annoying as the software placed it where just off centre- so the resulting animation was sometimes not quite what you wanted. It is also easy to lose bits of a selected area such as a head or a tail. However a lot can be done with 2animate and it also easily supports a Web Cam Stop Motion Pro- A great piece of software- the best thing about this was the onion skinning- this meant that you did not have to guess the last position of your object. This piece of software, though quite easy to use did not have the instant appeal and 'get in there and get going straight away interface' of 2animate or Digi-Blue and hence not everyone got busy with this application. Using Stop Motion Pro introduced me to the Stikfas- great plastic kartouche type figures that offer the full range of (appropriate) articulated movements- some have been used in the films below, and make a change from my usual reliance on Doctor Who figures, Legos and Playmobil.
Digi-Blue- We were all surprised by how easy it was to produce some quality animations with this and the camera. I have had headaches in the past with the Digi-Blue, the batteries have died or the darn thing wont talk to the PC when plugged back in, but when hooked up to the computer and snapping meticulously away like Nick Park, it all behaves beautifully. There was one annoyance though and that was that we often had to convert the finished piece to wmv though using Movie maker. This was due to the software defaulting to save pieces as AVIs, these did not always play both sound and video. I think I will ensure I have all the Codecs downloaded and demo how to do this during my next years course. Below you will find some examples of the work created on the day.


Hope they inspire you!! PS I attempted use the new Video Upload feature of Blogger- it worked brilliantly second time around.

Actually below you will just find Nicholas and Jack's great Transofrmers video hosted on Youtube- The Blogger upload seems to only display videos in preview mode so I have has to take them away- previous viewers of this post would have seen just red crosses in small white squares- what has gone wrong??