ICT in my Classroom

As our summer term Google Docs project drew to a close I asked the children in my class to reflect on what we had done. I asked them to record the one thing they found the biggest challenge about working together with Google Docs and the aspect they enjoyed the most.

No I didn’t set up a Google form with a spreadsheet to pool our thoughts - I just asked them to write them on some paper speech bubbles. Some of their responses formed part of our Geography display.

Below I have transcribed them as they are, which provides a revealing picture about the project.

Biggest Challenge when working together in Google Docs:

• When everyone gets a laptop and everyone delets stuff.
• The hardest thing for me is when were in groups and we are all sharing the same document.
• Delite stuff what we need.
• My biggest challenge is problems happening on google docs like things what I cants solve for myself.
• Putting up with arguing with other people.
• The thing I find hardest is when two or more people are on the same document and are writing in the same space.
• When we are all not talking and people move stuff and people shout.
• I find it difficult when the whole group work on the same document.
• It is hard to work with other people.
• The biggest challenge is to stop arguing.
• The thing I find hard would be the working together.
• When thay move things around.
• When you are trying concentrate on your work.
• I think it has bin a tough challenge getting use to working together because you have to talk then work and then talk etc.
• Probably if somone eles deleats your work.
• It is a challing when other pepole are writing where you are,

Most enjoyable part:

• The most thing I enjoy is that we work as a group.
• What I injoy the most about Google Docs is being able to see what other people are doing.
• I’ve enjoyed it because I like doing research about india becasue there is a lot of things about india.
• I like working this way because we can chat on the computer.
• The best thing is that one person has a laptop.
• I like the fact that we can chat on google docs.
• I have enjoyed working in this way because it gives us a chance to use the laptops more and get to work in partners more.
• I’ve enjoyed it about google dogs like researching and doing a presentation.
• I enjoy working as a group.
• That we get to talk and wright on the same doc.
• I like the chat.
• We get more ideas down.
• I enjoy working on google docs and wth other people.

It is very important that these comments help to define what we do with Google Docs in the new academic year.

The children have clearly told me here that the biggest challenge is working as a group. Before we began using Google Docs the class struggled to participate collaboratively in group activities, I knew this. Working on a document at the same time as someone else is new classroom behaviour and in my opinion needs to be modelled. Just as we would model the correct way to use a hacksaw or modelling how to write in a particular style - we can facilitate the group dynamics by modelling collaborative authoring in Google Docs. But the tool is not a magic answer to communication and working in a group as you can see from the children’s comments. When you undertake a Google Docs project, if you are working on a shared doc between a group, communication and talk must be the most important focus - not the tool.

The chat has been a popular part of the work we have done, although it is only in the presentation tool that you can instant message. This did prove a very powerful learning activity and I would recommend a reflective backchannel that collates feedback to be part of future presentation projects. Comments about seeing what other people are doing and getting more ideas down are interesting as children perhaps become more accountable for their contributions in a group - reminding me of the way Voicethread allows you to see the efforts of others.

There have been many positives from this project and I have been really pleased how Google Docs has performed so reliably under classroom conditions (30 laptops 1 wireless access point) and I would strongly recommend the two following elements to focus on if you are undertaking a similar project with your classes.

1. Model good practices - much of what the children will experience with synchronous document editing is totally new. They may have never done anything like it before and it is a new way to work in the classroom. We found that the children had a better understanding both functionally and socially/collaboratively when we modelled good practice, and gave a commentary about what we were doing as we worked together in Google Docs.
2. Communication is key - beyond learning about the functionality of Google Docs (which they picked up very quickly) the children need to understand why communicating as a group is so essential. Spend time talking with the children about what to expect and how best to approach different situations. Troubleshoot groups going off track and work as a class to help solve and suggest solutions. I asked my children are you making your work C.L.E.A.R - Communication with your team, Listening to what is going on around you, Eye contact when we are talking, Ask about problems or issues and Review what is going on in the team. (Once again number 1 can apply a great deal here)

I wish you success with your own classroom Google Docs projects and hope that some of these insights help you to better use the tools to impact children’s learning. Please drop me a line to say what you are up to.

Other relevant posts:

• Google Apps in School - Week 1 , Week 2 , Week 3 , Week 4 , Weeks 5+6
• Creating an emotion graph using Google forms
• Marking work in Google Docs

Although I may have led you to think that everything in the image is stuck to the laptop, I have to disappoint you! However I really like this image of my classroom because of just that sort of possibility. I want a learning environment for my class that blends the best tools for what we are doing - a blended tools approach. Whether that be a laptop and access to an online application, a headphone mic set or a gluestick. This is a natural picture of my classroom, it is not what you would see everyday, but the children think of the technology as just another tool. Long may the risk of glue on the laptops continue!

What does this image say to you? What sort of challenges do we face as educators in creating an environment that blends the best technology tools for learning and what is considered more traditional?

18th July - I have decided to change the image to a Voicethread, after I posted the image I realised it would be a much more effective way for people to comment on the image - please take a look and add you comments in which ever form you wish.

The last few days have been pretty important for us at Priestsic Primary School. For the first time we have been able to offer our year 5 kids the opportunity to use their own laptop to work on. It is not a permanent 1:1 solution as yet, but it is an option we have. There are now 16 laptops in the cabinet in my room and this is the same for the other year 5 class across the corridor and for the two year 6 classes. Since we have begun this project both the year 6 teachers and ourselves have taken the opportunity to pool our year group laptop resources to increase the number of machines being used in a session. The children sat down to their geography projects, logged into their Google accounts and did not really notice. For me it was the first time we could organise it in this way.

In this blog post I want to begin to communicate some of my first thoughts about what a 21st Century classroom could look like for a UK primary teacher and my thoughts on creeping ever closer to a full compliment of laptops for every child in my class.

A while ago I decided that it is futile to try and apply some of the structures and practices that US and international schools have in light of their 1:1 personal computing setup. I spent time bookmarking online information about the topic. Most of it is fine in theory but fairly difficult to apply in my primary school. Much of what I read is to do with an older age range and far different environments than our own. The sites included “blueprints to 1:1 computing” and complete “guides” suggesting, just from the rhetoric of the titles, that one size (may) fit all. Although we may learn lessons from what other teachers, schools and districts have been doing it seems we will have to discover our own UK primary version of what a 1:1 classroom looks like.

Choice
Many years ago Dave, my headteacher, and I sat and talked after hosting our first NCSL SLICT training day about the vision we had for ICT. Although we were in the midst of embedding IWB use in teaching and learning, we talked about a personalised technology choice. We have long discussed the idea of creating an environment where technology is on tap if the children want it. Dave always says choosing technology has to be as easy as turning that tap on. We have had this same thought, this same concept as the keystone to our vision ever since. Now that we are beginning to see it slowly materialise a personalised technology choice remains at the heart of what we do. A simple example that has occurred this year would be when we set children a task to plot a journey from the UK to India (with a series of stopovers in different cities) The children chose to complete the task in different ways. Some chose to use technology, Google spreadsheets to calculate the mileages etc Google Earth to investigate the locations along their journey and to measure their path. Whereas some chose to use a paper atlas and a calculator - their was a choice and the outcomes reflected that choice.

But having a choice and knowing which choice is the most appropriate, technology or otherwise, is something different.

Ownership
Our children do no take the laptops home with them, but they feel that the equipment belongs to them and the class. They have taken on huge responsibility to look after and work with the laptops available - their approach to it has been amazing. You have to step back and put the onus on the children after all it is their learning space, you may have to manage and plan for the use of the laptops but the children need to own it. They must feel comfortable, responsible and at ease with it in their learning environment. Our children are 9 or 10 years old and they have full responsibility for setting up laptops and replacing them in the cabinet. We have modelled behaviours and they clearly understand how to ensure the laptops are safe. But owning the laptops has to go beyond “they are part of our classes resources.” The children have to begin to take steps to have ownership over the choices that they make and this is where the previous points crosses over.

Curriculum
The biggest challenge for us this year has been to look at our existing, changing curriculum and understand where the use of technology can best support learning outcomes. I have been fortunate (perhaps due to my own determination to understand what edtech learning tools are available) to be able to harness some powerful tools to support learning this year. But there is a awareness issue. How many teachers really know about Voicethread or Google Docs - I get masses of fliers through the post at school from software publishers, they seem to spend an inordinate amount of money on it. However we never receive mail about free tools. I have realised that with a greater permanent access to technology in the classroom that structured speaking and listening can be easily accomplished. For example a Voicethread as a science assessment on a new unit (we did last Thursday) or a Photostory outcome on a tour of the town (persuasive unit earlier in the year.

I always ask myself, “Is this the most appropriate resource to be using for this learning outcome?” There is so much changing about our curriculum at the moment (in our school) new literacy strategies and skills based work that a 1:1 curriculum may look very different in other schools. We need to know what other tools are available though, tried and tested, that is essential to a better choice after all.

Age range
The level of maturity my children have shown has been crucial to the smooth running of 1:1 operations in my class. They understand the practicalities of working with the laptops and take full responsibility for their use. During any given task they understand that if they have a problem that initially they may be able to solve it themselves and what to do if they cannot. I am not running around troubleshooting. When one of their peers has a technical or procedural problem in an application they help each other out. I have watched the children work so well as a team this year, pulling together, helping their classmates and offering support and advice even when none is requested. Would this be the same with 8, 7, 6 year olds? Most probably not. In my opinion, (and feel free if you have a permanent 1:1 laptop resource in the early years to shoot this down) the adults would spend much much more time then I have done managing the resource and troubleshooting. This view has been supported by early years teachers at work. That is not to say that their is not a laptop solution for younger children - perhaps something mobile, shared between classes.

Balance
There has to be a balance between how much technology use there is in the classroom and just getting out into the world. We spent a whole science session up at the school allotment measuring the broad bean plants the children had germinated, weeding and looking after the other vegetable beds. Before half term we spent a couple of sunny hours playing kwik cricket on the field. The children enjoy using technology but they also enjoy variety and a balance of different activities. Just because the governing body of the school has invested tens of thousands of pounds into the resoure does not mean it has to be “on” all of the time. Sometimes the tap has to turned off. I made every effort to help build an appropriate, judicious IWB use ethos in 2003 when we installed them across the school, helping teachers to appreciate they need to be aware of when it is time to switch it off. The same applies for a laptop resource and in many ways the children’s choice. When we get 30 laptops in our classes we need to remember what was successful without them and approach it as just another tool at our disposal.

I reflect on most of these topics throughout the course of the week just as part of what we are doing day to day. Even though I have been thinking and theorising what a 1:1 class might look like in my school (and in my head) for a long time, much of what you have read are raw thoughts which need further discussion. I hope to continue to reflect on what 1:1 means to us, but whether I can begin to pin down some key elements of what a 21st century (UK) primary classroom is like we shall have to wait and see.

This week we took another step towards a 1 to 1 model of personal computing in Years 5 and 6 at school. With a further 32 laptops (Toshiba Satellite A200) divided amongst the 4 classes we now have a total of 16 laptops per class. Since September we have regularly pooled the laptops between the two classes in Year 5, providing us with more machines. Now we have the option of one laptop per child if we choose to.

I spent the best part of a morning installing antivirus software, configuring the laptops to access the wireless network and proxy settings to get online. After telling the children that we had the new machines I said that we can get online but they do not have all of the software available on the others just yet. One of the children replied:

“But we can get onto Google Docs can’t we?”

Great to hear this from the children and it seems that Google Docs has quickly become another tool for us to use. Much of the novelty has worn off and it now has become just another part of what we do in the classroom. Much like the use of del.icio.us for the weblinks we use in class - when we use something the children enjoy the first question will always be: “Is this on del.icio.us?”

This week has been dominated by Optional SATs in English and Maths but we spent Thursday and Friday afternoon exploring a Geography project involving Google Docs.

We are working on a unit about India and the differences with our own country. Rick and I have planned for the children to define what they want to learn about. In small groups they are going to produce a short presentation about a topic of their choosing. In addition they will design an activity to do with that topic for the class to take part in. After some initial work the children in my class have chosen to work on these five different topics:

• The Himalayas
• Wildlife in India
• Fashion
• Indian Art
• The History of India

Much of this week I have been wishing for the integration of Google Notebook into the Education Apps suite of tools. Many teachers are calling for it and this project of ours requires just such a tool. There is a work round to register with Notebook by creating an account based on the Ed GMail account. But that is too hacky for me - I want the tool right there for the children to use and think it is about time they included it. In the remainder of this post I will refer to some of the processes that are better suited to Notebook than Docs.

The first job for the groups of children was to elect someone to create a single research document that would then be shared with the remaining group members and yours truly. Each child was assigned a colour to give a visual indication of the content they have added and sub headings for their topic were explored and added.

In the afternoon on Friday we had some time to begin the process of finding information about their topics, but before they began I wanted to highlight some of the ways that they could search for it. Intermingled within this was an opportunity to model the searching / selecting / referencing process in a document about Food in India. We will use this doc as a sandbox and exemplar of practice as we go through the project and a place to model some of the processes involved. As this research was to form part of the children’s holiday homework I composed an email with my searching suggestions to help remind them, they were:

• Explore India using Google Earth - switch on the different information layers available.
• Use some of the Google search tips I showed you. “” to search for exact phrases.
• Quintura for Kids - a different search engine http://kids.quintura.com
• Use an image search such as Google images or FlickrCC image search - you can add them to your research doc.
• Search using del.icio.us - use the + sign to search for different tags.
• Wikipedia - a huge reference library.
• Living Library

I modelled how to add a website URL reference for a piece of research in Docs - this would be automatically created when using Google Notebooks. When using Google Notebook you highlight and right click to “Note this” from any site - it grabs the site address and adds your selected content into the notebook. Each clipping is also organised separately and can be reordered. Not forgetting that you can create different sections (sub headings) within any notebook and add notes to these.

The idea then is that the group will work collaboratively on a single doc adding different items of research synchronously or asynchronously. But something doesn’t feel right. It is all very well using the sharing functionality of Docs but it just isn’t the right tool. When I do research on a new curriculum topic I gather my ideas in a Google Notebook. The children would still be able to share the Notebook between the group by much the same process as adding collaborators to a doc. That would be the right tool for this research work - come on Google let us start to use it with our classes!

Once the children began their own research I was pleased to see a variety of information searches taking place: exploring the Himalayas in Google Earth, looking at the terrain and geographic information available; del.icio.us searches looking for popular tagged sites and the use of Wikipedia and more formalised resources like Living Library.

This 25 minute session began to uncover some interesting questions and concepts about the use of Google Docs. A group of boys working on the history of India began very well but soon were having trouble with deletion and overtyping in the Google Doc (this would not have occurred in Notebooks because each clip is saved as a new note). Even though they were working on the same table, next to each other - they were just not talking. They became a bit transfixed with what they were doing on screen. It is important that when you ask the children to collaborate with each other on a document they remember understand what collaborate means. They needed to discuss and talk with each other about what was happening and who was doing what.

In order to refocus the class on this important aspect I stopped everyone and we talked about this example for a moment - I made a teaching point of it. It seemed that the group in question had actually gone backwards and lost work because they were deleting each others by accident - one of the boys told me he could get it back from the “Revision History” which he promptly did. I felt that the children were trying their best but were a little unsure about how to go about working synchronously on a document with 2 or 3 other children - there was a need to model this and show them what to do. After all it is a new skill, a completely unknown process they have not experienced before. Here are some reflections on approaching this:

• Emphasis must be placed on the communication between children when working in the same document.
• Model this process if possible - Rick and I have already planned to show the children what we mean, to be working on a doc together and to be saying, “I am just going to put an image in the second section.” They have to see and hear this in action and understand the importance of it.
• Highlight and praise the smooth running and good communication between a group - be absolutely clear why it is a good example to the whole class. Continue to flag up good practice as the project progresses.
• Just because they are sharing a document does not mean they are automatically collaborating - they have to work as a team and not alone.
• Expect to see changes - encourage the children to begin to appreciate that when other people are working with them the document they see will alter. Perhaps model this with the whole class on a single document.
• Listen and pause - as the children are working they may hear a member of their team say they are going to put a bunch of text and images in a section, encourage them to react by pausing for a moment and letting their own document update. In this way they will not be surprised by a document suddenly changing.
• What is my friend doing? Encourage the children to take an active interest in which section their peers may be working on. This could well be decided at the outset so it is clear who is working where in the document.

After all it is not about the different colours for their names. Fundamentally the children need to use their communication skills to facilitate the production of something together.

And of course I still yearn for Google Notebook in this instance. In my opinion we are settling for an oval when we really want a circle. Most of the issues I have explored above about working with docs in this way would not exist in Notebook. It references, organises and structures the research as part of the process - the children could then export the resulting notebook to Docs and refine what they have done. We will persist with Docs but it is frustrating to know of a very powerful tool that is more suited to the task, but is currently beyond our reach.

I just finished making this diagram in SMART Notebook - what do you think?
If you would like a copy of the Notebook you are very welcome to one, just let me know. The labels are not locked so it would be a nice little task to label the diagram. I just spent 10 mins finishing off and adding colour after school - honest!

Befuddlr allows you to create a quick interactive puzzles and is great to consolidate the learning for this sort of topic. Here is a link to a different diagram puzzle. And a link to a Befuddlr puzzle for my picture too.

Hope you find them useful

I am pleased to say that we are going to be contributing to this great little writing project from George Mayo. The @ManyVoices project is a collaborative, creative writing project using Twitter.

Each child writes part of the story sticking to the 140 character limit, once they are done another pupil picks up the authorial baton and continues the tale.

One of the best aspects of using Twitter for children to author creative writing is the character limit - those reluctant writers do not feel over-awed by a large blank page. The short paragraph they have to contribute is manageable and offers greater accessibility.

We are going to access the @manyvoices Twitter account and I will ask the children to work on a single laptop throughout the day next few days

The updates are copied onto a supportive wiki whereabouts you can read the whole story so far and follow along. George also explains:

The story concludes at the 140th entry. At that point, we collectively edit and revise our little Twitter story before publishing it as a small book through Lulu.com

I look forward to contributing over the next few days and I will post about how it goes. If you want to be involved I know that George is still looking for contributors - why not get in touch with him and get your kids to play their part.

It is always the same at this time of year. I am sure that you are feeling it to. The change of pace. When we break up from school I know that I will immediately slow down and change into a different slower gear. It is just great.

One of the most important ways this affects my professional work is that it allows me thinking time. During the working term it is so difficult to find quality time to relax and think about the work you are doing, the projects you have had success with, the new tools you have used, the ones you yet still want to explore or the blog posts you have read! So little time. I feel a mental decluttering as soon as I am a few days into the break and it allows me the freedom to peruse some connections or projects I have had to ignore.

Changing current pedagogies in your classroom to embrace a powerful new tool requires quality connections to be made and this, in my opinion, demands quality time. I am lucky enough to have non contact time to plan, prepare and assess at school - we call it PPA time in England. But there is no T for Thinking in there. I would call it TAPPT - deliberately in that order too. Thinking, Assessment, Planning, Preparation and Thinking time.

Recently I went for a walk with my son, I love to just amble along at his pace. It’s great, there is no hurry. He came across a tree and just wandered around it a couple of times. Exploring the possibilities it held - feeding his curiosity. He stopped and continued to walk - but then he went back to the solitary trunk and went round again. Time was no issue.

There it was, exactly what I enjoy about the holidays during the year, no time constraint - a freedom to wander off but then return to a thought if you want to. For me that is what I want from a teaching job - built in reflective time to explore ideas. Not as a bolt on or rooted in the time away from school, but intrinsically part of your working routine. A routine that understands and values how important that time is.

I have always remembered a phrase Bill Watterson used in a Calvin and Hobbes strip:

There’s never enough time to do all the nothing you want.

Do you find you slow down during the holidays? Does your school allow you quality time to develop ideas and make connections in your work?

During the holiday period do you find yourself thinking much more clearly about utilising technology in the classroom?

I just wanted to say a big thankyou to you the readers of this blog for helping me reach an  important milestone. Over 10,000 unique visitors to this blog since I added my stat counter about a year ago. I know that may seem a pittance compared to stats for other spaces you have churning away in your RSS reader, but for me it is a real achievement.

This blog has been the single most important professional development choice I have taken. My appreciation for this space has changed since I began writing in the late summer of 2006 (wow that was only last year!) I now consider it to be an integral part of my career and a central point for who I am as a reflective teacher.

It is a personal resource, a classroom history, a technical and pedagogical guide, a sounding board, a conversation, a growing network, a billboard signpost for who I am as a teacher and it still remains a wonderful, reflective space for me to explore my ideas and experiences of ICT in my classroom.

I now begin to understand the power of the personal learning network that has emerged from fellow professionals I have encountered, as a result of this space. I am still keen for this network to grow and hope you can continue supporting my reflections, through your comments and conversations.

One thing that still amazes me is that out of those 10,000 different people I have not met a single one. Skype video does not count. If you can’t see their legs you have not met them! So my challenge in the next year is to meet more of you face to face.

Big thanks to Noel Jenkins and John Johnston for starting me out on this road, those were the first blogs I ever read.

My favourite web based tool I am using in my classroom at the moment is Visuwords. It is a dictionary/thesaurus/etymology visualisation tool which uses Princeton University’s WordNet, an opensource database built by University students and language researchers. It works wonderfully with a SMARTBoard as you can move the nodes about and shift things around to help clarify a connection. There are many many applications for this in the classroom and here are just a few I have been pondering.

Define key vocabulary from learning objectives.
So you have shared with the children the learning objectives for the session and now you want to clarify any vocabulary they should/need to know. You could even have a link directly from that word to the site. For example you could explore the meaning of “significant” from the Y5 Literacy Framework objective:

• Read and compare stories by significant children’s authors.

Search for the word and ask your children to explore what they can see, can we find any synonyms that will help us define it. Roll the mouse over a connected node to see a pop up definition. Relate it back to your objective - this would work well in a plenary session too.

Explore new vocabulary that you find.
I love exploring new vocabulary with my children. They see my enthusiasm and it becomes infectious, we have a Wow words board where they can put up interesting words they find in their reading books and elsewhere, this changes all the time. This week we were doing some work on an extract from A Christmas Carol and as we read it we noted some words we wanted to find out about. Ruddy, intimation, mourner. I ran the searches in Visuwords as a plenary.

Explore word derivation.
Visuwords does a great job of showing the children how interconnected words are and one part to explore is the derivation of vocabulary. The link you are looking for is the dashed line (you will see from this explained in the key) which shows the roots of the word you are exploring. Not quite as good as a full blown etymological dictionary but you can see the connections.

Play a word journey game.
This is a favourite in my classroom at the moment and is similar to a word association game. The children are given a starter word and they take it on a journey, thinking of a connected word and recording each step. You ask for where they ended up - “So you started with GIANT and ended up with FACTORY.” This sits nicely with Visuwords as you can expand the visual network by double clicking on a node. Run the search for “Fairytale” and see if you can get to “Fake” - lots of possibilities to explain and discuss these connections.

Experience the links between words.
There is a clear difference between the various links that are displayed and the graphical key below the map area explains these connections. There are 19 different types of links that may be displayed and I certainly wouldn’t expect to use them all or to ask my children to understand them. But the key links I would be interested in are: “is a word for”, “is similar to”, “derivation” and “opposes”. Try running a search for “style” for a broad map straight off the bat.

Show the depth and complexity of meaning.
Sticking with the results for “style” - you can very easily display how some words in the English language have a broad range of meanings and possible uses. So in these results you could highlight to the children how many different shades of meaning there are for this simple word. Another good example of this is the word “say” - very simple on the outset but if you run the search you will see it is complex in it’s meaning and usage.

Explore different word types.
Visuwords uses 4 colours to display the 4 main word groups. Green - verbs, Blue - Nouns, Orange - adjectives and Red - adverbs. This proves to be a very effective visual aid to writing as children can quickly generate adjectives from a search. So if you punch in “happy” there is displayed a wondrous tangle of synonyms the children could use in there writing. Of course they can roll over these and see the meaning of the new words if they wish. The combination of data and the way it is presented makes this a very powerful tool to support writing.

Discover more information than you expect to.
Do a search for “banana” and now double click “edible fruit” - Wow, all of sudden you and the children are exploring topic related information. From the original node you have the definition, the plant group it belongs to, other banana plant types. Following the other links you have this great web of edible fruit of which our initial search obviously belongs to. I just learned of breadfruit and jackfruit and pitahaya! Cool! I just did a quick search for “puma” and followed the “wildcat” node and you get a similar result. This could prove to be an interesting research tool if used in the correct manner.

Just enjoy it!
Dictionaries are never this much fun! There is something strangely hypnotic about the way the word nodes splurge outwards and the network stretches and skews. As connections are made, new pathways and relevance is shown. Drag the background screen around to move around the word map. Don’t forget the scalable version that can fill the browser window or to use the mouse wheel to zoom in and out as you work. The latter point is good to focus the children’s attention on one specific part of the map. See if the children can find a word with the most nodes, the most links!

It has been great exploring some of these ideas in more depth as I have been writing this post and consider this as an excellent addition to my online classroom toolkit.

What successful experiences of this tool have you or your colleagues had? How have you used it in your classroom? 

A short while back I was buoyed by the use of Google Spreadsheets in our science lessons. The children enjoyed the fact that we were sharing data and it added an edge to their motivation. They questioned the data that popped up as the sheet updated, they enquired about it’s ownership and accuracy. However this week sharing a Google presentation did not run so well!

I assumed we would have a similar experience and the sharing feature would work just as well. Groups were created in each class they were assigned a planet (we are looking at the solar system) and after a short intro, asked to explore our del.icio.us links and create one slide (or more if needed) in a ready made presentation. 3 children were working on a wireless laptop. It just never really got off the ground and I found my self firefighting access, update, deletion and wireless problems. Admittedly the technology got in the way of the learning  and it proved a disappointing afternoon. You really do win some, lose some. There were of course some groups that worked without any issues. So what went wrong - I think that it is important to try and reflect on the successes and failures on this blog so that I learn from it and others do as well.

1. We put a lot of pressure on the wireless network in the session as 16 machines were active and Google docs regularly refreshes so the web connection was very busy.
2. Some kids worked on the class PC and they seemed to work a lot smoother.
3. The children accessed del.icio.us links and these included a NASA image gallery so that could well have chewed up the bandwidth a bit.
4. Google presentations deals with different data than the spreadsheets, whole slides need to be updated sometimes with images etc - not just a number in a spreadsheet.
5. The children had to start from scratch and make new slides for their planet - some mix ups went on here.
6. All of the children were using one Google domain login - not sure if this hindered.

On reflection the idea is still a good one. Children all contributing to one presentation that has a common theme. They all have a piece of the jigsaw. But I think that we just asked too much of the wireless network, it certainly was far more than we have ever done. I am uncertain if the same login made an issue, I may try out some individual account logins with a similar activity.

I think that the most important thing to learn from this is that sharing Google Presentations works smoother when on hard wired PCs because it deals with a larger data set than spreadsheets.

Taking risks is a good thing. If I had never planned such an activity I would not have learned about how differently the application performs in the classroom. Were I to do it again in the future I would feel better prepared. Lesson learned.