GPP has ended and I am half way through my PGCE year (sort of). Hurrah! Over the next few posts I will reflect on the nine-week placement and discuss the technology I have seen (and not seen) in action. Today, I will focus on the Interactive Whiteboard and its associated software. In my classroom, we were in transition. The board we had, centralised in the middle of the wall at the front of the room, was a six-year-old Smartboard (from Smart Technologies) which worked with a large stylus type pen, but could be controlled by the PC attached. Although the board was on its last legs in terms of usability and it was slow to respond (although, this could have been the computer it was installed on), there were no immediate plans to replace it. Instead, the software attached to it was upgraded. No longer were lessons to be planned on “Notebook” (Smartboard’s own software), instead Promethean’s more up to date software “Activinspire” was to be used across the school. I downloaded my own trial copy from the Promethean website (available here) to help me to plan lessons at home more effectively. Unfortunately, we encountered a few problems with Promethean. Firstly, even though in many respects Activinspire is like Notebook, there was a significant proportion of the staff who did not know how to use it, and at that point training in the new software had yet to be given. Secondly, due to a licensing error, our copy did not work and would not go past the loading screen without putting in a key-code. This caused problems for one of my maths lessons, which had been prepared at home on Activinspire and therefore did not work, which led to a certain amount of consternation, followed by adaptation and reorganisation to deliver my lesson. From that point on, as the Notebook software was still installed on the school PC, my mentor and I took the executive decision to revert to that, a software that we knew would work. At home, I downloaded Notebook’s trial software (available here) and began to use that to plan. I enjoyed the notebook software and tended to design lesson accompaniments that were brightly coloured and involved interactive problems that the children could solve (particularly useful when covering division 2-step word problems in maths).
A further issue arose which impacted on our use of the IWB. For two-weeks, the internet (both WiFi and wired) went down. This meant that all planning had to be done at home, audio-visual resources had to be pre-downloaded, and interactive games that required the internet could not be used. This lack of internet also affected the printers (which were on a wireless system) which meant paper resources such as worksheets had to be created and printed at home, and photocopied at school (if the photocopier worked, which was also temperamental!) These experiences showed the sheer importance of having a seamless and robust ICT system in place, and being resilient enough to change your plans with not a moment’s notice.
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Evening, all! My word, I've been busy! Yesterday I had a swotting up session in the University of Manchester's Main Library, and I learned some exciting* new tips and skills, including this doozy; if you download the iManchester smartphone app from the App Store/Google Play, and then select 'Library', you can search for whatever book you wish to withdraw. You can seek by title, author, or use a generic search term (such as "Primary Curriculum") and, once you have hit 'search', it will furnish you with a comprehensive list of relevant content. But the fun does not stop there, oh no, as it will also furnish you with the book's exact location in the library, which is incredibly useful (as anyone who has written out book locations in longhand will concur). I am now armed with 19 books, ready to take on assignment A. Following yesterday afternoon's brilliant Professional Studies seminar with Martin, I then went home and set to work on A) my subject knowledge in English, Maths and Science, using pages from BBC Bitesize, ahead of my seminars on those areas today, and B) my computing action plan, based on Tuesday's audit.
If you click on My Computing Action Plan above (or hit the hyperlink), then you will be able to see my plan in full. Today it seemed as if much of my revision had paid off. I found all three core subject seminars absolutely fascinating. Mathematics (traditionally my weakest subject) was full of practical games and top tips (from Lawrence, who is brilliantly engaging) about the teaching of the subject. I learned that to get Maths across effectively you must ALWAYS use a Practical element (such as an activity), a representational element (pictorial) and an abstract element (symbolic). But even more than that, to school enthusiastic mathematicians you must teach a deeper level of mathematic reasoning that involves convincing, justifying and proving. It got me thinking about how I might use technology in the classroom in order to achieve those goals (more on that at a later date, I'd imagine!) My homework for this evening was a Key Stage 2 Spelling, Punctuation and Grammar (SPaG) SAT test. I did not disgrace myself, but I have a decent amount of work still to do in order to brush up on clauses (relative, subordinate), conjunctions (sub-ordinating vs co-ordinating), and past perfect/progressive verb forms. Primary teachers have to know this stuff! Tomorrow, more Maths, Science (including an big audit) and English. The fun never stops in PGCE-Land! * Okay, exciting to no one but me! 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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