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.
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What is a QR code?
QR code is short form for “Quick Response Code”. It is essentially a unique, pictorial link to a website, which is accessed by scanning it with a QR code reader on a smartphone or tablet device. What does it look like? Generally, they look a little like barcodes. They are a randomly generated collection of black marks on a white background that are completely unique. How do they differ from barcodes in supermarkets? On barcodes on the back of packaging, the barcodes are made with vertical lines, alternating in black and white and of various thicknesses. The code is capable of holding 30 numbers, and the combination of these numbers dictates what the machines think the code is for. On a QR code, the image holds up to 7,000 numbers, which allows for a greater range of unique outputs. In essence, they can do more. How are they of use to students? In the classroom, pupils may use QR codes to direct family members to online work displayed on class blogs, videos, pictures, or websites. Teachers may use them to link pupils to homework or useful information. Pupils may also write their own online work and link their teacher to them by creating their own unique QR codes. How are they of use in the real world? QR codes can be put on anything. Bus stops, newspapers and magazines, t-shirts, books. Anything printable. How do I generate my own QR code? By visiting one of the following websites (others also exist). http://www.qrstuff.com/ http://qrcode.kaywa.com/ http://quikqr.com/ Have a go at following the following QR codes! One is for the computing primary national curriculum (captured from the University of Manchester Computing handbook) and the other is for the Primary Newbie twitter account. I have now completed the mandatory Internet safety module on the University’s Blackboard page.
One thing that drew my eye was the key stage 1 friendly (and I suppose early ks2) Think U Know videos which help to enhance the digital literacy of 5-7 year olds. One of them, “Lee and Kim’s Adventure”, explored the dangers of giving too much information to people that you do not know personally offline. By showing how they can be tricked when playing a game by somebody pretending to be a child, it was exploring a heavy message that was delivered sensitively. The featuring of a wise superhero character who sang a song at the end was a good move as it prevented the piece from causing upset and anguish to its young audience. In order to take this e-safety module further in the classroom, Blackboard suggested turning the videos into short mini-dramas. Having recently explored drama in the classroom, I’d also suggest that this is an area that conscience-alley or freeze framing could work well in. Today was the first day of the rest of my life, day one of the Primary PGCE course in Manchester. I was apprehensive going into the day's programme of events; I have not been in a lecture theatre in at least six years. "What if it was too much for me?", I thought. What if I drowned in content? What if I struggled to concentrate? Oh, the anxiety!
I need not have worried. The day was really engaging, solidly delivered, and the lectures/tutorials were well structured (albeit delivered in two buildings either side of Oxford Road which could get rather exhausting!) In addition to finding out who my tutor is (Lise H), I took in very informative sessions on how to use the library (which I dutifully did after formal lectures), what my first assignment will be (a detailed look at the National Curriculum) and what to expect from the Computing course. On the latter, I learned so much. I learned that in recent years the Government's Education Secretary (at the time Michael Gove) decided that the ICT curriculum was not fit for purpose, and the head of Google concurred. We as a nation of technological innovators risked losing our way if we continued upon the well worn path of teaching sub-par IT to our children. A new way was devised, and this was termed 'Computing'. Computing is an umbrella term and is split into three distinctive sections: Computer Science, which is a lot about how things work (coding/programming, analysing and debugging); Digital Literacy, which teaches children how to use technology competently, safely and responsibly; and Information Technology, which is mostly about content generation (blogs, podcasts, documents, photograph editing etc.). The lecturer asked students to sign a computing pledge, which I did, and to upload the fifteen key points to our showcase blogs (that is this, by the way!) You will find it above, on the tab that says 'Pledge'. I have also created an about me section (also above), which details my experience to date. My next step is to fill in the computing audit that I was given in the lecture. This lists a number of computing technologies and experiences, and I must feed-back on how confident I feel at using them. I am really excited for the rest of the course, to get up to scratch with my subject knowledge, and to get into schools and shape futures... In fact, I am beginning to feel like that great philosopher, Christina Aguileira, who once said: "To be given the opportunity to help shape new artists' careers and mentor them to see their dreams come to fruition is a task I welcome with open arms". (Entertainment Weekly, 2nd March 2011) |
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