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.
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Due to a little thing called Christmas (no, I’ve never heard of it either) most computing lessons that were timetabled during my GPP were cancelled to make way for activities, assemblies, and rehearsals. This clearly left a dearth in the amount of the ICT curriculum covered. This, owing to a lack of internet signal for parts of the placement, was quite tricky to amend.
I decided, as part of the children’s history topic (Ancient Greece), to model an unplugged ICT lesson. The children were supposed to be learning about “The War of the Gods”, a significant part of Greek Mythology. As a prelude to that lesson I provided children with a list of questions that we could use to find facts in a search engine. I deliberately designed these questions to be too vague for a search engine to feedback with decent results (for example: “Who won the war?” and “Who was the king?”). We spoke about them and then I asked the children, in Kagan pairs, to rewrite the questions so that (on another day) a search engine would give us a better quality of information. The lesson was a success in that every child achieved the learning objective and could tell me A) what a search engine was and B) how to create a question in a search engine to give you the best results (be specific). Unfortunately, the internet was still down a few days later, so instead of allowing them to research using their questions on the iPads, I provided them with an information pack that I created from their questions. At my GPP school, reading for pleasure was a huge focus. There was a system in place called “Around the world in 80 books”, which asked children to attempt to read 80 books in the eight(ish) months of term-time. For each twelve books (approximately) the children could move their names from one continent to the next on a world map, to indicate progress.
To facilitate this unplugged system, the school employed an online library system, which certain children (Librarians) were given the responsibility to use. Each book was scanned (using a shop-like USB scanner provided by the company) into the library system (using the book’s barcode to automatically download information about the title) and attributed to a unique barcode for the system which was stuck in the inside front cover of the book. Each child in the school was also given a unique barcode so books could be scanned in an out. Aside from the technical glitch of the internet in the school going down for two-weeks (as mentioned in my previous blog), this system was extremely popular. It is a prime example of technology enriching the school lives of children, in this case by giving them a taste of responsibility. It is also a useful system that ensures that there is accountability for all books which, in theory, prevents the loss of school stock. 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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