Children can prepare themsleves for using tools like Word and Powerpoint by working on their Typing Skills. The Renewed Framework for Literacy states:
Year 1
Use the space bar and keyboard to type their name and simple texts
Year 2
Wordprocess short narrative and non-narrative texts
Year 3
Develop accuracy and speed when using keyboard skills to type, edit and re-draft
In order to do this children will need reagular ans sysetematic teaching on the skills of typing, placement of fingers etc. This needs to be fun, rather than drilling, or resembling something like a secretarys course.
This could be done using 2Type, see an overview of the programme here.
2Create a Story Allows the creation of Multi- Modal Stories - an alternative to typing up. These can be saved as Flash Drives and sent home on a disc or posted on a blog or a website.
I am doing some Clicker 5 training at the moment - well right now, here are a few shots of some of the grids made by those on the training.
Ways to use Clicker 5- Group Brainstorm
To create electronic personalised books or 'All About Me' books As a support for shared discussion
As a tool for shared writing
To create social stories, i.e rehearse the event before or after it takes place, as a way of reducing anxiety.
Taking the picture support away from the finished document or from the learning grid would be necessary sometimes to avoid damaging a users self esteem Clicker 5 helps with language
Forced Order grids can support children learning sentence order
Resources - Safe music and short clips to Podcast with
Flashkit- recommended to me by the great Joe Dale- an easy to navigate site with lots of cool loops,many of which sound fresh and urban, therefore great for the Radio Show style Podcast
LGFL Audio Site- a large bank of audio tracks-these come in a range of lengths and as it is provided by LGFL there is no danger of meeting any inappropriate text.
Podsafe Audio- free to use songs and instrumnetal pieces- an idea to download s safe selction first, rember to attrribute the artist and titel.
Soundsnap.com- an extensive site of soundclips- a bit like flickr for sounds effects- It might be an idea to find what you want first and download into a shared file on the school network, rather than letting children search, this is because the site has such a vats collection and entering bodily functions or synonyms of these will provide the user with some quite un podcastable sounds.
Hosting for your Podcasts:
Podcast.lgfl.org.uk- you do not need to use any other service- this is free and comes with an easy to use site and huge storage
Thank you to all of you that took part in this event, I hope you found it a useful session and that the chnce to play with 2Publish+ and Audacity was useful.
I have embedded the powerpoint below, but if you would like to email me then do so, use Anthony dot Evans at Redbridge dot gov dot uk.
There was a query about Audacity and where to get it, it can be found here, while this site (click here), provides some great training videos.
Photostory 3 can be downloaded from the Microsoft site, just google Photostory 3 or click here
Take advantage of free resources from LGFL.net Including Virtual Experiments and Talking Stories 3- Remember to visit the content Grid and look under the subjecty headings for regularly updated content.
I am piecing together some thoughts for a presentation on 'What makes a good ICT lesson'. I have a number of good sources to draw on for this, these are listed below. However I am trying to avoid listening to or reread with a highlighter before I throw my own brainstorm down as a blog post. I want to draw on my own teaching experience first before I consult the experts.
My thoughts- very much a work in progress- please comment and critique
Planning Good ICT lessons need a good plan - we spent hours agonising over a Numeracy or Literacy plan, but it can be the case that we rely on an aged paragraph from a scheme of work from QCA or the ICT Coordinator as a source for the content of our lesson. I am not suggesting that we spendthe same agonising time on a plan for ICT as we would for the core subjects- a good plan does not make a good lesson, and furthermore I can remember feeling so exhausted with planning that I was zapped of the energy to actually deliver what I needed to teach! What I am suggesting is that we consider 'what the class/group needs now'. It would be ludicrous to use a 3 year old medium term plan to teach Fractions to a Maths set in Year 5, It would need a lesson that was relevant to the current group of children and where they are at!
Questioning Closed questioning can help children to recall important facts such as data analysis procedures, Logo commands and keyboard shortcuts, but if all the questioning is closed or is just between the pupils and teacher then children will be deprived of a rich learning environment that is produced through opportunities for talk and good questioning. Open questions will challenge pupils to think about what they are doing and why.They can be made to critically evaluate their work, in order to review whether it is fit for the audience. can The same characteristics of a good lesson that we attribute to a Maths lesson or English lesson should be applied to an ICT lesson
Equality in access Surely not all children need to be using the same program- for some children it will be too difficult to 'type up their poem' key stroke by key stroke, whereas if they are using Clicker 4 or 5, then they can build up their composition word by word, they can also be aided by picture cues too!
Reflection This is the one thing that sticks in my mind from my four years at teaching training college. It was drummed into use to reflect at the end of each lesson. Thinking how else we could have taught a lesson, should then inform the direction of the next lesson in the block, rather than just repeating the next lesson as it is written in the scheme of work. High Expectations
In my work I come across a range of attitudes and approaches to ICT , though most are positive, there are those who place limits on children and it saddens me to hear comments such as :
'They can't do that they are only four '
The work in Northampton and their EYFS ICT strategy, along with that carried out in Homerton and Gamesly, proves that with support and exposure to ICT applications children can far exceede our limited expectations, not to mention what many of children do at home with their consoles, computers and household technology. This should not just relate to early years either, a recent OFSTED publication emphasised an area for development nationally as extending more able at Key Stage 2.
Asessment Not a a tick sheet of skills that is slavishly completed, but a knowledge of where the children are in their ICT capability, leading to differentiated work that stretches and supports. Assessment for learning often stays at the door of the ICT suite.
Enjoyment If at the end of the lesson, I am having to peel the children off their seats, or you can feel a certain buzz in the room, then you know you've cracked it!
Innovation Linked to enjoyment really, in that the same old thing can become boring for both teacher and pupil.
Relevance - Why are we creating a database to find out who has brown eyes? Why make text a different font? The more realistic a context the better...
Progress To use adviser speak- do all learners make progress within the lesson?... Others
(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.
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
Simple ideas Use Images to remind, stimulate and inspire:
Consider using relevant images when counting with younger children; a sweet or a dalek may have more relevance to some children than a collection of simple red counters
Use Screen capture to create personalised slides and tools such as self registering.Children love to see themselves on screen and it is easy to cut out and store faces in Activ Primary using the screen capture tool in Activ Primary
The screen Capture Tool in Activ primary is one of the special tools
A "Who has go their PE kit slide?" made with screen captured faces. A further application for older children could be as shown below, here a rule is associated with a child in the class in order to make it more memorable. ( Though in the slide below I have shown four rules, I would really only have one to two per page/ lesson)
The right image can be a powerful tool to inspire poetry or story writing. Google images is a good source of pictures, though the photo sharing site site Flickr offers a wider choice of images. These can be searched by a tag that the photographer ascribes to his or her image, these can be anything from "Barkingside" to the more abstract "fear". Searching in this way offers teachers a greater selection of photographs than would be available under Google images.
Also by searching through groups you may find large pools of picture on themes or locations, there is even a London Borough of Redbridge Pool of pictures.
Use the Whiteboard as a tool for shared writing and reading
Typing on-screen can be another form of shared writing and allows the teacher to work as a role model for good ICT or typing skills
One source of on-screen texts for shared reading might be those available from Crick (they make Clicker) or other suppliers
There are other sources of texts available on-line, for example Wikkipedia or some of the Information texts available on the BBC, for example their famous people area has a great section on Florence Nightingale
As mentioned under LGFL below, a further source of good on-screen texts comes from 2Simple, they have a new resource (Talking stories 3 ) , which is free to use in school, but will need to be logged into @ home. This suite of stories contains engaging animations alongside activities that the children could complete both in and outside of the ICT suite.All of the stories and associated plans are linked to the Renewed Framework for Literacy.
As a Redbridge school, you will be able to download and access Testbase for Key Stage 1 and 2 Maths and English, once installed the software's new whiteboard features can be used to good effect, including the ability to add thought and speech bubbles to characters and to gain easy access to comprehension questions. Visit the Redbridge assessment pages, logintoLGFL and download! (You may need to get support from your technical people, if you don't have admin rights on your PC) Visitwww.asst.redbridge.lgfl.net
Use other peripherals/ resources
Dry wipe boards- an under used resource due to complaints over pens running out, however these can be an excellent tool for interaction and feedback. They give the children the opportunity to "show" what they know and what they can /can not do. This makes them an easy assessment tool.
Other children- provide opportunities for children to talk to each other to vocalise and formulate ideas and clarify thinking.
Card board clocks- display a large clock on screen using an ITP or the Teaching Time resources and ask children questions such as can you show the time an hour age?; in five minutes etc
Electronic Microscopes- chances are there is at least one of these sitting gathering dust in a cupboard somewhere. Why not use this to enhance Science and literacy work, items can be magnified clearly upto 200 times. These images can be exported into Word, pasted onto your Whiteboard presentation or just printed. One of the highlights of my time in Year Four was when using one of these. The children has each collected small samples of water from the pond and we looked at each of these under the microscope. One of these petri dish samples looked like nothing more than pond weed and twigs and then a monster (small pond creature magnified ) began to swim across the 'screen'. The children talked about that lesson for weeks afterwards. Help sheet for using the Microscope and associated software can be found on these Kent Grid for learning pages here.
A finger under the digital microscope
Employ Effective Questioning
Research has shown that teachers can sometimes limit the questions they ask to just closed questions. These may just be the final answer to a computation or a the retrieval of simple information from a text. It is often worthwhile familiarising oneself with resources such as Bloom's Taxonomy. Furthermore the National Numeracy Strategy Vocabulary book has a number of useful questions to aid understanding and help pupils make connections in the opening pages. For Literacy comprehension, our literacy team has developed a number a set of question stems that address the assessmentfoci that children will come up against in both guided reading and end of year tests. This is a very helpful list to aid you in your planning for Guided and shared reading of both books, film and ICT texts.
Make Use of effective web resources
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 earlier 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 stories2.lgfl.org.uk or stories.lgf.org.uk
Find and show video clips that enhance the lesson
With so many video clips available there is no excuse not to make use of such media. Children are born into a clip culture and expect variety, for many of us who grew up with four channels an FM radio this is easy to forget. Video does not have to be used to replace texts either, rather it can greatly enhance stories from big books or make the pages of a text book live.
When reading Owl Babies in Key Stage 1, consider downloading/showing a clip of an owl form the BBC motion gallery, after all how many children in Year 1, will have seen a real owl before?
In Key stage 2 Science children often look at food webs and food chains, why not enhance this by linking an on-screen food web to video clips of the animals in the food web, rather than just show the picture in the usual text book. Seeing the predatory seal eat the bird, or the Orca beach to capture it's seal prey is far more memorable than work sheet completion.
A whiteboard slide showing a food web in Canada
The killer whale captures his prey- a clip from BBC Motion Gallery
Teachers TV Video Starters- free to download and great to use these short clips can be used as a great way to start a lesson or inspire an activity. For instance the Story Starts clips contain a short video of a man waling across a beach, complete with the sounds of crunchy footprints, crashing waves and screaming seagulls. While the waves crash a man calls from the cliffs and then suddenly the camera cuts away and we are left wondering what next. As the clip is so short we can review, pause and discuss the sights and sounds, all before the children answer the uqestion in their writing or their drama of what happened next. (Note in order todownload these clips
Using fractions and percentage to help Nateisha with her packed lunch survey
....and others
Youtube videos can also be great for inspiration and they are also part of many children's televisual diet. Howver the sitecan be difficult access in schools, therefore a site like zamzar is good as it allows teachers to download and concvert videos into usable forms and also avoid any difficult content.The (youtube) video below shows how this can easily be done.
(Note if you are in school this clip may not show)
Podcasting
Podcasting has been defined as “the practice of making audio files available online in a way that allows software to automatically detect new files and download them.” To be a true podcast, these audio files need to be episodes or a series. Users can subscribe to these episodes and have their computer automatically detect and download the latest episode.
Over the last two years Podcastsing has grown in popularity in both the media and education. It's beauty is both it's ease of creation and the portabaility of the final product. This means I can use a free program like ITunes to subscribe to the Ricky Gervais or Russell Brand Podcast from the internet. Each time a new episode is released Itunes will detect this and the episode will be downloaded to my computer. I only need to plug in my Ipod to grab these radio shows for ease of lsitening at another more convenient time. There are Podcasts on every subject from simple computer maintenance to ITN bulletins, there is even an Archers Podcast.
Creating a Podcast could not be simpler, all is need is a microphone some music samples and appropraite software. Once the audio has been recorded and edited it needs to be uploaded to a website, where it can be hosted for other to access your work. Thankfully the London Grid for Learning provides free hosting on the new Podcast hosting site.
Note you will need to login to this site using an atomwide account, please contact your ICT coordinator if you do not have one of these accounts.
But how do you make the Podcast in the first place. This is simple or easy peasy as the producers of the software like to say. First decide on your purpose for Podcasting, don't just do a Podcast, remember there are lots of opportunites to podcast within the Renewed Famework for literacy, both as a means to perform poetry and as a journalistic tool.
Once the purpose has been decided next comes script writing, a simple script alvoids speakers drying up on the microphone,it may only be a poem or a complex radio show with interviews and comment.
Then perform the podcas, ensuring that everyone is clear and that everything has worked.
Now insert sound clips and edit and improve the lenghth and volume of the sound clips.
The whole process is made easy by the use of software like Podium or the less user friendly Audacity below:
Podium an easy, primary Friendly tool for Podcasting
Audacity- a less friendly interface, though it does allow you to multi-track
Links and Resources
A vast range of sound clips can be downloaded from the LGFL Audio Network visit: http://audio.lgfl.org.uk
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
The posts on this blog do not represent the views of Redbridge Advisory Service. They are intended to inform, provoke and question, in order that we both innovate and improve Primary ICT. Get involved and post a comment.
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