ICT in my Classroom

There are so many online resources available nowadays to support literacy and spelling, but which are the true gems in the bunch. Which do we use in the classroom? Which are favourites with my class? Which have the flexibility, depth and longevity to make it into my Top 5 Spelling resources?

1) Spelling City

This has proven to be a highly valuable resource. You are able to save spelling lists for the children to access beyond school. It comes into it’s own as each list is used in a variety of different games to help the children learn them. Each word that you add to the list is automagically linked to a snippet of audio pronouncing the word and there is even audio of the word used in a sentence.

Lists can be downloaded, printed and there is even a handwriting sheet that you can print off for your spelling list. There has been a big take up by KS2 teachers in my school and Spelling City is a firm favourite of my class. My only grumble is that some words are difficult to understand in the audio as the pronounciation is American.

2) TutPup

No problem in TutPup with the English pronunciation of the words as the lady who has done the audio, I am told, did the announcements for the London Underground system! TutPup provides a social competitive edge to the children’s practice which they really enjoy.

The main bulk of games are maths based but the audio quiz for spelling is excellent too. The children listen to a word and type in the spelling, they are of course paired with another user from somewhere in the world giving it that competitive fun. Why not finish your session with a look at Google Earth and map where the competitors were from.

I am pleased to note that since I began using TutPup last year they have added a link to the word lists used for the different levels so you can point the kids at the right one.

3) Look Say Cover Write Check

There are a whole bunch of these resources but the best in my opinion is the Crickweb version.

You can add your own 10 words, practice using the look, say, cover, write and check method and there is even facility to print paper based resource cards and review and assess progress. Simple and very effective.

4) Spin and Spell

A lovely interactive site for the simple practice of common key words. Children can choose from a range of different word topics such as “In and around the home” and “Animal Kingdom”. The children then are presented with a big wheel in the centre of the screen with all of the letters on it. They choose a little image from the many that populate the rest of the screen and they hear audio of that word and then have to spell it using the dial.

You can select to have the words chosen randomly and they can reveal and hear the word again as they are working. Again the American pronunciation can cause some confusion but otherwise it is worthy of a spot in my top 5 spelling resources.

5) GeoGreeting

A bit of fun for number five – this resource will help children to see their spellings in a different way. 

GeoGreeting finds satellite images of buildings and other objects from around the world that resemble the letters in your words. Great to get the kids using them to see the words in an alternative visual way.

These are my top 5, but I know that there are a huge variety of online games and interactive resources that can be used. What do you think of my list? What would make it into your top 5 online spelling resources? I hope you have found something useful here to use with your class.

Last Wednesday evening I attended my first TeachMeet event held in the Forth Room at the SECC. Typically I was first out of the hat to do a seven minute talk and kick the evening off – I was very nervous and my careful plans seemed to evaporate as I walked up to the stage. This post is what I would have liked to have said – but I think people got the general idea. It is the story of how a simple email led to a series of events that saw a prototype multi-touch interactive device used in our school.

In 2006 I was exploring the possibility of a second interactive device in our reception classes. I wanted to look at the alternatives to IWBs and came across a whole heap of plasma displays etc. I also happened to stumble upon a few articles from Philips about a research product called the Entertaible. The device was shown as having electronic board gaming at it’s heart but i saw much more than that – I saw it in a classroom with children working together on it.

“ The intuitive nature of Entertaible means multiple users can interact with digital data and programs in a simple yet physical, ‘hands-on’ manner. ” Gerard Hollemans, Philips Research

The original Philips press release seems to have been removed from their site but at the foot of it was an email address for the team in charge. I sent them a message basically asking if they had considered the use of the device in the classroom and that I had some ideas for it. Now when you throw a little stone like that at a big organisation like Philips you do not expect it to make a dent or even a mark. But sure enough they replied and we arranged to have, what turned out to be, a series of telephone conversations about the prospects of the device in education. I was staggered really and amazed at how open they were to my ideas.

After being in touch for a short while, Gerard and Maurice from the Philips team invited me to Eindhoven to see the interactive device in action. I asked my headteacher who was hugely supportive of the idea and incredibly in the summer of 2006 I visited the research labs of Philips on their High Tech Campus in Eindhoven. In the meeting I was shown the table and the amazing functionality it had. The Entertaible is a project from the Philips Incubator, the name given to their research department – where new ideas are brought into this world.

After exploring the device first hand I talked with the team about the use of the IWB in our school and the potential that a multi-touch device could have in the classroom. It was wonderful to see the birth place to these sorts of technologies and great credit must go to my headteacher who didn’t even flinch when I asked about the trip and even covered the costs of travel so I could go. It could so easily have been the end of the story – a few emails and phone calls and that’s all – but through his vision it was only the start.

The visit only heightened my interest and curiosity in terms of what the device could do in a classroom. We stayed in touch for a few months afterwards but it wasn’t until November/December 2006 that I got to use the device again in London at a workshop for the Philips team as they explored various markets. I attended the education day and represented the primary sector – it was great to talk about some of my ideas for the table whilst sat at it and meet with further members of the Philips research team.

My headteacher had always said that if you do not speculate sometimes nothing will happen – he was so correct as in late 2006 we were asked if we would like to host the first worldwide school trial of the Philips Entertaible. If you do not knock on the door nobody will ever open it.

Gerard from Philips then asked me to help develop a series of applications that could be produced in the short time he had. I spent a day with a colleague from school who is an AST Reception teacher, in putting the planning together for a range of applications. It was fantastic to be in at the deep end, rethinking traditional activities in light of the collaborative and multi-touch capacity of the device. We had decided that the table would be best trialled in the early years and plans were set out to have it in one of our reception classes for a week.

In February 2007 the only table in the world of its sort arrived at school along with members of the Philips team – the applications were finally in the hands of the most important people, the children. Throughout the course of the week children in the reception class used the device as part of their normal day. In my opinion the table seemed well suited to the classroom environment and the children natural went to it with curiosity and intrigue. The reception teacher and her class had a great week exploring the new technology and worked on counting, position and letter shape activities.

The letter shape activity allowed 4 children to work on the screen at the same time, each on their own quarter. They would touch the screen to activate it and a large letter would be shown with a glowing circle indicating where to begin tracing its shape. When it detects an object or fingertip on that point the glowing circle begins tracing the shape of the letter. If the children are able to accurately trace and follow the guide it will complete the letter and a round of applause will sound from the speakers. However if they stray from the path shown then the whole letter will flash and the glowing circle will return to begin again. You can see it in action in these two videos.

If you are having trouble seeing the videos from Flickr you can see the full set of images and film here.

Children from every class in the school came and used the table throughout the week. The table had variable height so we raised it for the older children and they stood around it when they were working together. The week’s trial was a wonderful experience for all the children and teachers involved.

It was more than a year ago that we had the device in school and about two years from when I first discovered the device online and yet truly open multi-touch technology is yet to be seen in classrooms on any major scale. I know it will not be long and from this experience I realise how much time it takes to develop such a product. Durham University have also been working on the interactive desk idea and since my first contact with Philips Microsoft have developed the Surface, so momentum is growing.

I feel privileged that we had the opportunity to play our part, to represent education in the way that we did, putting new technology in the hands of our learners and hopefully help foster a new age of classroom based interactive devices.

All it took was one email, one knock on the door – I hope it encourages you to do the same.

This post follows on from the first in my series of reflections about using the PC adventure game Myst in the classroom. In this post I will look back on how our Year 5 children worked with the Year 2 classes in supporting their own Myst literacy unit. I also welcome a school colleague Gemma Coleman, one of the Year 2 classteachers involved in the project, who has kindly taken some time to reflect on her own experiences of using the game – you can see Gemma’s contribution a bit further on in this post.

Scotland
As I mentioned previously the inspiration for working with Myst has come from Tim Rylands, however much of the finer details of how we might use the game has come from the exploratory work documented by Learning and Teaching Scotland. In their accounts of the game they give plenty of details about the use of the game in the classroom with much needed reflection. They also present the idea of using the game with pairs of younger and older children together. The older children guiding the early years pupils in their writing and exploring the game together. It was from this exposition that I began planning an element of collaboration in our own project. Through conversation with the Key Stage 1 literacy coordinator we decided to explore the ideas further together – I would strongly suggest looking at what LTS has done and consider teaming up with a younger age class if you can.

4 week 2 week
In order for the children in my year group to feel comfortable acting as an expert our Myst unit ran for 2 full weeks before we began working with the year 2s. This is very important as it gave the children time to explore the game themselves and experience understanding the plot and layout of the different levels. Although we spent 4 weeks working with Myst we only had 3 sessions with the younger children. They conducted their own literacy unit with just a single copy of the game and the visits I have mentioned from us. Our own unit could have continued for much longer and initially was planned for a shorter period but I adapted it as it progressed.

Ambassadors
I had this image in my head of the children in Harry Potteresque cloaks walking solemnly, probably by torchlight, with the laptops in their outstretched arms (carrying them correctly of course) to the classes of Year 2 and arriving with great mystery and intrigue. I know that sounds strange but that’s the way my mind works, seems like the mystique surrounding the game got to me! We didn’t need the cloaks nor the torchlight in the end. But we did travel with the game to the other classes and it worked out far better then we could have imagined.

I split my class into two groups and took 15 or so down to the Year 2 class whilst the remainder got setup with Angie our TA. The children were responsible for getting their set of equipment ready, for a Myst Ambassador needs: a copy of the game, laptop, headphones, mouse and a map of J’Nanin (one of the first Ages or levels the children can explore). Once I arrived in Year 2 and the Year 5s had paired off with the Year 2s, I took the remainder of the younger children back to my own class and their adventure began.

Mantle of the expert
In order for the younger children to make the most of the sessions they needed the older pupils guiding and helping them in the correct manner. It was lovely to see how some of the children in my class reacted to working with the 7/8 year olds. The children were in a different role, perhaps out of their comfort zone a little, and they responded really well. They took on the mantle of being the one with the most knowledge and helped and guided the Year 2s in their use. I spent some time helping my classes understand what the role will entail and how best to approach it, the important sense of taking a back seat to the action and guiding their partners to discoveries of their own.

Speaking and communication
In hindsight I think I will place a greater emphasis on the language, speaking and communication that occurs between the pairs of children as opposed to the primary focus on written outcomes. In much of the work the Year 5s did in support of the Year 2s was towards a written outcome, such as helping them to record vocabulary for the different scenes. But there is such rich evidence of speaking and listening in the encounters between the pairs. I would strongly suggest keeping this in mind if you embark on something similar. I would certainly like to just listen and record some of their responses and moments of supportive guidance or curiosity that occur.That is certainly one big change for next time – it is not all about the writing!

Anyway enough from me as I would like to introduce Gemma Coleman who is currently a Year 2 classteacher at our school and one of the teachers I worked with in this unit. Gemma has kindly agreed to share her own thoughts on using the game in the classroom.

When my Year 2 colleague and I were first told about the possibility of using the games-based-learning approach in the classroom, I must admit our first thoughts were  “its nearly the end of the academic year, we have just gone through SATs, it sounds like a lot of hard work!”

However, the more Tom told us about the game – Myst – the more our ideas began to develop and our interest turned to intrigue.

After an initial “ideas” meeting with Tom, myself and Cathy (our other Year 2 teacher) we decided that the game would be a great way of stirring the children’s imaginations in Literacy – particularly as this year group is very boy heavy, and we are always looking for ways to grab their interest and encourage them to focus on the task in hand.

Cathy and I took the opportunity to observe Tom teaching his own Year 5 class, using the Myst game through literacy, and it really helped to see the game “in action”.  The children were brainstorming adjectives to describe a scene in the game and it seemed to really fire their imaginations. The breadth of language they used was fantastic and it was obvious to see that every child was on task and focussed on what they had been asked to do – in fact the Year 5′s were so engrossed in the game, they hardly even noticed we were there!

In Year 2 we had already planned on teaching a narrative unit, and an instructions unit in our last term of Literacy. We decided that we would try and use Myst to incorporate both of these units and discussed some initial ideas – however, as this was a completely new approach to literacy, our plans were quite organic, evolving throughout the unit as new inspirations and ideas were generated along the way.

We decided that we would roll out the unit over a 2-week period, allowing for longer if needed. With our ideas flowing, we were ready to bring Myst to Year 2!

We decided to use “Awe and Wonder” as an introduction to Myst and simply provided the children with a wooden chest containing various artefacts. We were careful not to give the children too many details initially as we wanted them to really use their imaginations and generate their own ideas as to what we could possibly be doing/looking at. The children explored the artefacts, which included a pink crystal, a small padlocked box, a map of a place called J’nanin, a letter, a book and a globe stand. These were passed around for the children to feel and look at and they were given a few minutes to discuss with their peers what these items could be for.   We did initially intend to introduce the game at the end of this lesson, but the children generated so many ideas that we decided to list some of these on the Interactive Whiteboard and leave it there, ready to lead into the next day’s lesson.

Over the next few lessons the game was introduced – we showed the children the video clip at the beginning of the game – which they were completely mesmerised by – and this was used as a basis for some descriptive writing. We wrote adjectives to describe the setting of the game and discussed/wrote about the characters we had met so far, and what part they might play in this adventure story – we even used some drama, acting out scenes from the game.

As Tom mentioned in his own blog entry, his class of Year 5′s came to Year 2 as ambassadors for the game and each Year 5 paired up with a Year 2 child. They worked together brilliantly, with the Year 5′s showing the Year 2′s how to navigate through the game, giving advice, support and using excellent language – while promoting independence by the Year 2.

Later in the module, the Year 5 children worked with the Year 2′s again to help them solve a “barrel puzzle”. This part of the game was used in line with our work on “Instructions”. The Year 2 children had a written outcome of writing instructions on how to solve the barrel puzzle, using clear direct instructional language. Again, this collaboration between Years 5 and 2 worked brilliantly, with some excellent instructions being produced.

Our grand finale for the Myst module was to inspire the children to write a suitable and fitting “ending” to the Myst story. After nearly 2 weeks of exploring and playing the game the children had really gotten into the story and had a really good knowledge of the settings and characters involved.

As it was nearly the end of the Summer Term we tried to make the written activity as interesting as possible – as i’m sure any teacher will know, children’s interest in academic activities can start to wane at this time of year! – therefore, instead of simply providing a written story in their extended writing books, we provided the children with “zig-zag” booklets, which they wrote in a comic-book style, with colour illustrations and speech bubbles. The children loved these, and took great pride in writing and drawing exciting endings to their Myst adventures.

Since using the Myst game as a module for literacy, my Year 2 colleague and I have been asked many times whether we would recommend games-based-learning, and whether we would do it again.  Our answer to this would be a definite YES!  It has undoubtedly been a learning curve, and there are probably a couple of things that we would do slightly differently – as there always is with a new resource or approach to learning – but in general this form of exploration of a mythical world proved to be an excellent way of really firing children’s imaginations, and in my opinion, the interactive nature of this approach stirred their interests to a much greater degree than a simple text book might have done. The quality of some of the children’s written literacy work might not have been any higher than the work they usually produce, however, some of them did produce some great writing and all of the children’s imaginations appeared to be much more stretched, resulting in them generating some fantastic ideas, and their enthusiasm at such a late time in the year really was electrifying.

All in all, a very successful module – and we look forward to using Myst (or similar games-based-learning) in the near future!

It is great to hear Gemma’s perspective on the use of the game with her children and her further reflections. I am sure you will join me in thanking her for taking the time to share it all with us.

In my next “Emerging from the Myst” post I will be getting into the details of how we used the game in the lessons, how this effected planning and the balancing act it all became.

I am just about coming up for air from this year, the summer holidays are upon me now and I will finally have time to reflect upon some of the classroom activities that have gone on in this final term. This post is about using the adventure game Myst in a literacy unit with my Year 5s. It has been one of the most memorable projects we have worked on this year and I am so thankful we had the opportunity to explore this games based learning approach. I hope to reflect here and in future posts what it is like to handle this type of exploration, discovery, learning and writing in my classroom.

Tim Rylands

The unit is completely inspired by the work of Tim Rylands and more recently by the work of Derek Robertson and his colleagues in LTS’s Consolarium. I was really interested in how the Scottish school in the pilot project had teamed up their older children with a younger age group. At the beginning of this term I had some quality time to work with our Key Stage 1 Literacy coordinator and show her the game and lay down my ideas. This was an important step as it forced me to articulate and crystallise my own thoughts on what the game could do and also perhaps get some buy-in from another colleague. Cathy immediately saw the huge potential to motivate the boys in her own class and so ideas began to turn into plans.

An ideal environment?

For over a year now I have been eyeing the possibility of this literacy unit with my children and with the increasing number of laptops in my room it finally seemed possible. Of course having a 1:1 resource is no prerequisite for this unit to take place as Tim Ryland’s video clips show a single user (the teacher) and the class watching on – but I imagined that many children would want to get their hands on the game themselves and I was also curious to explore what was possible with individual use. 30 laptops 30 games.

That is what we went for and considering the games cost us just over £4 each it was not particularly expensive to achieve. For me this was the ideal environment because I wanted the children to be the explorers – but much (as proved by many before me) can be achieved with just one copy of the game. Individual games did give the children a free rein, they owned the pace by which they explored and to some degree by which they wrote. Classroom organisation was a little more complex but importantly the children defined the game pace.

Hybrid text

Many people have approached the use of the game to help inspire descriptive writing and narrative that draws upon the rich environment that a player can explore. Many different text types can be explored and so I decided to work on a hybrid text that could effortlessly draw in some of these into one. When exploring the game myself I found it useful to read a walkthrough guide that would in turn help me guide the children if needed. A game guide or walkthrough has the potential to be stylistically descriptive as well as having functional parts. In addition the games’ puzzles could be explained using instructional language. I decided on the game guide as the written piece because of these extended possibilities.

Games based learning at school

This Myst unit forms part of a wider school strategy to incorporate the best of games based learning in the classroom. It has proven to be very cost effective as mentioned above and the return has been amazing – the feedback from the chidren has been extremely positive. At our school we have role play corners throughout the early years and up to the Year 3 classes with a big emphasis on this sort of play. The children enjoy games and we have seen them interact using their Nintendo DS consoles for a long time now – the language of gaming is something they are very familiar with. Harnessing the enthusiasm for it is the key. During this unit directing their enthusiasm to perhaps more traditional outcomes (writing) has sometimes felt awkward but nonetheless important. We will be beginning a Nintendo DS project in Year 4 next year as once again we are inspired by those working in Scotland. Beyond these new projects something that has proven very successful is the use of games to promote the development of mental maths skills. This has been a school target and in Year 5 we have been highlighting a variety of different games and online activities that can help the children via our school del.icio.us bookmarking account.

Making a start

Although Myst is a game I wanted to retain the sense of narrative and not just say from the outset that we will be using a computer game. I knew that Myst would capture their attention, but I wanted to draw them in without even starting the game – in my own way. A while ago I bought my wife a wooden chest and filled it with her Christmas gifts, the chest was going to be a key prop in the tense opening of this literacy unit.

The Myst game pivots upon the special powers that books have in the story, so I placed a large anonymous book inside – a recipe book from home but I concealed the spine. With much intrigue and hushing of my voice I told the children that I had just taken delivery of this chest. No “This is what we are doing today in literacy…” or lesson objectives, just straight into talk about the box. Without opening it we talked about what it could be, what it could contain, why it could be special. I soon realised that within a few minutes the children were in that wonderful place between disbelief and intrigue. They not only asked questions about the box and the contents but how it could have arrived, who might have brought it – the anonymity of it all troubled and intrigued them.

On opening the box I told the children that I had received 2 scrolls throughout the week that told me of the arrival of something for the class (the box) and instructions not to open whatever was inside. I explained that I had been informed that the book has great power and carefully took it out of the chest, showing the children. We then talked about what this power could be, what properties it could have and how it may be magical (In the game the books are called Ages, a written creation that becomes a physical place which you can link into) The third scroll was inside the chest. I had written a code for the children to break, using Puzzlemaker - a message that would add another layer of mystery to the tale so far.

The children spent the next 20 minutes or so cracking the number/letter code and we shared our discoveries as a class as it progressed. Of course the code reveals more questions then answers and refers to the beginning of some sort of journey. You will have to break the code to read it in full!

We sat together and discussed the message that had been revealed from the code and questioned what meaning we could attriubute to it, what we knew already and what was yet to be revealed. Without saying much more, other than explaining that I was following instructions, I fired up the game and we watched the opening sequence of the game and the title film. The timing is crucial here, as I wanted to finish the lesson with this tiny glimpse of what was to come – the game begins overlooking a canyon in a place called Tomahnha, I moved the mouse and showed that we were in control and the journey had started, I stopped and said that it was time to finish. There were cries of disappointment and a great buzz as they left for assembly – our Myst adventure had begun!

In my next post about Myst I will explore how our Year 5 children became Myst Ambassadors and took the game to the Year 2s, and Gemma Coleman one of the Year 2 teachers will be explaining how it fitted in with them and their own approach to the unit.

What is the best way to give feedback on a piece of work produced in Google Docs? What formatting tools are most appropriate to use when leaving comments? How do you organise 30 to 60 pieces of work handed in to you? How do children hand in work? What new possibilities does this process uncover?

These are some of the questions which will be driving my thinking in this post about assessing and giving written feedback on work that children have produced in Google Docs. It was at the beginning of May that we began using Google Apps, and in particular the Docs tools, with the Year 5 children. I am beginning to take some things for granted, it has become a part of what we do and another choice for them to use. Google Docs has become just another addition to their toolkit.

I am currently marking two classes worth of narrative writing and geography projects too, and these are my reflections on what it is like to mark work in Google Docs.

3 tools to add feedback to a piece of work.

First of all you need to make it explicit with the class what they must expect to see in their work in terms of marking and feedback. Just as I have encouraged the children to communicate what to expect from each other when collaborating on a document, I have made it clear to my class the types of marking I will be adding. I have shown examples and talked through what they mean from my point of view. I think that it is important to have a few methods that are simple and have a clarity in terms of their feedback function – here are my three.

1 – How do I highlight any spelling or grammatical errors?

I use the highlight tool and a light shade of red to pick out any mistakes that the children may need to revisit and change. The same could be done with an underline tool but I wanted a clear visual cue to problem spots. A method that I explored on Friday during a “live marking” (see below) session, is to change the highlight to a green when I see that the correction is made.

The children may revisit the piece of work and see the highlighted word, they correct the spelling and they also could change the highlight to a green – signalling to me that they have seen and acted upon the feedback. In this way the original position of the mistake is still clear – although this is, in some way, redundant with the document’s revision history.

2 – How do I add comments within a piece of work?

For those comments that you might add in the margin of a handwritten piece I use the Docs comment feature. Place the cursor after the sentence or word you want to comment on and hit CONTROL+M, this is the quickest method for me – you can also use INSERT>COMMENT from the menu bar. You will see a small coloured box appear where you placed the cursor and you can add a short comment about the work. Each comment is tagged by default with your full name, time and date. This can be a useful feature and I would leave it in at least once to show the children the full information, but if the children already understand that the comment boxes will be from you, then there is no need for this info and I often delete it out.

Another reason to delete the name and date information is that if you were to add some suggestions for alternative vocabulary in a comment, the children can right click the comments and insert them directly into the text – blending their work with your feedback and suggestions. But all of the comment text is inserted including name and date – best just to delete user info  out.

It would be a useful addition to the Docs settings to be able to switch between different info in the comment box as default – for example just the date would be useful to me – or none at all.

It is worth noting that wherever you place the comments they will inherit the formatting of the surrounding text – so if you add a comment immediately after a highlighted error the comment is highlighted too. This also applies for headings and other text formatting.

3 – How and where do I write overall comments for a piece of work?

For this type of feedback I use the document header function, that way I know it is distinct from the rest of the work (dotted border) and is clearly signalled to the user when they open it – always on top.

For the first assignments I have added in the same reminder (see image) about the type of marking they will see in their work. If I need to provide a series of comments over time it is worth just dating them to begin with.

Handing work out, handing work in

One of the earliest procedures that I explored was to be able to quickly distribute a single document and the idea of children handing work in to me. Sharing is the most important part of all of this and I would say it is the key feature of Docs. Once I have created a document for the children to use as a starting point or a text for them to work on, I share it with all of my class. The way to create groups of users to share docs etc within Ed Apps is to do it in GMail.

1) Login as usual to your domain account you use and got to your GMail.
2) Open up your CONTACTS.
3) You should see a list of contacts you have, most likely to be all users on domain. Click on the ALL CONTACTS link to see everyone.
4) Go through your list and select the users you want in your group.
5) Click on the GROUPS button and ADD TO… NEW GROUP.

Now that you have created a group it will appear when you share any of your Docs if you click Contacts. When the children hand work in to you they have to simply share the document with you – they will appear in your docs home page and you will see their username next to the doc title. Naming the document with the children’s initials is important if their username does not already contain that information. For us I can see who owns different documents from their usernames, for other schools the naming of docs may be more of an issue.

A writing crumbtrail

A key feature that sets it apart from handwritten work is the document crumbtrail, or revision history. As a teacher I can see every little change and alteration that has gone on from the beginning of the document. You can access the revision history in two ways, from the File menu or from the Tools menu. You have the functionality of comparing older and newer versions.

I find this especially useful with written pieces that have been completed over a series of session or days as I can see, from the dated entries, what has been added and how much has been done. A good method to keep on top of how much work has been completed. The children also have found this useful, giving them the option to revert easily to older versions that they prefer. This tool offers me a window into the document’s past – I can retrace the crumbs and focus on the process as well and the product.

A pile of marking!

Google Docs marking means I do not need to be carrying around piles of work books – however I came across a simple, yet important, problem when I was working this week. If I have a pile of books or papers to give feedback on I activate the intricate system of piles, which I name “marked” and “unmarked” But when you are looking at a list of Docs that the children have shared with you there is no immediate way to label them or sort in the same way.

Here are a couple of my solutions: organise all of the Docs into a single folder that is named after the work that you are doing – this folder could be nested inside a subject folder too. In the same folder as all of the children’s work create two folders named MARKED (green) and UNMARKED (red). Now MOVE all of the Docs to the UNMARKED folder – get some marking done and move them when it is complete over to the MARKED folder.

I like this method but sometimes it can behave strangely because along with moving folders you can also add documents to multiple folders – it can get confusing if you have moved and also added, the document will show multiple labels.

A second method, which is much simpler, would be to use the STAR feature. Click on the star to the left of the document title. You will then be able to sort all of your documents from the STARRED view in the left bar.

I would use the star to show unmarked work, this way I would be able to see work that still needs feedback adding across lots of different projects from the STARRED view. Your STARRED view then becomes a simple marking to do list.

Live feedback

Perhaps the most exciting development this week is the idea of live marking. A time when both you and the student/s are viewing and working on the document. As much as I am looking for learning that is transformative I am also aware that this type of assessment activity is unprecedented and in its own way is transforming the way you provide feedback. It is not a new idea to sit with a child and go through what they have done – what is different is the fact that we can both work on the document at the same time – I can highlight and mark up the text and the student can make the changes that I suggest as we work. This works very well in practice as proved this week in my class, a pair of children were making the changes I had suggested to their first paragraph as I was looking at the second and so on.

One of the hardest challenges I face with a constricted timetable and expanding curriculum is finding time for the children to review marking I have given and responding to it in turn. It is a crucial step towards a more dialogue centred marking approach but is very difficult in practice with the fast pace of what we do and what is expected of us. I think that the live marking concept brings the marking you, as a teacher, provide and the response the children give together. You mark they respond – it works. The main issue is time and how long it takes to do. You have to both be working on the document, I got through about 4 of these live marking sessions in about 35 minutes and that’s my first shot at it. With 30 to get through it may be something that you have to build time in for but which is very powerful because of the immediate and fast paced response you get. It may belong to a longer unit of work which allows you time over a series of sessions/days to cover all of your students. A live marking model would also work very well for peer assessment purposes and would sidestep the issue of time.

Crucially this method of marking negates any dead time in between your feedback being given and the student making the improvements – that can only be to the benefit of the student and the standard of work they produce.

Ongoing reporting to parents

Another idea I have thought about this week involves the use of Google Docs in the process of reporting to parents. The parents at our school currently receive a paper report at the end of the year and I have just finished writing all 30 of them for my class. I have always considered the concept of contributing to the report as the year progresses – writing about the unit of work we have just finished at that moment, rather than waiting 5 months for report writing deadlines to come around. What if we shared a report document with the child’s parents at the beginning of the year and explained that the children’s reports will build throughout the year but they have complete access to them whenever they want. As the year wears on you add comments and remarks about the child which are immediately shared with the parent. Perhaps you communicate with the parents when these planned series of updates will take place or you simply inform them when changes do take place.

According to this report 82% of GB parents with children 17 or under said that an online reporting service would be helpful. The UK Minister of State for Schools and Learners Jim Knight has announced plans to have ‘real-time’ electronic school reporting systems up and running in all secondary schools by 2010, and in all primary schools by 2012. That is 4 years away for us! It is not a dedicated report writing tool, true, but it is a simple and easy way to share a document. With careful planning, the support of next years parents and my school we could have this running from next September.

Image1: ‘crumbs‘  http://www.flickr.com/photos/70685828@N00/1705580506
Image2: ‘11/15/07‘ http://www.flickr.com/photos/19627189@N06/2037138203

It has been a quieter few weeks in terms of our use of Google Docs, by our standards anyway – so I have combined some of my reflections over the last fortnight. Although less prominent in the daily work of our literacy unit the use of Google Docs has continued and has become more and more intrinsic to the thoughts of the year group.

Modelling examples of collaboration with Google docs.

Last time round I spoke of identifying the fact that the children were not very productive when taking their first steps into the collaborative use of docs. Rick and I spent some time this week modelling some of the behaviours we want the children to be aware of when working in a team. With all of the children in my room I worked on the computer connected to the SMARTBoard and Rick on one of our laptops. We had created a document that mirrored the children’s project, shared between us we gave a running commentary of our thoughts and what we were doing in terms of teamwork.

Initially we spent some minutes just talking to each other about what had been completed so far and what we were both planning to do. Key teaching point: begin the collaborative session with a mini-meet that provides a plan for what is to follow. As we began working I ensured the children were aware that I told Rick, and he did likewise, where I was working in the document. Key teaching point: to have document awareness, a sense of where your peers are working. During the modelled session I was constantly talking through my decision processes for the research side of things and also being explicit about my communication with Rick. Prior to adding an image or some text I would mention to him what was going to happen. Key teaching point: communicate what changes you are making so that your team are aware of what is occurring, no surprises.

I would recommend this modelling phase to anyone using Google Docs in a collaborative sense with younger children, to help illustrate what is expected.

Development of this skill within the children’s groups.

The teamwork side of things is our biggest challenge and we talk about it everytime we continue our project work. It feels a little new and messy at the moment, but I have confidence that these sorts of skills can and should be refined. I know that they will work better together in future projects and that they are much more aware of the issues.

Over the course of the project and in subsequent sessions (to our modelling lesson) they have shown they can apply the examples we set. A group in my class today began by logging into documents and then they tilted their laptop lids down and talked about what was to follow.

Children turning independently to GDocs

Their has been strong evidence this week of a shift in the children’s thinking in terms of GDocs as tool. During a Design and Technology session about musical instruments one of the children independently used Google Docs to make some notes about the research that they were doing. Totally unprovoked. A small example that shows that we have positioned the application as a personal tool for them and they are beginning to use it as one of their own personal tech choices.

Sharing beyond the domain

With tighter security comes less opportunity to share beyond the domain. In the administrator settings I have the option to NOT allow the sharing of documents beyond the domain. It is important to consider that this tighter grip does not allow collaboration of documents, synchronous or otherwise, with children from other schools, towns, cities, countries.

I am currently collaborating on some weather data for June with the British School in Muscat, Oman. However this has to be done through my own personal Google account. It is key to be able to balance security with collaboration beyond the walls of the classroom. It will be interesting to see what happens when we have an international opportunity to do something like this perhaps in the future.

Spell checking in Firefox 3

Just a little aside really about the use of Firefox version 3 which checks my spelling as I am writing in a form. It also seems to, although somewhat erratically, check my work as I am typing in Google Docs. There is a spell check function that works reasonably well, but I like the idea that using FF3 it will underline incorrect words in red as you type (you currently have to switch the spell check on in GDocs) It could be a useful feature.

Providing a choice – 56 out of 60 children

Back in December I surveyed the children in Year 5 and 6 who had been using the laptop resource in their classrooms for approximately 3 months. One of the questions asked for their preference in writing, either with pen or pencil on paper, or with a laptop. About 90% said they would prefer to write using a laptop. On reflection I think those figures illustrate the continued positive attitude towards the resource in the classroom. Perhaps inflated by a general good feeling about the technology.

For a literacy task this week I told the year 5 children that they complete the independent writing task either in their literacy books or by using Google Docs. 56 out of 60 children chose to write using Google Docs. I questioned about their choices in the last part of the lesson and they ranged from: “I can work quicker”, to, “I don’t have to worry about my presentation” and “I will be able to continue the work at home.” The percentage is high again but this time around I know that they are making a much more informed choice due to the amount of time we have spent using the tool.

Emily Fritchley a colleague of mine and teaching assistant at school is currently collecting evidence for her dissertation about the support for EAL children in schools. I offered to write about it here as she is hoping for more responses for her work. There are only 8 questions in the survey (see the link below) and if you have the right information to hand it will take you less than 5 minutes. All responses would be welcome, not just from UK teachers.

Emily writes:

The purpose of this survey is to research the support that is provided for pupils with English as an additional language, in order to help to assess whether enough is being done for these children by schools, local authorities and the government.

EAL Pupils – A survey to research the support provided for EAL pupils

Emily and I would appreciate your thoughts and look forward to your responses.

The lessons that I have enjoyed the most this year have been when we have adapted to the children’s enthusiasm for certain activities. Before our half term break we had one of those sessions.

In our literacy lessons we have been learning about the punctuation pyramid since September. It is a simple graphic that shows the various punctuation marks and their corresponding National Curriculum (UK) level for writing. Learning what is included in the pyramid and using it as a tool to assess their own writing is something that we consider to be very valuable. We have 3D pyramids on the children’s tables and a large copy of the punctuation pyramid on the wall as a display.

We recently purchased some software that had a pyramid builder game included and the morning session I am referring to saw both Year 5 classes working on practicing to build the pyramid from scratch.

I soon mentioned to my colleague, across the corridor, about a little competition to see who could build the pyramid the quickest. We were soon having a inter classroom battle to build the pyramid the fastest. Everyone engaged and working really hard. And this is where we began to sense their enthusiasm for the the activity. We decided to adapt the session to harness this fervent engagement with the task. After some time working with the pyramid builder and ensuring each child had had plenty of practice independently we announced a tournament.

We shuffled tables around to form a long row and brought all of the laptops together in my classroom. We had two rows of 8 laptops facing each other. The arena was ready! And the pyramid gladiators soon picked up the invitation to be involved. The task was simple: build a complete pyramid as quick as they could without any omissions or errors. Once they thought it was complete they needed to stand up. The simple knockout tournament began.

The children responded so well to the change of furniture and the change of style of session. We sometimes shy away from some light hearted competition in primary for fear of labelling people “winners” and “losers” but conducted in the right spirit it engages and motivates.

After 3 rounds we had a final battle with two laptops facing each other in the centre of the arena. Needless to say we had lots of fun and the children enjoyed every minute.

If you want to have a go at a Punctuation Pyramid competition with your class then you can try this Befuddlr puzzle for the image above, once it is complete it will display a time in seconds. Let me know how you get on and perhaps we can have an inter school leaderboard!

Derrall Garrison has tagged me on a new meme, called “Passion Quilt” which originated from Miguel Guhlin. So what image could encapsulate what I am passionate about and what I want my students to learn?

There could only be one.

Caption for this image: Sharing and becoming a global citizen

There are so many valuable tools currently available to teachers that allow us to easily share what is going on in our classrooms with other teachers, students and schools. I am passionate about using technology to support this open ethos within my classroom – not only between classes and children in my own school but beyond that too.

I firmly believe that as students collaborate with others they begin to see beyond their own location and culture. It offers them a glimpse, an insight into another child’s perspective on the world, that can only be a good thing.

I am going to tag five more people:

• Ewan Macintosh
• Alex Ragone
• John Pederson
• Alec Couros
• Julie Lindsay

3 Simple Meme Rules:

• Post a picture from a source like FlickrCC or Flickr Creative Commons or make/take your own that captures what YOU are most passionate about for kids to learn about…and give your picture a short title.
• Title your blog post “Meme: Passion Quilt” and link back to this blog entry.
• Include links to 5 folks in your professional learning network or whom you follow on Twitter/Pownce.

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

I am thankful that Kristian Still Twittered me Befuddlr, a great little visual puzzle tool. It takes any online image and produces a slider puzzle that is ideal for working on the IWB. As the creators, Eric Kastner and Amy Hoy put it, “a delightful diversion.”

Give it a try now, if you haven’t before, and you will agree that it is lots of fun and would be a nice little activity for the children to do as a reward or during those wet miserable playtimes! I have set the children a puzzle of solving photos of themselves which they really enjoy. But what else can we do with it? I think that it forms a lovely lesson starter and below I have outlined some basic ideas for using it across the curriculum. Of course the premise is simple: any image related to your lesson and it’s online – Befuddle it!

To find the images relevant to my ideas I have used FlickCC. Once I have found the image I navigate to the original image on it’s Flickr page and I have then used this (Drag this image to your bookmarks bar) to Befuddle the picture.

Click on the image previews to have a go at the puzzles.

Going beyond the puzzle in Literacy

• Handwritten or word processed text to piece together – topic related.

• Whole texts to help explore the different features

• whole words – focus on the formation of letters
• whole letters – from Flickr

Going beyond the puzzle in Numeracy

• Sequences of numbers
• Written sums to piece together

• Different types of 2D and 3D shapes
• Fractions

• Numbers around us

Going beyond the puzzle in PE

• What sport can you see?

• Images of the children from the previous lesson.

Going beyond the puzzle in History

• Exploring historical places / monuments / sites / artefacts

• Images or portraits of historical figures.
• Putting a timeline back together

• Scenes from ancient period eg. Gods and Goddesses of Ancient Greece.

Going beyond the puzzle in Geography

• Unscramble a map of countries / continents / the world / local area

• Physical geography images: rivers / coastline / mountains etc

Going beyond the puzzle in RE

• Special places of religious significance – buildings etc
• Befuddle various religious symbols

• Religious artwork
• Artefacts

Going beyond the puzzle in ICT

• Befuddle an image of the keyboard

• Various other parts of hardware to help the children become familiar
• Screenshots of software to encourage the children to get accustomed

Going beyond the puzzle in Science

• Befuddle an image, the image is a clue to the lesson objective (this could be done in every subject) Can you guess this one?

Going beyond the puzzle in Art

• Artwork the children have produced

• To focus on an artist
• Explore a specific style of work eg landscapes.

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Befuddlr works really well when used with a pair or small group on the IWB / SMARTBoard. I have also had success with my class working on a puzzle together using a remote mouse, I have a Gyromouse in my class, passed around the children as they sit at their tables.Clearly if you were to just leave the children to solve the puzzle it is only that, a simple visual puzzle. However if you couple that with some subject related questions as they are working either linked to what they see or the pieces they are moving, it becomes an engaging learning experience.So you may ask the children if they can guess the shape before it is solved, questions could probe about the different properties of shapes they recognise. Can they explain what shapes it cannot be? What can they see that gives it away? Have they been using the correct mathematical vocabulary etc.

Please let me know of any other ways you have used it to support your subject teaching beyond the puzzle.

Image Attributions

Image: ‘Just How Bad Off is the San Francisco Chronicle?‘
www.flickr.com/photos/49502995517@N01/187465586

Image: ‘handwriting meme‘
www.flickr.com/photos/34427466731@N01/189061818

Image: ‘4½‘
www.flickr.com/photos/49968232@N00/132872180

Image: ‘2006_02_26 Ireland Vs Wales_0082‘
www.flickr.com/photos/99708130@N00/110637863

Image: ‘9Puy du Fou9 Gladiatorium‘
www.flickr.com/photos/79795657@N00/366074731

Image: ‘Pharaoh9s jewelry‘
www.flickr.com/photos/44124324682@N01/220820

Image: ‘Europe‘
www.flickr.com/photos/80794171@N00/120077777

Image: ‘Lulworth Cove‘
www.flickr.com/photos/19237450@N00/237798413

Image: ‘Om‘
www.flickr.com/photos/43719085@N00/2080321877

Image: ‘Apple Keyboard (ADB)‘
www.flickr.com/photos/71295840@N00/185830828

Image: ‘Dandelion textures‘
www.flickr.com/photos/14516334@N00/1587765712