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.
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In my GPP school, there is a real impetus in terms of creating a paperless environment wherever possible. Obviously, children still have workbooks and will work from worksheets that will be stuck into them, but the teachers are working hard to counterbalance this with their own efforts to be paperless.
Firstly, the teachers share planning across each classroom in the three-form entry school on Microsoft Word, using a grid system. They work together to input the subject they are responsible for into the shared grid, and then they all work from a master copy which is attached to an email so that it can be viewed at home on their school-issued iPad. Secondly, the school showed pupil progress by subscribing to a system called “Learning Ladders”, which the separate Infants School also subscribed to. Each subject for each year was broken down into every conceivable target (eg: for Maths, “I know my number bonds to 10” or for English “I can identify an adjective”) and each child in each class in each year would be ticked off when they could achieve that target. The learning ladders were useful because they could generate data for teachers to show which children are below, meeting and exceeding expectations. When talking to my mentor about paperless systems, she said that it took some getting used to, but ultimately it made sense for A) saving the planet, and B) efficiency – automatically generated data saves them a lot of time. GPP (That's 'Guided Professional Placement' to the uninitiated) has begun and with it there are new technologies to get my head around.
The first thing I'd like to mention is that the school I am at in Salford takes its safeguarding responsibilities extremely seriously. The school is aware of the importance of joined up thinking when it comes to the protection of the children in its care, and as such has signed up to a website called "My Concern". This website is a superb way of ensuring that when it comes to child protection, everybody has access to relevant information. Let me give you a for instance (and, just for the record, this is a completely fictional example). Imagine a nine year old called Aaron has arrived for school on Monday morning with a pronounced limp. On further examination you notice a bit of bruising on his leg. Now, it may be nothing to worry about; you know that Aaron likes sport and he may have simply strained it at the weekend during a match (to be fair, this is the likeliest explanation). But, on the other hand, this may be a significant puzzle piece in a wider jigsaw that points towards child abuse at home. By reporting it on My Concern you ensure that the headteacher, his GP, his social worker, and any other party relevant to that child's wellbeing is aware of the puzzle piece. If it is of no consequence then fine, but if it is then you may have just helped to prevent further violence towards an abused party. I think My Concern is brilliant, and I'd encourage all schools (and any area of society that work with children) to sign up for it. A second technology I have seen used by my mentor is a piece of PE assessment software* for the iPad. In short, this software allows the user to photograph children during specific activities (selectable from a drop down menu), tag them by name, and mark down whether they have achieved, partially achieved or not achieved the lesson objective. This data is then all collated and is accessible by the headteacher. I feel this is a great part of the drive to boost the status of PE in English schools, and I'm all for it. Next up, I will blog about the pick and mix computing modules from my university's computing programme. * I will blog further about this software in the future when I can take some screenshots of the user interface. |
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