Blog

by Elliott Plumb

3 ways you can engage primary pupils in ‘Computing’ during your first year of teaching

Whether you are about to enter teaching or you have just finished your first year, there are always subjects that you feel you haven’t sunk your teeth into as much as you may have wanted (P.E. for me!). There may have been timetable clashes; a lack of resources or it may be a lack of confidence in the subject (Again, P.E. for me!). Computing can sometimes be that subject. 2014 will see huge changes for the Computing curriculum. ICT has evolved into ‘Computing’ and with the name change comes a huge shift in the content we are required to teach. Out go the PowerPoint presentations and spreadsheets and we welcome coding and algorithms. This article aims to provide three ways in which you can make the new Computing curriculum easier and more engaging for the children in your class.

Resource Awareness:

A fantastic aspect of teaching is the community you are immersed in. As an NQT most teachers are willing to help and assist you with your practice. The same goes for the borough you work in and any education centres that you may be fortunate enough to have in close proximity.

Before you begin sweating over all of the new technical vocabulary, go along and see your Computing co-ordinator. If there is not a co-ordinator, ask your phase leader. Some schools have a Computing suite and some have trolleys of iPads and laptops. Importantly, every school should have a range of technology that you could incorporate into your lessons. Flip Cams, Raspberry Pi’s and a whole host of useful programs could all be available in your school. Don’t forget to ask staff for successful Computing lessons they may have completed in the past. They may even offer you the planning they used. You don’t ask, you don’t get!

Looking beyond your school is also a great way of finding useful Computing resources. There are so many different (free) resources available to schools from your local borough. Some boroughs have centres with computer suites that can be used by local schools for free. This could be a brilliant opportunity if your school lacks the resources you might be looking for. Do your research and search wide for what free resources are available to you.

Lastly, Education Officers and Advisors that are spread across your borough can be a great help. These people come in many forms; some work at local museums, some are class teachers and some work at your local Civic Centre. Developing strong links with the local council can provide amazing opportunities. They often have a great vision and access to resources that you might not have thought existed!

Cross Curricular Planning

Another way in which you can flex your Computing muscles is to assure that you consider Computing in all aspects of your planning. Whatever the subject may be, ask yourself – Could I incorporate any computer skills here? From Literacy through to Geography, you could take your topic of choice and make links with the new Computing curriculum. Not only will the children enjoy it but it could also give them a chance to consolidate learning. Children could make a game using ‘Scratch’, they could build Lego robots or you could use iPads to make animations or films. The possibilities are endless.

Pupil Involvement

Finally, you must not underestimate the prior knowledge that the children of today have when it comes to technology and computers. Pupils have been an invaluable resource for previous projects as utilising their knowledge has benefitted everybody.

Ways in which you can involve children in the teaching of the subject can range according to how comfortable and confident you feel about your class and their knowledge and behaviour. Discussions as a class about their knowledge before you begin planning can be an extremely informative guide. Generating a discussion can draw out how much the children know already. This allows you to differentiate into ability groups and also differentiate the questioning in your planning.

Pupil-led computing sessions whereby particular children take the lead in groups and troubleshoot issues that may arise is worthwhile not only for the pupils, but for the teacher too. Being brave and letting the children guide the learning and the discussions can be hugely beneficial and more enjoyable for everybody.

2014 will see almighty changes across the Computing curriculum. Many schools are ready for this change and can offer fantastic opportunities and resources. If you are applying for a post or interested in taking on Computing in your current school, ask a plethora of questions about resources and where the school is going next with Computing. Computing is taking an extremely exciting new direction and rather that shying away, embrace it and let the children run with it!

 

by Jamie Mortimer

Children and young people love our phones. I don’t mean landlines, a practically obsolete piece of technology that we all rent for a monthly fee just so we can then pay another monthly fee to get an internet connection. I’m talking about our mobile phones, and more specifically our smart phones. It’s not a surprise. From the moment our children are born they see us holding them, looking at them and talking to these little shiny boxes. The same applies to tablets. When we grew up we used to see our parents reading the paper, reading a book, using a telephone, writing letters and having a cup of tea with friends. Now we do all of these things on our phone or tablet.

My son is nearly 7 years old. One of the first phrases he uttered when he was little was, ‘oo tube’. He knows that Facebook is a website. He knows that people post messages on twitter. He knows that you need a wi–fi connection to get on the internet. He knows what the internet is. He knows that an iPhone, an iPod and an iPad all use an iTunes account. He knows what an account is and why you would give your personal information to create an account.

So when he was 6 he was given an iPodtouch and I’ve stuck to a few very simple rules when it comes to him using it. Let’s start with the device. Its setup using my iTunes account, which means I get the email invoices for all purchases once a week. So what did I lock down? I kept it straight forward. No Safari; that’s the internet browser, so he can’t get on to websites with his device.

A password is required to purchase apps; this includes free apps as you still have to technically ‘purchase’ the app. No Facetime or iMessage app; that means no video chatting or text messaging to anyone, and that’s it. He can then do pretty much anything else; I don’t need to block content based on age ratings or content as he can’t get access to it anyway. You’d be surprised how easy it is. You just go in to the settings and restrictions and you literally toggle the apps on/off.

We have just two rules. Firstly, I look after it and he has to ask when he would like to use it. The second and most important rule is that he only gets to use it downstairs. I’ll explain. I need to monitor what he’s doing on it and his behaviour or how he responds as he plays games or reads books. It’s my job to make sure I promote acceptable behaviour and make sure he isn’t accessing inappropriate content. When he gets older and I do grant him access to the internet I want us to have formed a relationship of open trust when it comes to discussing what he has read and viewed on the internet. Once he has access to the internet it’s going to be crucial that he isn’t using his device on his own in his bedroom. If he’s been allowed to use it like that before, he isn’t going to want to change his behaviour because ‘he’s always been allowed to do it that way and it isn’t fair’ and he’d kind of have a point. Here’s the warning shot across the bows though. We all know technology changes at an ever increasing pace and that’s where I was caught out very recently. His favourite game at the moment is Sonic Racing and it pops up that there is an update, so he updates it. He even tells me he’s got an update and he’s going to download it. Brilliant! Thanks for telling me; I’m really pleased you told me. Well the next day I can hear machine gun fire. Mobile gaming is shifting towards more free apps with ‘in-app’ purchases to enhance the game play. This means games allow you to purchase tokens to buy extra content and features, and to draw you in (and generate advertising revenues) they give you free tokens for watching adverts. These adverts typically promote other apps you might want to buy and download and there is always one for a game that requires you to blow the head off something or a zombie dripping in blood. It may only be 20 seconds but its 20 seconds you don’t want your 7 year old to be viewing, at least not for a few more years. He now knows he must not view the adverts and thankfully we are well on our way to developing a healthy respect towards technology together.

Community Learning and Skills Development delivers courses across Suffolk to complete beginners  to gain confidence in using technology and the internet safely and also to support parents or carers with promoting safe use of technology to children and young people. To register your interest or enrol on a course in a centre near you contact us on 0300 456 2050 or at our website: www.clsd.org.uk.

Happy and responsible gaming!

Jamie Mortimer

uk.linkedin.com/in/geekylearner

@geekylearner

jamie.mortimer@realisefutures.org

You are only limited by your creativity

I introduced some web 2.0 tools in education for our commenius project meeting in Estonia (March 24-29, 2014). The project was called ‘Citizen of Care-land’, 2013-2015. Teachers from 12 European coutries attended the conference, amongst them my school, Pujanke Elementary School. I decided to make a presentation and show it to the teachers in order to bring them closer to some of the web 2.0 tools. My main aim was that teachers returned back to their schools and disseminated their findings about web 2.0 to their pupils, as our project’s aim is to use ICT amongst teachers and pupils. We have our Twinspace (private area of our project) on the E-twinning platform, where we share all project activities. Teachers and pupils have their separate areas to communicate with each other, upload and share photos, videos etc. Our project is focused on pupils activities; pupils make presentations showing a certain activity and then present them at each project conference. I therefore first decided to show them how they could improve their presentations by using Prezi tools for creating presentations instead of the more traditional Power Point.

My presentation for that purpose was created in Prezi, and it was interesting that teachers could learn how to navigate with Prezi whilst they were watching at the presentation at the same time. All of the teachers were in front of the computers, listening to me and following the steps. First, I explained what Prezi is; that it is a new way of creating, collaborating, editing and sharing user-generated content online. Prezi allows you to design your own distinctive, eye-catcing presentations.

I also showed them that these presentations can be flowing; that they can arrange text and images in any way they like, they can also choose the order and amount in which each element will be zoomed into. I then explained the process for creating an account on Prezi.com (I suggested setting up a free account for the first time). Finally, I showed them how to create a presentation after creating an account simply by clicking on ‘New prezi‘ and using basic tools on a blank canvas (A place where you create your presentation). The teachers were fascinated with the fact that they become like artists in Prezi, where they decide about the appearance of their presentation. I showed them ‘a wheel’ that gives them easy access to all of the main tools where they simply clicked and dragged what they wanted. If they wanted to write something, they could just double-click anywhere to begin typing. It was very interesting when they realised that they could insert files (pdf, power point, video, photos..) into their Prezi. I also introduced them to very important tools in Prezi, to paths that allow them to create the order of their presentation after they have put all the text, videos, photos etc. Using paths, they began clicking on the element they wanted to zoom into first and they continue clicking on each object in the order that they wanted them to appear in their presentation. I highlighted that they can always edit everything. Finally, I showed them that they can edit, delete or download Prezi, and what is more important, share Prezi using ’embed code’ or copying the link. We shared our Prezis on the educational platfrom E-twinning, on Twinspace. In May, during our Project conference in Spain, pupils had the task to create presentions about ‘Women rights in Europe’, and the great surprise: – many presentations were created in Prezi. It was great!

The second tool that I wanted to introduce to them was Voki, a speaking avatar vokithat is a great tool for classroom activities and makes learning fun. I wanted teachers to incourage their pupils to communicate with pupils from different countries using Voki. Voki can easily be embedded on our Twinspace, so we decided to create virtual presentations with Voki tools. Voki is a very simple tool, on www.voki.com you create your username and login. When you enter, you decide upon the appearance of your Voki character (you can choose a character that is similar to you or not), and when you click ‘Customize your character’ you can change the colour of its eyes, clothes, even the colour of the skin etc. The most important is to give your Voki a voice, and you can select from a few options how to do it (recording with a microphone, uploading an audio file or the easiest option – you just type in your text). After you have typed the text, you can even choose the language and the voice and accent of your avatar. Sharing Prezi is also great (you can email your Voki, copy the link or embed the code).

Our pupils use Voki to communicate with each other about ceartain topics, they like it very much as they find Voki interesting and funny. Our teachers have made their own Vokis too and shared them on E-twinning to present themselves to other teachers. My final tool was Glogster – online interactive posters that allows you to combine text, pictures, graphics, video and audio into an interactive poster. I wanted to introduce this tool to teachers in the project, because in our project we have pupils visits other countries, not just the teachers.

glogster-screenshot-jpgPupils from one country host pupils from another country in their home. I found this tool great for introducing each other, making a poster of him/her, and he/she can write, draw, add videos and everything else that chracterises him or her. In this way, our pupils learned about each other, and made closer connections before their visit. They enhanced many skills using this tools-creativity, effective communication, student collaboration, literacy skills etc. It can be done in a short time, so our pupils used this tool .You simply register at Glogster edu, write some info about yourself and start playing by clicking and dragging text, image, graphics, video, sound etc, and share your Glogster on website or somewhere else. Our pupils shared their Glogsters on the Pupils’ area on Twinspace, and through email.

I encourage my colleagues all the time within my school, within the project and my pupils to use ICT as it is fun, creative, and pupils learn faster through games without realising that they are actually learning at the same time.

Gifs and Me

Way back in the mists of Web 2.0, when YouTube was a glint in Google’s eye and Wikipedia was Encarta’s weedy rival, I built a website. I had neither the finances, nor the time, to buy and learn to use Flash. So, to give my site a bit of pizazz, I used a fair old sprinkling of downloaded Gifs. Not too many because they can be pretty distracting and, besides, in those ISDN days they slowed page loading to a speed that allowed you take a comfort break…


ML Home animWhen I came to build my new, improved site I had acquired Paintshop Pro which came with an applet called Animation Shop. Animation Shop lets you create or edit Gifs frame by frame or by adding effects and transitions to images. You can download it these days for free, and it’s still very useful, although the user interface betrays its age and it possibly won’t run on Windows 8. I’m still very fond of some of the Gifs I created with Animation Shop.

I thought little more about Gifs for some years, until I began to become aware of a re-birth through Tumblr sites I was visiting; but it was only when I chanced upon Zeega that I became really interested once more – enough to start making gifs again. Zeega allows you to acquire gifs through giphy and mix and match them with text, and Creative Commons licensed stills and music. Zeega’s main man Jesse Shapins (of luxuriant beard) gives an excellent starter tutorial here. I was particularly interested by the simple way multiple gifs and stills can be made transparent and layered allowing creative combinations. Completed zeegas can be embedded in sites and blogs.

The great advantage of the gif is that it is an image format not a video, which gif2means it can be added directly to a web page or included in a presentation without the need for video uploading to a host. Making gifs has certainly come on a bit. Complex and sophisticated work has given rise to the idea of gif as an art form My daughter’s phone made a gif from a series of pictures she took, without even asking her. There is currently a brief history of the gif on Zeega – all told with gifs, of course.

Making Gifts

Googling ‘making gifs online’ produced a swathe of sites, all offering free conversion and editing of online videos. The ones I tried worked pretty well, but when I got interested in making my own stuff again, I wondered if there was a free download for desktop use. Need I have wondered? Several arrived complete with irritating toolbars or apps which caused me to uninstall them immediately – and the junkware… (Note to self: do not download free apps when tired).

gif3 Finally I came upon Instagiffer freeware, with a pleasantly functional interface and all the video-to-gif functionality I needed – and no ads or – erm – troubling – toolbars. It allows the clipping of online video or will convert your own videos. You can also capture gifs from any moving item on your screen. Clips can be edited from your chosen start-frame to end-frame or individual frames removed by double-clicking. Size and quality can be adjusted. Images can be cropped. There are even some special effects. The finished gif will save to a folder of your choice. The only thing I’ve found missing is the ability to identify the number of plays, but Animation Shop can do this with your finished gif if you wish and maybe to add a cross frame fade as well, to smooth the characteristic end-of-gif ‘jerk’.

After giffing about a bit with my own and online videos, I wondered about screen capturing video from other tools that will animate images, like Photo Story 3, for example, which creates a ‘Ken Burns’ video from stills. And then I tried screen capturing from Powerpoint.

If you have never tried Powerpoint’s object animation button for fear of having your presentations sneered at, now’s your chance to play. The custom animation sidebar allows a surprisingly large amount of flexibility including drawing paths for the objects to travel along, delays and multiple animations at the same time. Do choose the advanced timeline as you can drag the animations to the length you require. You will only need to screen capture the animation Play preview window (rather than the full screen) as it’s plenty big enough for a gif.

Finally it occurred to me that by inserting the gift you had just made, into a Lightbulb
PowerPoint page, and adding a mask on top (a picture with a transparent hole in it) you could create shapes with animated insides. You can do this too with the Powerpoint animations themselves. To make a mask, remove the insides of a simple line image. This easily be can be done by using the ‘magic wand’ selection tool of any half-decent image editor (I use Paint.NET). Save it as a png. or gif, as JPEGs don’t do transparency. Bring it to the front of your stack of Powerpoint objects with the animation paying behind the ‘hole’. Using Instagiffer’s screen capture tool you can end up with a TV with moving images on the screen or a boat full of swimming fish. My current personal favourite is a lightbulb with a firework display inside i.e. lots of brilliant ideas!

Capture with Instagiffer and the surrounding blank page area can be cropped. I use white pages most often but you could colour your mask the same colour as your page. If you want a completely transparent surround for your gif the Online Image Editor (no signup) has a transparency wizard that will do this for you.

Two more gif must-haves

If you have never seen, or previously written off, the Pivot Animator freeware, download it now and start playing. Peter Bone, the deviser of Pivot has fairly recently produced the first non-beta version 4, which will animate objects (sprites) as well as stick figures. Pivot animations will now save as gifs or video. There’s a good support site too. Microsoft Research offers a free download of Cliplet which allows the creation of those animations with still backgrounds (known as cinemagraphs). It comes with free tutorials. Some fairly sophisticated animation can be achieved. In the classroom this could involve detailed planning and editing while using very short action clips which might take only a couple of minutes to capture saving groups wandering around with cameras for hours. The file sizes are relatively small as only part of the screen is animated, which means you can have pages full on your class blog…

Gifs in use

gif5There is something strangely compelling about the animated gif. Students love them. There are some truly beautiful gifs out there as well as a fair collection of the dull, obscene, sparkly or limp – pretty much like the rest of the web. They certainly add visual interest to your presentations. If, like me, you are a fan of Inanimate Alice you’ll have some great models for writing with animation.

I’m getting interested in the language of gifs. All stories need some form of punctuation: pauses, full stops or slow fades for example. The animated gif sits between a still image and video. It plays without the need for action on the viewer’s part.

Naturally movement is key but in a story perhaps they need to loop without over-obvious junctions to convey a sense of continuity. Perhaps, like all punctuation, it best signals a changeover. My Magic Lantern animations were headings which hinted at the page contents. A blazing fire could be the beginning or ending of a piece and used to symbolize leaving or arriving home; ripples on water: dissipation or a response to a whim…

Gifs can allow for close observational writing. Action clips could be used as scenes from the middle of a story, for which students can suggest, or write, beginnings and endings.

Simple, moving diagrams can be made by you or, even better, students collaborating, to demonstrate processes in Science, Technology and Geography and assembled on a shared Padlet wall. 

gif6Now, if all this has whetted your appetite but the techtalk has left you cold, you’ll perhaps be glad to know I’m in the middle of planning, writing and recording a free online course, DIY GIF , covering all this and more. It should be finished by the end of August. So keep your eye on my Digital Glue blog for regular updates on the progress of the work. You could be making some lovely autumnal gifs or maybe even moving scenery for your Christmas Production.

And have some very engaged learners…

Tim Brook

http://www.digitalglue.org/

More gifs


 magnets
Old man walks ripples Switch Whatnogifs MQ

www.bilisimgarajakademisi.com

The “God Particle” needed to transform a Download community into an Upload Community:

Bilisim Garaj Akademisi (IT Garage Academy) is an online portal supplying coding, web design, 3D design and robotic/electronic design curriculum for children from the ages 7-8, 9-12 and 13-16. On the portal, Turkish youths, starting from 7 years old, learn:

* coding using Scratch or MS Small Basic,

* web design using Notepad,

* 3D design using Sketchup

* robotic / electronic design using various safe electronic materials,

* and entrepreneurship through IT.

Why?

The slogan of the platform is “From a Download Society to an Upload Society.” This motto aims to attract Turkish people’s attention to an important problem. Turkey is one of the top countries using social media and mobile internet. For example, Turkish people are among the top Facebook users. On the other hand, Turkish people produce ICT technology much less than they consume. To illustrate, applications produced for mobile devices such as smart phones and tablet PCs have the market volume of 65 billion US$ around the world. Turkey’s contribution to this market volume is smaller than 0.5%! Another example is that Turkey’s annual ICT market volume is 36 billion US$. In this volume, high technology production including hardware, software or embedded technology is smaller than 1%. The volume of the ICT market in Turkey is formed by mostly communication technologies such as GSM operators and internet service suppliers.

a view from web portal The youth is devoid of the skills required to produce with IT, because the education system doesn’t equip the new generations with the skills such as coding, web design or robotic design especially at primary and secondary levels. Gaining productive IT skills is postponed until university years. In the country, the general perception is that computer literacy is equal to computer use. However, computer use is a much broader concept covering computer literacy. In this information age, proper use of IT in education helps students to gain 21st century skills such as critical thinking, creative thinking, scientific thinking, collaboration with others especially in a problem based learning environment.

 

What?

To change this perception and increase the awareness of the concept of computational thinking, Dr. Selçuk Özdemir started the BilisimGarajAkademisi.com portal 18 months ago in Turkey. Now, more than 40 training centres and more than 10 primary/secondary private schools use his curriculum.

The curriculum used in BilisimGarajAkademisi.com has two dimensions. The first dimension (called Package 1) aims to present kids with their first threshold experience. With the modules in the Package 1, the kids realise that they can program computers, design web sites, 3d models and robots/electronic devices. In the first year in Package 1, the kids learn all of the four subjects separately. The priority in the first year is to show the kids who is the boss, because the students realise that they can tell computers what to do.

the kid boss

 

 

 

 

 

 

In the second year, the whole curriculum runs around an entrepreneurship problem. In Package 2, the students develop solutions for a given main and sub-problems using coding, web design, 3d design and robotic design and programming. The entrepreneurship problem helps students utilize all technologies to produce many related solutions for a real life problem. Utilising this holistic approach, in addition to advanced IT skills, the students have the opportunity to gain entrepreneurial competences defined by European Union. These entrepreneurial competences are classified as knowledge, skills and attitude. The students learn about “being initiative user”, “self-confidence”, “thinking on what new things can be developed”, “being optimistic”, “leadership”, “marketing”, “collaboration”, “the importance of being critical and creative”, “the concept of supply and demand”, “concept of cost-benefit” and “the importance of patents”.

Starting from this October, the students will gain more than 50 entrepreneurial competences whilst they develop a solution for the problem of energy. The students will be informed that energy resources come to an end and the world needs new and clean energy resources for especially transportation. In four modules of the Package 2, a student’s task is to:

* design a 3d model of an electric car which consumes solar energy (3D design module of the curriculum),

* calculate the cost of the production process of the solar energy car and protecting the confidential information (Coding module of the curriculum),

* produce and program a solar energy robotic car using real electronic circuit components (Robotic design module of the curriculum),

* promote and market the solar energy robotic car (Web design module of the curriculum).

How?

Bilişim Garaj Akademisi has a very simple and running methodology:

Screen shot 2014-07-12 at 07.54.30

 

 

Screen shot 2014-07-12 at 07.57.33

Curiosity is core to the Bilişim Garaj Akademisi curriculum. Edgar Morin emphasizes that without curiosity, learning doesn’t take place. In each module, the students are presented a concrete task to complete. The students create a new production in each hour of each module. Being able to create new things helps children to develop their self-esteem. Finally, children love demonstrating to others what they can perform or produce. In accordance with our motto “from a download society to an upload society”, the students can upload their own works to the “Project Gallery” module of the portal so that others can download and examine.

Finally:

Coding, in general producing with IT, is the “lingua franca” of the new age. In the future, all professions will need to do something which cannot be done by computerised machines. The new generations have to be equipped with productive IT skills before their university years. Thus, they will be aware what computers can do or cannot do. This awareness will help them to see the innovation opportunities in their professional field.

Bilişim Garaj Akademisi aims to be an international portal. The entire curriculum is being translated into English and the English content will be published via an English domain name.

Best regards,

Assoc.Prof.Dr. Selçuk Özdemir

The Founder of Bilişim Garaj Akademisi

selcukozdemir@gmail.com

@drselcukozdemir

Bilisimgarajakademisi.com

http://w3.gazi.edu.tr/~sozdemir/index_eng.htm

 

by Yasemin Allsop

Recently I read many articles on the internet blaming technology for children’s lack of language skills. I can’t say I am surprised. I agree that technology is changing the way we use language. I am sure that you have spent time trying to understand your child’s text messages. I certainly did. When I receive text messages from my son, I sometimes have to google them or phone and ask him exactly what he meant with all these acronyms and abbreviations.

Looking at my own teaching practice, I have used wikis, blogs, animations, films, podcasting, web design, game making and many other technology tools to teach over the years. Each one of these mediums offers great opportunities for children to develop their language skills. I remember when our Year 5 students wrote their own children’s rights raps and recorded them using their backing music. They didn’t just create their songs, they spent a long time discussing their ideas before deciding. I also remember our web design activities. Where children had to create their own content and use html to design websites to present their work. The amount of reading and writing they had to do and not even one complained.

So what is the problem here? Are we still thinking of technology as a magical wand designed specifically to solve our long standing issues in education. We need to abandon this idea by now as technology never had such a claim. Technology appeared in our classroom as a teaching tool used by teachers, remember our IWBs, then it swiftly changed position and became a learning tool in the hands of our learners. I believe this was more confusing for us than the learners. Our learners quickly adapted into their new role. But us teachers we are still thinking about where we fit into this scene. If the learners are holding the tool, what are we going to hold? How are we going to teach? Do we need to teach? Do they need us? Are they listening? Are they learning? How do I manage the classroom now? We all go through these endless worries. I think the reason for this confusion is that we don’t exactly understand how children learn with these new technologies and we haven’t got the time to find out about it. So, why not blame the technology?

photo
Once one of my tutors told me that a pencil is also a technology. It didn’t make sense to me at the time, but when I think about it, he was right, a pencil is also a technology tool. You can use it for different purposes; for writing stories, for drawing, for taking notes or mixing your tea which I have done many times. But if your hand writing is not very good, would you blame the pencil for it? Something to think about!

Let’s go back to our conversation about language. For many years language was seen as just a tool for communication. This approach today is still very current and impacts on our pedagogical approach to learning. But I am thinking about my own observations of children learning using technology for the last 10 years. Especially over the last few years where we have focused a lot on computer game design, there is a clear shift in the use and purpose of language. I watched children touching the computer or tablet screen and mumbling when making their own computer games. I observed them planning their work-sometimes aloud when creating their own world in Minecraft, or questioning their own decisions when creating websites. What was interesting is that as the task became more complex, the percentage of children’s self-talk activities also increased. It seems to me that they did not use language merely as a tool to communicate, it become a function in their minds. For my learners, language became a function to think with, a function to decide with, a function to regulate their own learning. This is not a new concept either, Vygotsky mentioned private speech in the 1970s. He argued that private speech is form of thinking, problem-solving and self-regulating. All this self-directed talk helps my learners to focus, plan, make decisions, organise. In other words it supports them to process tasks using their cognitive resources.

Another issue is that we don’t seem to grasp how new technologies impact on our learning behaviours. Look at the image below, does it look familiar to you? Probably not. This is a travelling library for people in Turkey during the 1940’s. It was aimed to help those living in rural areas to have an opportunity to read. I recently found out about this and I am so fascinated by the idea. I am not familiar with it as I was brought up in a city, not that I have been to the library. I didn’t even know what it meant. But my friends have seen these government librarians travelling from village to village on a donkey. What kind of learning habits would they have developed when they accessed knowledge through this way? What would they do with what they had learned from the book. Have a discussion? Create things? I don’t know, but today when our learners in their expression ‘can touch their learning’ on their smart phones or tablets, you can imagine they would have completely different learning habits.

library old days

When will we realise that learning is not an outcome, it is a process and the process doesn’t just stop with an end product. Learning is a quest powered by endless adventures spurting out from every corner of one’s mind on the way. It is at the next stage of what learners do with what they have learnt that is remarkable. They use their experience to share, make, or to create something, in other words go on a new learning journey. Look at the videos, podcasts, photos, stories, songs, games shared online by children, young adults and adults. Surely we are not learning in the same way as we did before. So let’s go back to our question ‘Is technology damaging our children’s language development?. My answer is, it depends on which specific technology is used and how. If we focus on how technology shapes our learning habits rather than pointing fingers at technology, we could develop better strategies to support our learners.

But the magical key is to teach people, young or adult, how to learn and love to learn.

by Mila  Bulić and Daniela Novoselić

A modern man of the 21st century should, in addition to traditional language skills, possess a wealth of knowledge, environmental, health, economic, social and computer skills in order to lead a high-quality lifestyle. As our students are a part of a digital society with access to a wide range of information provided using information and communication technology (ICT), it is important to include ICT in the educational process as well. In order to make this possible,  schools should not only have the necessary infrastructure and adequate space, but also computer literate teachers who are able to create diverse teaching scenarios and use ICT in the classroom. In Croatia there are few individual examples of good practice in using e-learning in teaching science, therefore teachers should be made aware of the possibility of using modern technology in class, as well as being additionally educated through professional training.

Moodle and Biology

The e-learning project using the Moodle system (a free web application for on-line learning) began with the development of the digital materials necessary for teaching the Body composition, reproduction and development unit for the 8th grade of elementary school biology classes. Various additional practice materials as well as quizzes designed to test the students’ acquired knowledge were developed to be used after finishing each of the four lessons: Structure and function of sexual organs, Conception and development before birth, Life periods of human life and Responsible sexual behavior. Through Moodle the teacher monitored each of the students’ logins, his or her work on the given lesson, forum and discussions activity and quiz results.

Twenty-four students participated in the e-learning project. They were all eighth-graders attending the Pujanka Elementary School in Split, Croatia. The project was conducted at the beginning of the spring semester, in the school year 2012 – 2013. The 24 selected students made up the experimental group which learnt using the digital materials on Moodle on computers in the school’s IT lab. At the same time, the biology teacher taught the same unit to another group of 24 eighth-graders attending the same school (A control group), using the traditional teaching approaches and various knowledge sources, as well as various teaching methods.

The digital teaching materials on Moodle were arranged in a way to ensure a simple and user friendly interface for the students (Figure 1).

Figure 1. User interface on the Moodle index

Before the e-learning project began, the students had been introduced to the Moodle interface and an e-mail address had been given to them by the biology teacher in case any of the students needed additional help resolving problems or ambiguities. Students also had the opportunity to ask questions on the News Forum available to all users. It was interesting to notice that the students preferred to ask for help individually via e-mail rather than using the forum, which confirms their unwillingness to publicly share their own thoughts, questions and problems.

To ensure that the student’s were independent and given thorough e-learning, the materials were divided into smaller units listed in the Lesson menu, located on the left side of the user interface. The students accessed these units by simply selecting the desired topic. Also, various audiovisual and visual sources, pictures, illustrations, graphs, 3D models, videos and animations were added to the textual materials (Figure 2).

Figure 2. A Moodle page containing educational materials and a video

Various practice materials were available at the end of each lesson. At the end of the unit the students took a quiz that included different types of tasks (Figure 3) such as matching short answers, true/false questions, matching pairs, multiple choice, embedded answers, short answers and calculation tasks.

As the objective of this project was to determine the efficiency of e-learning compared to traditional teaching, at the end of the Body composition, reproduction and development unit the acquired knowledge was tested both in the control group, taught in a traditional classroom, as well as in the experimental group, taught through e-learning. The results of the test were compared and all students were surveyed about the learning methods they used.

The survey shows that students are satisfied and have positive feelings toward e-learning, as the mean value of 80% of the answers given to statements are above 4,5 showing complete student satisfaction with using e-learning in a biology class. The students pointed out that the textual and visual descriptions were highly helpful during the learning process, but they were also aware of the additional effort needed for successful e-learning. Namely the experimental group’s quiz results were not significantly better than the control groups’ results. However, students’ satisfaction with the learning process itself should certainly be a source of motivation for teachers.

Figure 3. The Moodle quiz page designed to test acquired knowledge

These already designed and implemented e-learning projects should be a motivation for teachers to continue creating digital teaching materials and various digital activities which will ensure that students develop skills allowing them to recognize and solve real life problems concerning health and sustainability.

 

AUTHORS  

Mila Bulić (1970.) is a biology and chemistry teacher. She is working at Primary school and  at the Faculty of Philosophy in Split (Croatia), where she works with future teachers  and teach them methods of work in the classroom. She is the author of numerous published scientific papers and school biology and chemistry texbooks for Primary school and Gymnasium. Her  interest areas are sustainable development, health and e-learning.

 

Daniela Novoselić (1964.) is a biology and chemistry teacher with over  15 years of experience working in schools. She has taught in middle schools, high schools and universities, including the department of biology at the Faculty of science in Osijek (Croatia), and is the author of numerous published scientific papers. She currently works as the author and editor of school biology and chemistry texbooks for a Croatian publishing house, Alfa dd., in Zagreb. Through her work she aims to better the teaching strategies used in Croatian schools.

 

by Maggie Morrissey

http://www.technologytoteach.co.uk/

Throughout my teaching career I have enjoyed using technology in education, especially in science lessons. As an ICT coordinator I introduced teachers, teaching assistants and children to a variety of digital resources such as: data loggers, digital microscopes and simulations to help support the teaching of science.

As an independent primary consultant I now provide training for primary teachers on how to develop their teaching of science. During each course I ask teachers to outline the positives or negatives of teaching this subject. There are often many positive comments about science especially on how it engages young children. The negatives prove very interesting. Other than worries about subject knowledge and finding resources, teachers often say how much they and the children dislike the recording or writing up of their work. Here are two typical comments:

‘The poor way in which experiments and results are recorded, kills enthusiasm’

‘Marking books and having to give written feedback takes too long but it’s our OFSTED target’

I believe this over reliance on writing hinders not just the enjoyment of the subject but also the development of other science skills such as argumentation. Furthermore, what about dyslexic children who struggle with writing?Will the writing process truly reflect what these children know? Finally, remember our younger scientists, whose recording skills will be hampered by their age.

Talk in Science

Talk for writing is becoming increasingly popular in schools so what about talk for science? Teachers are often encouraged to illicit children’s ideas at the start of a science topic to find out what misconceptions or understanding they have, but what happens to this talk? As Robin Alexander points out:

‘Talk is temporary and unless particularly interesting, it soon fades with participants often forgetting what has been said.’ 

In a busy classroom with lots of ideas and thoughts being produced, how can the teacher and even the children reflect on the discussion? During this process, do we as teachers really know what each child understands? In addition, what impact is our questioning having on the children’s ideas? As part of my MA I am researching how technology can help. Here are some initial ideas.

Video Recording

This can be used both at the start of a topic and as the topic develops. Placing the video camera so that it can pick up the whole class; the starter question and initial ideas can be recorded. This recording could be used for the teacher to truly reflect on what the children truly know and identify any misconceptions they may have. It can also be returned to during the work so that the children can reflect on how their ideas and knowledge have changed. This is also a valuable opportunity for a teacher to reflect on their own questioning skills.

Recording devices

There are now a variety of mp3 audio recorders available to be used in classrooms. These are excellent for recording discussions in small groups. They are fairly simple to use and some can record up to four hours of sound. The recordings can be played back and stored on your computer. The main problem is the files can build up quickly so a good system for naming and filing these is essential. Children can go on and edit their work using free software such as audacity and post their discussions into other digital applications.

Podcasting

Podcasts are digital media files mainly audio but can include video. I currently use Audioboo but an alternative is Soundcloud. Subscription to both is free. They give the children the chance for their science work to reach a wider audience. They can post directly to the site or upload their work from their recordings after editing. Needless to say they would still have to write and plan for this. Having a real audience for their work would make that writing process far more interesting and relevant.

Whether you decide to go for some of these options or incorporate all of them I do not think you will be disappointed. Not only will your children become more enthusiastic about their science work but you as a teacher will have a greater understanding of what your children know, making your assessment more reliable.  This is going to be extremely relevant when the new curriculum commences in 2014.

Links and references 

Audacity – http://audacity.sourceforge.net/

Audioboo – http://audioboo.fm/

Soundcloud – https://soundcloud.com/

Lgfl: http://podcast.lgfl.org.uk/

Robin Alexander – Towards Dialogic teaching

 

 

 

 

by Elliott Plumb

Introduction

As a newly qualified teacher, it is usually a case of survival to reach the end of the year. Jump four months into the year and I, the NQT, am at the tail end of an extremely exciting and successful computing project. The project was to be a blend of my Computing Co-ordinator’s knowledge of gaming and my knowledge of local history. ‘Forty Hall’, a local landmark, was ripe for the picking when deciding on a building to develop on the Minecraft program. Having just opened as an educational centre, the Hall welcomed us with open arms.

At the beginning I was unsure of the benefits but this project has come to reveal the extensive range of learning opportunities that Minecraft has to offer to children in schools today.

The Children’s Prior Knowledge

The children’s passion for the Minecraft project was nothing short of overwhelming. If the children did not play it at home already, they had heard their classmates talking or reading about it. Interestingly, there was a huge amount of prior knowledge amongst my class when it came to Minecraft. This is where any teacher afraid to take on such a task could develop a pupil-led project that would allow the teacher to learn-as-they-go.

Even so, what became clear was that although there was some strong prior knowledge, some children had no experience using the game. The initial lesson, where I allowed the children to explore the Minecraft program gave me the opportunity to assess those who were confident and those who needed scaffolding. I then grouped the children according to experience and knowledge of the program. Each group had a confident learning leader who could lead and keep their group focused. This helped to keep the learning as pupil-led as possible.

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The Learning Journey

Part 1: The History curriculum in England demands that children study a local landmark. We visited Forty Hall to engage closely with the history and the structure of the house. I divided the children into four differentiated groups. These groups gathered resources that would enable them to build on Minecraft later on. The children were able to sketch, use measuring instruments and take photographs to build up a bank of evidence and tools that they could use when it came building on Minecraft. By collecting their own resources, children could take ownership of their learning. Higher ability children were required to calculate ratios and make links with their mathematics skills. This is one of many ways in which the project was cross-curricular.

Part 2: After visiting the hall, the children had a strong knowledge of Forty Hall and had access to a host of tools and resources that they had collected themselves. In the second phase of the project, children were able to collaborate in their groups to decide which resources they would keep to help assist them when it came to build all the particular details. The learning leaders then had to organise which task each child would take during the project. The groups then mind-mapped a plan and this saw each child take ownership of a section of the build. The children were then ready to begin!

Part 3: This section of the learning saw the most progress with the majority of the successes of the project becoming clear at this point. Closing all the gaps in the children’s learning and addressing misconceptions was aided significantly by using a three-part lesson structure.

The lesson Structure

The lessons were taught in three parts. A refocus at the beginning of each lesson encouraged the children to collaborate and verbalise their task for that lesson. Children would then spend up to an hour building and collaborating with their group, making sure they utilised the chat function to talk to and guide each other. Learning leaders would assess situations that would arise and problem solve accordingly. As the teacher, I could assess all children in the game from a computer and offer encouragement and advice if they desperately needed it. Fundamentally, as it was a pupil-led project, I would be looking for great collaboration and effective problem solving from the learning leaders and the class members. Having a ‘revisit, review and improve’ session after each computing lesson gave the children some time to discuss the successes in that lesson but it also gave them the opportunity to draw up where they were going next in their project. This was written up on a poster and kept to be put on display in the next lesson. Children were constantly reminded that they had to refer to this to move forward with the project.

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Learning and Progress

After just two months engagement with the project, the children have had the opportunity to develop, practice and apply significant learning and skills that stretch beyond Computing. In the beginning, the learning leaders were the trouble-shooters, the strong self-reflectors and would guide the project to the next stages. After approximately six to eight lessons, I was beginning to see more children take on the responsibility of problem solving for other members of the class. In addition, encouraging children to use the chat function on Minecraft would be a target in the initial lessons. As the project matured, the children naturally collaborated through the chat and would offer each other advice, problem solve issues and revise their construction work together to make sure they were achieving an accurate replica of Forty Hall.

As a result of Minecraft, the children have had the chance to practice and develop their ability to become supportive and helpful collaborators, successful problem solvers. At the same time, they have been given the opportunity to take responsibility for their own learning. The Mincecraft project has given the children a chance to develop skills which, with continual practice, will allow them to become life-long learners. Fundamentally, the children can apply these skills in not only Computing but within all subjects across the curriculum.

Eliot Plumb is a Year 5 teacher at Wilbury School in Edmonton. He graduated in Education from the University of Cambridge in 2013 and enjoys inspiring children through teaching Computing, Dance and History.

 

How can teachers ensure that their investment in games based learning (GBL) delivers desired learning outcomes? This article looks at five aspects of GBL that ought to be considered when introducing GBL into the classroom. These five aspects are: design, delivery (usage), technology & support, outcomes and cost.

Design considerations (GBL needs to be fit for purpose):

Is the game fit for purpose offering a relevant context and activities?

Is the game pitched right in terms of complexity and age level?

Does the game support multiple learning styles?

Delivery considerations (GBL needs to work in typical educational setting):

Is the game focused on learning supporting collaboration, conversations and teacher-led interventions and scaffolding?

Does the game provide a challenge that generates learning flow?

Can the game fit into a standard lesson, but also be used for events / term topics?

Technology and support considerations (GBL need to utilise typical kit and offer support):

Will the game work on classroom computers?

Is support provided in the game and via communities / guides / resources?

Outcome considerations (GBL need to reach the parts traditional teaching doesn’t):

Will the game engage the pupils, including reluctant learners?

Will the game solve problems that traditional learning finds difficult?

Is the game linked to the curriculum and does it support assessment?

Will the game improve generic and employability skills?

Cost considerations:

Is there enough money in the budget, not forgetting hidden costs such as consoles and multiple licences?

Does the game offer value for money?

Any particular games based learning product or lesson does not need to answer all of the above questions and it is important to realise that the aspects are not mutually exclusive; for instance, a well-designed game is more likely to deliver better outcomes. Therefore, scoring reasonably well across the board is more important than excelling in one area.

A Games Based Learning Analysis and Planning Tool (which expands on and makes use of the five aspects outlined above) can be found at http://www.games-ed.co.uk/resources-contact.html. The tool has been developed by pixelfountain / games-ED who’s  experience has been built up over a decade of designing and delivering serious games / games based learning in both the adult and education sectors. The tool also takes, some inspiration has come from:

  • Becta report (2010) on games based learning;
  • The RETAIN Model – Gunter; Kenny and Vick (2007);
  • And finally a debt is owed to Jan Herrington and Ron Oliver, who have written on situated learning and multimedia, and have inspired games and simulation designs.

The Games Based Learning Analysis and Planning Tool has been developed by games-ED to help educators select and utilise games based learning. It can be used to:

  • Create buy-in for games based learning;
  • Help when choosing a particular supplier / product;
  • Plan the use of games learning;
  • And, if we can be so bold, to help developers design games based learning.

Conclusion

Like all aspects of education, GBL needs careful planning. This tool will hopefully bring some rigour to that planning and so ensure the GBL can deliver on its promises.

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