ICT in my Classroom

A pupil that I taught in my NQT year is currently doing a period of work experience in our school for her A Levels. It has made me realise how long I have been at my current school. I have decided to look for something new, a fresh challenge.

I was pretty green around the gills when I joined my current school and my headteacher always says I joined just after all of the boring, yet essential, ICT developments had been completed. Like installing fibre optic cabling across the site and ensuring the broadband was properly working.

I have been fortunate to gain teaching experience from Nursery to Year 6, valuable leadership experience and the freedom to development a wide range of creative technology projects to support the curriculum. From some of the UK’s first whole school interactive whiteboard development back in 2002/2003 to our recent Flip Video Cameras for each class.

which way? by swissrolli
Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs License

I have spent about 7 years working closely with my headteacher in developing an environment that is beginning to provide learners with the ability to choose how they want technology to support their work. And throughout all of that there has been a continual promotion of a creative approach to technology. My headteacher is in fact the first to pass me a job advert he considers me suitable for – I am indebted to him for the trust and faith he has shown in me to develop my subject and to follow my passion.

But I feel that it is time to move on – I am still an ambitious teacher and although I have been quietly exploring other avenues I want to begin to look in earnest.

I am curious and excited to find out what new opportunities and challenges are out there.

As part of my numeracy lesson yesterday I used our class Nintendo Wii to support some of the shape work we have been doing. I identified the mini game Block Spot within Big Brain Academy as an opportunity for the children to continue to practice visualising and consolidate their understanding of 3D shapes.

After a short times tables test, which we do at the beginning of every week with our Year 5s (9/10 yr olds), I explored some vocabulary and basics of reflective symmetry on a grid using SMART Notebook. We briefly revisited the shape symmetry we had covered in the previous week and I ensured the children were now thinking of a line of symmetry or mirror line independent of any one shape. 

As a precursor to reflecting different shapes in vertical and horizontal mirror lines we used simple colour patterns reflected in a grid and a simple flash activity from Primary Resources. On the class IWB we completed some together and I highlighted some possible areas that could be problematic – we counted the squares to and from the axes and all of the methods used to check the position of reflective symmetry.

I remember using this in my first year of teaching in a computer suite. On Tuesday the children worked in pairs on our class laptops to challenge each other in making a pattern and then completing the correct reflection. I had planned to continue on to do some work on paper but the practice and familiarity they gained from just working with different coloured squares will contribute to their work later when reflecting shapes. For a challenge children could work on a grid of four quadrants (2 mirror lines) and a random pattern and for those needing more support they could continue with the single mirror line with adult support.

As the children were working on their laptops I had the class Nintendo Wii running with Big Brain Academy and called out a pair of children at a time to use it. I used it in Solo mode and the Practice of the game Block Spot (Visualise category). I would have preferred them to have played against each other or in a small group but that would have included other games – I wanted them to just focus on visualisation of shape to support the week’s topic. In the pair they took it in turns to answer 10 questions about matching a random 3D shape made of coloured cubes to a choice of four. All of the blocks on screen are spinning and so recognising the features quickly and their similarities is tricky.

You can see what they got up to in the Block Spot game in this short film taken during the lesson.

I was pleased to see that the rest of the class were not distracted by the Nintendo Wii being played on the IWB and other then a few cursory glances were getting on with their own reflective symmetry task. The novelty of using the Wii in lessons has already worn off!

The motivator of using the Nintendo Wii as a way to support learning is a no-brainer to me with this age of children and I am pleased to further establish it as a learning tool in the classroom. It is not simply good enough anymore to adhere to the argument that they use too much of these things outside of school – they are very powerful ways to deliver learning and engage children. It is just a case of finding the correct game and context.

I also discovered another game within Big Brain Academy that I would use within any future lessons on symmetry. It is called Art Parts and is described as follows:

In this Visualize activity, players must complete the sample painting by stamping the missing pieces onto an unfinished scene. When it becomes more difficult, Art Parts flips the unfinished scene sideways or flips it upside-down.

There is much more to explore in terms of using the Wii to support the general learning environment of a primary classroom – but I think that in my classroom I have seen it become a source of great fun and an engaging learning tool.

Please let me know any games or ways you have used your own class Wii to support your lessons.

Curiously I suffered the same problem today as a fellow Twitter user was having yesterday. I retweeted his request for help and was pleased to be able to forward some advice from my network to help him. Today I was able to put some of that collective wisdom to good use, when I had the very same problem of not being able to play an avi file created by our Flip Cameras.

It is a long standing problem and I have seen it mentioned many times previously – basically Windows Media Player lacks the video codec to unscramble the coded Flip films, all we got when we played them was the audio.

I knew that the actual camera bundles with software (which I generally bypass) and so must also include said codec. I found the file I needed in the System, Install folder on the camera named: “Windows 3ivx Installer” (there is a Mac version and a Leopard compatibility file too) After running this installer, which takes literally 10 seconds to complete (with no restart required), the files were viewable and Movie Maker could also import them correctly.

I solved this with about 5 minutes to spare before the children were to come in and make some recount films of our trip to an outdoor centre yesterday. I copied the file to a network folder and then accessed it on each of our class laptops – I roped in a few boys, who with an enthusiastic “We love doing installs!” helped to update the machines before the afternoon began. With the codecs back in balance the children got busy creating their films.

If you run into the same problem with your own Flip Camera I hope this helps you out – if not you could always tweet about it and I am sure people will be able to offer some advice.

In November 2007 I began the first of a series of Google presentations gathering together some ideas about the uses of different tools for the classroom. I thought that the easy manner of sharing Google Docs was ideal to collate thoughts, tips and suggestions from teachers and educators all over the world.

I began with interesting ways to use the interactive whiteboard and the family has since grown to include, tips for Google Earth, Google Docs and the most recent Pocket Video Cameras. It has been great to watch them evolve as people get in touch and I add them to the document and they make their own edits.

Here is the family photo

My intention from the beginning was that there should be many authors of the presentations and that teachers and school staff could happily take the resource and share it with their colleagues. As it is in a simple presentation format it seems to have been successful in doing that.

In total we have collated 100 101 suggestions, tips and ideas for the classroom! (I can’t type quick enough and people keep adding more ideas!) It is fantastic to be part of that collaborative effort to share what we do.

The most recent on pocket video cameras seems to have really hit a rich vein of classroom ideas – so far 29 ideas have been shared by people all over the world and I only started it 3 days ago. I haven’t had chance to add an idea myself yet! Perhaps this wealth of ideas illustrates the power and potential of video in the classroom – which isn’t particularly new but pocket video cameras give us, and the children we work with, much easier access.

Who knows what the next 100 ideas will be about but I hope that you can be part of it – please take some time to take a look through some of them above, let me know if you have used the presentations with your staff. If you want to add an idea to any of the above presentations just let me know your email address and I will add you as an editor.

Our class had a very enjoyable numeracy lesson today in which they were further exploring nets of 3D shapes and developing their ability to visualise them. We used SMART Notebook on the class laptops to help record our work as well as Google Earth for our shape of the week.

This week we have been exploring nets of 3D shapes and for the lesson’s “Shape of the Week” starter I had Google Earth running with the Pyramids (Egypt) placemarked – we zoomed, from right out in space, into the location of these great monuments. (I still love the awe and wonder of that, so do the kids!) It was a good link with our Ancient Egyptian history topic. I had switched on the 3D Buildings layer and I panned and moved about the modelled pyramids. We then spent some time talking about the properties of square based pyramids, their nets and the pyramid family in general. I scribed their ideas straight onto Google Earth using the SMARTBoard pens and annotated the pyramids. I good start to the session.

For the main part of the lesson and the independent task I wanted the children to visualise the top and the bottom of a net. Which face in a cube net does not move and which would become the top of the cube? So we combined the practical use of Clixi with a SMART Notebook that allowed the children to easily recreate and record the nets.

I shared a notebook file on the network, which the children accessed and opened on their own laptop. The children were working in pairs on their numeracy tables. They made the possible nets with the Clixi and then generating the same net in the notebook from some infinite cloned shapes I had setup. I then wanted them to colour the top RED and the bottom GREEN to show they understood how the net behaved when folded. The technology was not complex but it allowed them to quickly recreate the nets and show what was needed – less time was spent recording due to the technology. Which meant that more time was spent visualising how the net worked, exploring the Clixi nets they had made and discussing the possibilities in their pairs.

I was really pleased with the progress made throughout the lesson as the children discussed and explored the nets of cubes, cuboids and pentagonal prisms. I was equally impressed, however not surprised, in the successful way the blended learning resources worked – how they complimented each other and how the no frills technology began to become invisible amidst the learning going on.

1. Profile - for me that is the first port of call for finding out about anyone. I look for involvement with education and teaching. So make sure that your profile, including a picture, is well updated as it helps others who might be looking to connect with you.
2. Get started straight away – profile sorted, now just get started. Write about how your lessons have gone, a great website you have used today (add the link, everyone loves looking at new web resources), a good digital camera you have in school, problems with your network, revelations from your pupils. Anything really, just make a start.
3. Follow a bunch of people – for me Twitter is all about making connections with fellow teachers and colleagues in education, so find someone you know or who’s blog you may have enjoyed reading for a while and explore who they follow and who follows them.
4. Get someone with a big network to put a shoutout for you – give your network a kickstart by asking someone with a whole heap of followers to put in a good word for you. Piggybacking in this way will open up more networks for you to explore and teachers to follow. Just be sure to follow back those that have followed you if you are happy to.
5. Begin replying to people – along with putting the word out about yourself and your own practice/situation engage with people directly by replying (@ before their username – everyone sees these) and direct messaging (D before their username – private). If you can help or offer advice of your own then do so where you can. It might be you askign for advice/help in the future.

One more thing to remember is that in the early days of Twitter use it can be very quiet, few replies, not much going on in terms of conversation. Do not be discouraged – try to perservere and stick it out and keep using it, as soon there will be a “tipping point” when the connections you have made reap a bountiful information harvest.

Over the last 2 weeks I have hosted visits to our school from a couple of ICT coordinators from primary schools in the region. 

In the first visit of the year we spent time discussing the process of the ICT Mark, a national accreditation for technology in schools, and how it can help become a diagnostic tool for curriculum development. My school completed the ICT Mark back in 2006. Alongside discussing how to get the most out of the process for technology in the school, I explained how we have used the whole diagnostic process to help plan and implement subject development across the other curriculum areas. It has proven extremely valuable in our school and is now part of the whole school development plan.

The second visit took place yesterday, in which I welcomed an ICT coordinator exploring the concept of mobile technology. They are to be moving to a large scale new build in a few years and so will implementing laptops in the classroom. It sounded like they have already had some success with them in their current setting but was looking for more inspiration on the practical uses of the technology in primary.

I spoke about how the vision of “choice” that we have is at the heart of decisions we make in terms of technology and how the resource must be owned by the children. They saw the children working on their morning activities, in which they have a specific group, table and independt activity to work at first thing in the morning. This allows them to get straight on when they walk in the classroom – engaging them in class immediately. We do this for half an hour most days and it has proven very successful to making a good start to the day. The children access a range of activities on the laptops as well as away from them too.

I taught a maths lesson in which we were developing our understanding of nets of cubes and exploring the various ways we could make them. I decided not to use the laptops as the children needed hands on experience of using Clixi to make them. I stressed that the sense of a blended learning environment was important to me and so the decisions to put them away were just as important.

On both visits I ended up speaking about Twitter! Both ICT coordinators were not members of any sort of community of fellow practitioners that could help and support them in their work. I could not help but recommend the education technology Twitter network as a great source of support, friendship, inspiration and connections. I took some time to demonstrate Twitter by giving a shoutout (as some of you may recall) and was grateful as ever of the wonderful response received from people.

Face to face meetings with colleagues are always great and I feel privileged to be in a position to offer some support, help and encouragement to visitors to my classroom. I hope in their short time with us I did just that.

I have been fortunate enough to be part of a Teachers TV programme recently aired entitled “ICT for the Non-Specialist – Blogs/Wikis”.

However the part that we were filmed about did not include anything to do with a wiki – what we did showcase was TutPup, Voicethread and Google Docs. We are in the second half of the film.

The programme synopsis is included here 

The use of blogs and online collaboration in education is explored as teachers discover how and why they should make good use of them.

Head of geography at Bury Church Secondary, Sally Sumner, uses blogs as a resource in the classroom and as a revision tool, having overcome her initial doubts about her ICT skills.

MFL teacher Janet McCann finds blogging invaluable for motivating the boys in her class, and discusses why the pupils find this technology so engaging.

At Priestsic Primary School, Nottinghamshire, ICT co-ordinator Tom Barrett uses online collaboration tools for peer assessment, developing the pupil’s literacy skills.

Collaborative online educational games are also shown, providing a safe environment on the web for pupils to improve their numeracy skills.

A rare chance to see me in the wild! I hope that you find some of what I articulate about the tools useful and please ensure you take a look at the context document that I wrote to accompany the film which is available in the “Resources” link.

It is lovely to see my old class talking about how they use technology and how it helps them. Some permission issues prevented me and the film itself from saying TutPup or Voicethread - it had to be all very generalised. But those three tools that I have mentioned and that appear in the film are stalwarts of my classroom practice – just today I sent out this Tweet

“My class is suddenly alive with the buzz of 30 Y5s playing+challenging each other on http://tutpup.com so much good game talk going on  ”

The other films in the series are:

• ICT for the Non-Specialist – Virtual Worlds

  The use of virtual worlds in the classroom is investigated

• ICT for the Non-Specialist – Podcasting

  A school uses podcasting to raise achievement levels

• ICT for the Non-Specialist – Mobile Learning

  A primary school uses handheld computers to improve learning