ICT in my Classroom

Great to see a few people have already added to the Google presentation about sharing tips and techniques you have found successful with the IWB. Please continue to add to it, we are on #6 today already! I would love to see 50 different tips before Christmas!

Here is a video I have made tonight called “The Double Tap” which supports tip number 6.
Download Video: Posted by tbarrett at TeacherTube.com.
Hope you find it useful, and feel inspired to add your own pearls of wisdom, just let me know your email and I will add you as a collaborator.

Sharing is good. I have started a simple Google presentation to allow IWB users to share a simple idea that has proved successful in the classroom. I would like this presentation to grow and grow as more and more people contribute their ideas. We can then all use this resource to help provide professional development for colleagues in our schools, districts, local authorities…

The premise is simple - you have one slide to explain one idea, in addition you have one image to help illustrate (if you wish). Let your ideas be for any group of teachers or children, from beginners to advanced users of the IWB - don’t be constricted by the IWB type, just as long as it’s a useful idea - I am sure we will all find a way to do it! Write about a simple tip or a longer project - you choose. Contribute one or contribute ten! I have made a start - the process is easy.

1. Go to the presentation and take a look at was has been contributed. If you would like to be added as a collaborator send me an email (thomasgeorgebarrett [at] googlemail [dot] com - or use the contact tab at the top of this page) I will invite you in as a collaborator.
2. Add your one slide, one idea and one image.
3. Change the presentation title slide to match the number of ideas.

It will have a humble beginning - currently the presentation is called:

“One Interesting Way to use your Interactive Whiteboard”

Please help me change the title and create a supportive document that provides valuable, road tested ideas and tips for IWB users, new and old. I am sure we will all learn something.

Image: ‘Sharing‘ www.flickr.com/photos/33128961@N00/142455033

I have been meaning to write about this wonderful site for a while now. It was one of those miraculous finds back in 2002/2003 that fades into your surfing past, but it undoubtedly has been (and remains) one of the most popular websites for the children at our school.

Ferry Halim is a digital artist and has created a site showcasing current projects and flash artwork. I think that searching for examples of excellent flash artwork may have been the reason why I found the site. As part of the little site is a part named Morning Sunshine which has about 60 interactive games that are utterly, jaw-droppingly beautiful. Nothing that I have ever come across on the web can touch these wonderfully craftedlittle games.

So when I first began playing them I discovered their simplicity and visual appeal would work perfectly for early years children. So I sought to spread the word about the site and I produced a document that allowed staff to see the different skills used by the children in every one of the games. For example the Game Type or Screen, Specific mouse control skills and other skills required.

Back in 2003 I was teaching ICT to every class in the school, including a session with 2 Foundation classes. We always began the session by using the interactive whiteboard and a simple art package like Blackcat Fresco to trace some letter shapes. I introduce the use of a music beater, the cloth covered sort, to help the children use the boards for the first time. I would still recommend this today as they have trouble with tracing smoothly on the board with their fingers when first experiencing the tool. After this short session we would work on simple mouse skills using the Ferry Halim games. “These Little Pigs” is one of those games that I began using with the Foundation stage children. All it requires the children to do is pop a bubble the little pigs are riding on at the correct time to stack them on top of each other. So just a single click. Much better illustrated if you go to the site and play it! Well the children and staff couldn’t believe how engaged they were and with a very peaceful soundtrack to the games it was lovely letting them get on with it.

So the document and site has become a very important part of developing early mouse skills at our school. I would also continue to recommend the use of the site for the early days of interactive whiteboard use, as I have done in the past when working with other schools.

This is an extract from the document I refer to, with the details of the pig game and another just to illustrate what I mean.

My top three games from the site would have to be High Delivery, Pocketful of Stars and Bubble Bees. Please let me know what are your top three games. It looks like more games have been added since I edited the document back in 2006 so I will need to add the extra details about the games on soon.

Please use the games with your children (even the older kids love them) and let the staff have the document to support your school’s ICT planning and development in the early years.

It seems that it will be an interesting year regarding the release and development of interactive surface technologies. Now it seems there is a mixture of large players in the market all of which could concievably affect the look of our classrooms in the not too distant future.

As you may have read I have been tracking these products for more than a year now - four major stories seem to be most dominant.

• Jeff Han’s demonstration of multi-touch technology at TED Talks
• Philips Entertaible
• Rumours of new SMARTBoard technologies that incorporates multitouch - ie more than just the rear projector model.

And now…

• The press release about the Microsoft Surface

I suppose the question is no longer about whether or not we will see this type of technology in education but, what form will it take and who will be able to back it?

Well this is my first trip into the vibrant world of podcasting - but luckily I have had some friends to help me along the way. I am happy to say that I am part of a group of international teachers who have setup NextGenTeachers.com we come together to talk about current issues in the classroom and hopefully give some timely advice that arises from the varied work we are doing.

It is a fantastic opportunity to hear the current practice and thinking of teachers that are making the most of the latest technologies.

This first show has all of our introductions and some information about how you can get involved. We end up talking about the use of interactive whiteboards in schools and mull over some points about their successful use and implementation.

So how can you listen? Well 3 different ways:

1. Here is a link to the mp3 file - International Voices Podcast Show #1
2. 

3. Use the GCast player in the left sidebar.

Take your pick…
Take a look over at the NextGen site for the show notes and links that are discussed.

I would love to hear what you think of the show…

So as I currently write this I am installing the new SMARTBoard software and I have just reviewed the current state of the product that was displayed at BETT. The Interactive whiteboard has hardly changed since I dusted off a boxed one in a corridor way back when I was training.

I do remember setting that board up in the Year 3 class I was working in and thinking that it was truly the most impressive resource I had used - I have since been in 2 different schools and been charged with the implementation of many IWBs. So I bought into the idea. There are many schools in the UK and I am sure across the world that have not had IWBs installed. It seems to me to be a slow process of integrating a decent technology.

So what’s next? I think that sometimes schools wait too long to have technology delivered to them - to wait for the next bandwagon to come along. I don’t think that the IWB can be taken much further than it already has. Software has changed, yes. What devices we can attach has changed, yes. But what about the interactive technology we use. That is pretty static. No doubt that over time things have been manufactured to a greater standard, with more reliability etc. But when you watch Jeff Han demonstrate at TED Talks a new interactivity, perhaps we should be investing our efforts there.

Recently I wrote about my experiences with Philips here and then here, but it was early days with my blog and I assumed that it slipped under the radar of many of my readers. I hope that you might take the time to read it and comment.

So from my experiences with Philips and watching Jeff Han I believe that perhaps we are looking at the wrong model of car. Indulge me in this analogy for a moment.

So the IWB is an old 2002 model car, and every year there has been a growth in sales - way back then the model had all of the latest features and was “cutting edge”; now the same model has had a paint job, a few bolt on extras like a new exhaust and ways to plug in your mp3 player - but the car itself has not changed.
They are still selling but they haven’t really changed. As drivers our gaze has been fixed by these glorious new additions and the fact that so many other drivers were buying them. Governments even waded in to buy the cars in bulk and then distribute them to new drivers. Of course there are excellent drivers out there - no question, but has the actual car we are driving changed in 5 years? So whilst all this is going on in a factory in Holland or in the US somebody has questioned the design and created the next evolutionary step…

I suppose the question is: how long will it take us to wrench our gaze away from one technology and open our eyes to the possibilities that are emerging elsewhere?

I feel very fortunate. It is a very rare opportunity to see an emergent technology that could have a huge impact on future teaching and learning.

On Monday I travelled to London to meet up with the Philips Entertaible team who I had met back in July of this year over in Eindhoven, Holland. It was great to see Maurice and Gerard again and to meet two more members of the Philips team. I was invited to take part in this workshop on education and help to draw out the possibilities of the Entertaible in my profession.

Facilitated by the company “What If?” we tried to get to grips with the possibilities. I must admit it was a great day! It was extremely different to the usual day I have and was quite intense - but being involved with such a raw technology at the very beginning of it’s life is inspiring.

It is very difficult to explain the technology other than what I said before.

From a teaching point of view though - imagine a simple counting or sorting activity on a normal table using counters and other physical resources.Then imagine the same learning activity produced on a IWB using digital versions of the counters or shapes plus the added multimedia benefits.

Now take those two ideas and combine them.

Not one nor the other but the best of both. Physical resources placed on a flat digital display that reacts to their location and presence!! The potential is staggeringly huge!
I left at 6:00am and got home at 10:45pm so it was a very long day but one that was a privilege to be involved with.

Today we once again hosted headteachers taking part in the Strategic Leadership of ICT (SLICT) programme from the NCSL (National College for School Leadership). This will be about the 3rd year in a row we have hosted for the event. We had seven visitors with us this morning from different schools around the UK. We are always happy to welcome colleagues to our school, so that maybe they can learn from our experiences.

Much of today’s talk was centred on our development, over the last 3 years, of interactive whiteboards in each classroom and what strategic lessons we have learned from that process. But we did also begin to explore the “next big thing” - and we discussed how new technologies will be making an impact on what the future curriculum will look like.

I did give out this blog address, so if there are any of today’s visitors reading this I do hope that all went well with the rest of the day and the very best of luck with your future ICT plans.

It has been a busy day for ICT in my classroom today - ususally is on a Tuesday as we have our time over in the ICT suite. Anyway I will try and explain everything we did.

Google Earth - Where are we today?
Did this slightly differently today as I explained to the children I had found the location of some people who had commented on our class blog. So I started looking down on the earth from afar and very slowly zoomed into Sydney and Canada respectively. We then looked closely at Sydney and loaded a 3D model of the Opera House and the Harbour Bridge - we even zoomed onto the bridge and panned along it, on the model there are even tiny cars and bikes - I said to the kids it was a good way to start the day - driving along Sydney Harbour Bridge!
Mayomi
Used this great visual mindmapping tool/site today to explore what we had learned so far in our 2D Shape work. Really simple to use when combined with a IWB and wireless keyboard which I used today.

Unfortunately there is no way to embed the map into your own site which would be great so I am going to explore whether I can hack some code to embed the mindmap into a wikispace.

RSS / Newsfeeds for Headlines
Just mentioned this today as we have been looking at newspapers and a journalistic style in our work. I had seen something on a blog before about it, but I just explained what RSS is and how we can get newsfeeds really easily. I think that it is very important to explore how different literacy and news is today - not just broadsheets and tabloids anymore, but a more fluid style of news that is much more personalised.

I just used the “Latest Headlines” bookmark on my Firefox toolbar to show them, we then just guessed from the headline what the news story was about.

Also briefly looked at Headline History which is cracking site I hope to use agin this year.

Quikmaps and our class Wikispace
I was a really happy bunny this afternoon as I knew that I had set my children a challenge, and they rose to it so well! Basically my Year 6 children had made a Quikmap (see previous post about the activity), powered by Google Maps, and then embedded the map into our class wikispace. It looks great! Take a look over on the history pages on our Wikispace. Scroll down and wait for the maps to load - don’t forget to click on the placemarks to see the work the children have done and why it is under History.
It also helped me to understand some of the practical problems that occur when you have lots of concurrent authors of the same space. Look out for some details soon.

Today I asked some of my children to use a scanned example of a newspaper article in Flickr and add notes to it. Basically they were finding examples of language features that we have annotated in a more traditional way in their books. What I like about Flickr notes is the fact that there is still an unobstructed view even with annotations. I may continue this with text types throughout the year.

Click on the picture to see the notes.

I asked individuals to work on this using the SMARTBoard - then I cascaded this down to others by asking the child who has just completed an annotation / Flickr note to explain how to do it with another cild and so on.