We live in an increasingly audio-visual world, and while blogging and social media is on the increase, so too are videos, animations, music and games.
In my previous post, I alluded to Scratch, one way of creating audio-visual content (creation of games, quizzes, basic animation), but there are other excellent ways too. Here are a few of them:
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Scratch is a wonderful creation. It allows children (and adults!) to learn the basics of coding on a computer or iPad. This helps children to understand the basics of computer science and achieve digital literacy, which is a key part of the national curriculum for computing. The interface involves: a screen that hosts backgrounds ('stages') for your project; 'scripts', a collection of jigsaw pieces that can be put together to make a program; and a work area where these pieces can be placed. The pieces are broken down into coloured types, these are: Motion, Looks, Sound, Events, Control, Sensing, Pen, Data and Operator. With these pieces you can make anything - games, stories, quizzes... anything you can think of. For example, in just twenty minutes, using the program's intuitive interface, I was able to create a simple game in which my 'sprite', a cat shaped creature, has to outrun a ghost. When teaching children how to use Scratch, there are a number of approaches. The first is the prescribed route, where children follow teacher's instructions (perhaps on a worksheet) to make their product. The second is the part-whole method, where the teacher explains what is required, but allows the children to explore, create, evaluate and 'debug' their work. I think there is something to be said for both methods. The first raises confidence in the program, and may be more suitable for lower key stage 2, whereas the latter requires a certain degree of proficiency, which upper key stage 2 may be ready for.
I love Scratch because of its potential. I intend, next time I work in Key Stage 2, to use it and help inspire a new generation of coders. Part of the requirement of my University’s computing course is to stay up to date when it comes to trends pertinent to the subject (as is the case with any subject, actually). There are two examples of lessons we as teachers must be aware of from the recent news.
The first is the Katie Hopkins libel case. I will not go into too much detail here, but essentially, she said some untruths in quite a hurtful way about a food blogger. This food blogger took her to court, arguing that defamation of character had taken place, and Ms Hopkins was ordered to pay a substantial sum of money in damages. This case illustrates that we must be responsible about what we say on Social Media, as we would be with the spoken word. A computer screen is not something you can hide behind. The second example of e-safety issues in the news is this story about “Blue Whale”, a suicide game behind the deaths of hundreds of teenagers, mostly in Eastern Europe. The game, according to this article, “encourages at-risk participants to take part in a series of tasks like cutting themselves every day for 50 days”. Obviously, this is a massive concern, particularly at the top end of Primary School, where children may be more impressionable to material on the internet (combined with less rigorous checking from parents). We must be able to spot these signs. Bee Bots
Once children understand the theory behind coding (by learning ‘unplugged’, as mentioned in my previous blog), they can then move on to working with physical props. Bee Bots are an excellent way of learning the early basics behind coding. They are essentially bee shaped robots, black and yellow, with directional buttons on the top and wheels on the bottom. They can be programmed to follow a particular pattern, and then the bee bot zooms off, following its prescribed program. It is another example of a machine doing EXACTLY what it has been told, and teaches children about specificity. Here is a Youtube video I used to self-teach myself how to use them. www.youtube.com/watch?v=52ZuenJlFyE In terms of practical application beyond learning to code, the bee bots are also a wonderful tool for teaching space/co-ordinates in maths, electronics (further up the school) in science, and is a great stimulus for writing, DT (make a home for the bee bot) and even orienteering in PE. It is worth noting, even if there are not many bee bots in school, that this learning can also be completed ‘unplugged’. Simply teach it as normal, but use a template image of a bee bot for groups to predict where the bot will end up. This allows children to still be active while they await for the technology to become available. One activity that I have been desperate to try out as part of a computing lesson is an unplugged introduction to coding. Coding (or programming) is essentially a computer language, it is our way of telling a computer, via a program, what we want it to do. Before Bee Bots, before robotics, before Scratch and before Makey Makey, this activity is bound to get the concept of programming into children’s curious minds in a funny and engaging way. The task then… HOW TO MAKE A JAM SANDWICH! Sounds easy, doesn’t it? But it isn’t. We as humans take the task of making a jam sandwich and we do several steps at once without thinking. But, in this activity the teacher is a ‘robot’ and takes all instructions literally. Take the following example: “You put the jam on the bread…” Sounds like a fair starting point. But this is what you end up with: So next, the children might say “Take the bread out of the packet” – so naturally, the robot does this: Eventually, of course, the children will begin to understand and take on board the learning objective, to be as specific as possible when giving instructions to ‘robots’ or machines. This is a lesson that will serve them well when it comes to early coding on Bee Bots and then, later, Scratch Jr/Scratch.
The ‘correct’ instructions, by the way, are:
Congratulations, in just 22 easy steps you have made a jam sandwich! Until my Enquiry Placement I had seen very little evidence of assistive technology being used for SEND purposes in the classroom, but on that placement I saw a wonderful use of iPads to assist a child that was visually impaired. The iPad was used to link up to the interactive whiteboard, mirroring the screen that every other child in the class could see, but on an iPad that was mounted on his desk. This allowed him to access the work that everyone else was doing. During Guided Reading, the teacher also ensured that she downloaded a large text e-copy of the book for him to read along with the class.
I have read about other ways creating an inclusive classroom using technology. One such way is use of microphones to assist children with hearing difficulties. One of my fellow trainees used this in the classroom, and expressed that it made a huge difference in terms of that child’s attainment. I will briefly, as part of this pick and mix unit, mention technology as an assessment tool. I mentioned, during my time on GPP, how the PE passport iPad app and the “Learning Ladders” program can make the job of assessing children much easier, as it collates the information you input and can generate useful reports to easily track progress (or lack thereof) across each child and throughout each year. There are other useful online assessment resources too, which I would love the opportunity to explore in greater depth on FPP, including the use of testing (summative assessment) through multiple choice Google forms to elicit information, which will immediately generate a picture of where each child/the class as a whole is in terms of that subject. Voting systems, as mentioned in a previous blog post, are another useful way of assessing children’s understanding. They can be used as a more immediate alternative to Google Forms. This pick and mix module is separated into several parts. I shall cover them all in order.
1. Learning through games Learning through interactive games is considered by many teachers to be a positive activity that can engage children in fun, competitive and exciting ways. Websites such as Espresso, which I had experience using during my time as a teaching assistant on iPads, allow children to play various games across the whole curriculum. It’s also quite handy for any special days throughout the year, such as remembrance day, mother’s day, Eid, Diwali etc… as it often updates with relevant activities to those times of year. Espresso and Education City both work in similar ways. They are packed with units of work for children to complete which include games. Children can work through these individually on iPads, or collaboratively during carpet time. 2. Handheld devices In some schools the ratio of equipment (often laptops or iPads) is 1:1. Sometimes however this isn’t the case. On iPads I can recommend the following apps: Garageband, Audacity and one of several stop motion animation applications. Fancy apps aren’t always necessary, though. Simple recording of video and audio can also be of great value to a class and can help teachers provide evidence when it comes to formative assessment. On laptops, I would thoroughly recommend Scratch and Scratch Jr. I will be blogging about this in the next few days. 3. Behaviour reward systems When I worked in the infants of a school in South Manchester, we used Class Dojos. This is a system whereby children can be rewarded with points (recorded on an animated avatar) for good behaviours. The programme has the capacity to also take away points for negative behaviour, but we opted not to use that function, so children consider the technology to be a positive force. In many ways this is a technological version of Skinner’s operant conditioning. 4. Harnessing YouTube Safely As many schools ban Youtube from being used in the classroom, it is worth planning ahead, downloading videos using a Youtube converter, and playing them without the adverts (which could show potentially inappropriate and uncontrolled material). 5. Classroom Voting SystemsI do not have any experience with classroom voting systems. That said, I have researched them and I am very excited at the prospect of using them in my classroom. They appear to be fantastic in terms of generating discussion, eliciting information that children do or do not know, and engaging children using technology. The advantages are numerous: they gather information very quickly and efficiently, pinging them to an associated app (program); they retain anonymity of children (great in terms of eliciting without causing potential embarrassment); they are a great formative assessment tool, which can direct teachers to what the next stage in teaching should be. One disadvantage though, of course, is the cost associated with a) the purchase and b) the upkeep of the technology. The most commonly used Classroom voting systems are called Socrative and Activote. First it is worth noting that not all schools have a favourable opinion to children/classes blogging or tweeting, citing safeguarding issues and noting some of my findings from my post on internet safety. As most social networks have a minimum age limit of 13 (including Twitter), these views could be warranted. That said, with parental permission, and under the guidance of a professional teacher who understands how to deliver a rigorous computing curriculum (computing, of course, being a national curriculum subject), it might be acceptable to the school… or even, dare I say it, celebrated.
There are arguments that blogging is beneficial to children in various ways. Firstly, there is the computing skills learned – how to manage a website or microblog. Then, there is writing for an authentic audience which can be very motivational – more than just the class teacher will see it, therefore it is a real, important piece of writing that is ‘out there’ in the big wide world. Also related to literacy, it can help children to engage with English in a way they wouldn’t normally, spotting and using features of ‘good’ writing. The website, “Teacher Challenges”, has an excellent guide for setting up a class blog. It tells you how to create one, edit it, and polish it to look professional. If you are looking to set up a blog, I would recommend the site I am using to host Primary Newbie – Weebly. Finally, some tips for Tweeting.
The Primary Newbie Twitter account is here. Give me a follow if you are so inclined! |
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