End of ICT Elective

The end has now arrived for the ICT elective. Essays are almost submitted, blog up-to-date and my knowledge of ICT has grown greatly. I think that before I started the elective I did not have the confidence to use ICT innovatively in the classroom. The only lessons I had taught on ICT were on first year placement when they were learning to send an email. Although pupils need to know this, it is not fun and engaging and probably not what the pupils want to learn. Since taking part in the elective, I understand now that ICT lessons do have to be more fun. They have to be more enjoyable and engaging. Pupils live at home surrounded by technology so why not use technology to help aid teaching and learning?

I feel that everything we learnt by digital movie making and animation is something that I would definately try out in class. I believe that there are so many skills that can be learnt from this process, and it is very much about working co-operatively and collaboratively, something was is very important in Curriculum for Excellence. I am pleased with the outcome of both the movie and the animation we created in our groups, but it is not the end product that matters. It is the process that we went through to actually do the movie and the animation (also the wiki). It was about working together to solve problems, to complete tasks and to bounce ideas off each other. Here are the finished products for you to see.

Trip to the Consolarium,

As part of the elective, we had the opportunity to take a trip to the Consolarium in Dundee. The Consolarium looks at Games Based Learning and how it can be used within the classroom. During the visit we got to look at WII's, iPets (No site found), Nintendo DS, etc.

I believe the iPets is a great resource to use within the nursery. Pupils would learn how to care after a pet e.g. how to wash him, how to feed him, the attention he needs etc. I feel that the game will also help them personally as they will build a bond with their pet as it is completely in their control. I think it will also teach them what they need to know for their own personal hygiene, lifestyle etc.

We were also shown on three different levels of how pupils could create their own games. I feel that this is something that should be used within a classroom as it is something for the future. The future is constantly changing and as primary teachers, we are faced with the challenge of providing children with the correct skills for the future. Because we live in the Digital Age, it is vital that we do this properly. Children 'need to be tech-savvy if they are going to have any hope of a secure future.' (Williamson, 2007, no page given). The games they showed us got more difficult. The first seemed easy enough to use within the primary school. I would personally aim it at p3-p5. The second is more aimed towards upper school and the third was purely for secondary school.The three game making applications were continous i.e. they should be used to show progression.

Overall, the trip to the Consolarium was very insightful. It provided me with some ideas that I could take both out to nursery and school.

 

Insite Project

A project called Insite was brought to the attention of the ICT elective class. This project is a research and is run in Indiana by Purdue University . . This was an optionally project to take part in which helps to develop a repository of Web 2.0 technologies. I feel that educationally this is a great resource to have and something that I look forward to taking part in.

I have been allocated to team 8 and will look at http://www.99chats.com/ Having looked briefly at this, I have made a sudden judgement that I am sure will change through understanding and investigating. My first thought about this was that I did not see it being a 'safe' resource in the sense that anyone could access it and post anything on it. (Some of which I witnessed the other night which I found highly inappropriate.) However, upon further inspection I realised that if I set up an account then I could have my own room. Again, from a teacher's perspective, I still do not see this being a good resource because comments cannot be moderated and people can still enter the chatroom.

This is the chatroom that I have set up. Please feel free to enter it and see what you think about it. Please leave a comment on this page sharing your thoughts about this resource. You do not need to sign up to use this resource, you merely have to create a username and start typing.




So far, not entirely sure about this resource. But will keep posted about developments in both my thinking and understanding about this resource.

Week 6

I loved this week! We were taking a break from editing our movies and we started looking at animation. We had to think of an idea, create a story board for it, create the characters and then film it.

Idea

We had a think about what we could actually do. We came up with a few ideas but finally settled on Old MacDonald Had A Farm. We thoughout about the animals we wanted e.g. cow, pig, sheep, duck and Old MacDonald.


Story


We based our animation on the song Old MacDonald Had A Farm. Each part of the story board had a different animal. We decided what order we would do it in and what the other animals would be doing when the 'main' animal was having their moment. I think we chose a fairly simple story to go with and something that I think children would find easy enough to do.

Creating the Characters

This was so much fun to do. I will admit, slightly time consuming, but I think that children would really enjoy doing this within a classroom. They are developing their fine motor skills and hand-eye co-ordination when they are creating their characters. They are also being highly creativity, i.e. it doens't have to be a normal cow, why can't it have a flower hanging out its mouth? etc.

It must be said though they we did cheat slightly. There was already a sheep and a pig made. We did alter this slightly to meet our needs, but we did not make them from scratch. As it is said in teaching, it is all about sharing.

Filming

We had our story, we had our characters, it was now time to get down to the nitty gritty stuff. We were using Digital Blue Animations to film our animations. These were easy to use but needed lots of clicks to even complete one second worth of footage. No wonder Wallace and Gromit took years to make! I found this an enjoyable process, but I think unless everyone is involved, then pupils will become bored and distracted because they do not have anything to do. I think it would be good to do this in collaborative/co-operative learning groups and give each pupil a job title i.e. encourager, time keeper, resource manager, note taker etc. This means that every pupil needs to be focused and needs to be on task. However, this needs to be on rotation so that they all get a chance to learn/practice a different skill, while learning about animation. Johnston and Johnston believe in working together. They believe in a community of practice and working together to complete a task.

Unfortunately we didn't get finished our animation. I think we only did about 20 seconds worth of footage at most, but its a start. I think pupils need to be aware that it is a longer process than normal but if they are fully engaged with it, they will truly enjoy it.

I cannot wait to get back to ICT to finish filming and then to edit it, providing editing is easier than with our movies!

Week 5

This week we looked at editing our movies. We had to change it to a different format to be able to do this. Being in a group of four meant that not everyone could participate. It was mostly one person on the mouse with the other people in the group sitting watching. I think that if I did this in a class, I would definately do it in pairs and have them taking turns. Also, if I was to do this in a classroom, I think that I would do a demonstration first on a demo video and then when they feel confident enough, allow them to edit their video themselves. I think that we were thrown into the deep end with this and did not have the knowledge or the understanding to be able to do this effectively.

On the second input this week, we looked at Games Based Learning. We got to play and evaluate with Guitar Hero, DJ hero, Nintendo DS, CyberBike for the Wii etc.

I have decided to evaluate the Cyberbike and Guitar Hero. Firstly, I am going to look at the Cyberbike.





 At first, I was so excited about the Cyberbike for the Wii. I thought that it would be a fun activity that could be used within the classroom as well as at home. However, upon reflection and using the cyberbike, I would not use it in the classroom. I do not think I would use it because only one person could use it at a time and I actually do not see it being anymore beneficial than being on an actual bike. The only way I would use this, would be perhaps in gym time where I would perhaps use it as a demonstration or a stimulus for a lesson. Using the Cyberbike was actually a lot more difficult than I anticipated. I found it difficult to use the pedals, to steer and to actually move through the water course. I kept getting stuck in seaweed and had to pedal super fast to actually get out of it. I do not think this would be easy for a child to do.

Personally for me, I think the cyberbike is more suited to adults than children. I think it is a great exercise tool for fitness fanatics but for just a play on, it is more work than need be. Unlike the Wii Fit, I did not find the cyberbike fun or motivating and therefore would not use it within my classroom.

Guitar hero on the other hand, I would be so excited to use within the classroom. It is a fun tool that I feel could help within the classroom. It does require practice and pupils do need to have rhythm to play. However this is something that will be developed throughout their time when playing it. On Learning Teaching Scotland, there is a fantastic example of how this could be used within the classroom. I think it is important to stress that this should not be replicated, instead it should come from what the children want to do and learn from it.


It can be used as a context for learning and as Curriculum for Excellence is becoming more and more embedded into schools across Scotland, it is essential that we teach and learn through contextualised learning. Learning Teaching Scotland states that 'Children and young people should understand the purposes of their activities. They should see the value of what they are learning and its relevance to their lives, present and future.' (2009). We live in the 'Digital Age'. Children are constantly surrounded by technology and this should be used as a context for learning for them because they understand why it is important and they can see the relevance in it.

By using Guitar Hero, they are developing hand-eye co-ordination, rhythm skills etc. However the list of activites that could come from this context is endless. They could want to design their own guitars, make their own guitars, make a band and have a virtual tour (including booking dates/prices etc), write a diary from what they have done etc. I think that there is a lot of learning to be done with these, but as mentioned before, it MUST come from the children.  





So on my last post, I announced that I had invested in a Blackberry. Unfortunately my experience with blackberry didn't go well at all to begin with, considering I ended up with a faulty handset which wouldn't let me do anything. However a few weeks later and a new handset, I am loving my Blackberry. I think that as a phone it is fantastic. I have managed to sync my emails both googlemail and groupwise to my phone (iPhones cannot). Looking at the phone educationally, I do not believe that it can be used in the same way that an iPhone can in a classroom. I think that the interface for the iPhone is better suited to the classroom than Blackberrys are.

Looking at Apps on the Blackberry, I was fairly disappointed. iPhones do have everything you need on it, whereas Blackberrys are fairly limited. I think the reason for this, is because it isn't made for educational use. It is more a business phone. Although the apps are limited on it, for personal use, these apps are perfect. I can have weather, news etc on my home page of my phone. I am not huge on technology and do not jump on the bandwagon, so for me personally, I like this phone.

As a personal phone I would much prefer a blackberry over the iPhone. For education use, there is no doubt about it that the iPhone is the better phone.

Week 4

Digital Movie Making this week was a slight disaster. We recorded our movie, which went quite well and no tecnical issues while recording. There was a slight issue that our seismometer didn't work, but this is something that we will reflect upon on our video. This week we were supposed to be editting. But this did not happen. This was due to there being a compatibility issue between the iphone and windows movie maker. We had to change the format of the videos, but we did not have the appropriate software, nor did we have the skills to do this. As a teacher, this shows me the importance of checking software before teaching a class and being able to ensure that it should work. It also stresses to me that there should always be a back-up plan when taking an IT lesson. As a group, we scapped the editting for this week, due to insufficient knowledge and moved on to create a wikispace.

 The wikispace is used to hold information and share with other people. We used our wikispace to discuss information we found out about Earthquakes in our research. (Our wikispace can be accessed here.) This was an easy process to do collaboratively and something I would use within a classroom. Pupils could either work together on the whole thing, or can be assigned a page each to work on. As long as pupils have the link and the log-in details, they can edit the pages. Wikispaces can be both public and private. I would advise private stuff to be used within a classroom until moderated by a teacher.


Also this week, we looked at storybird. Mel and myself collaborated together to create a story. This was a great tool and something that I would use with younger children as well as older children. Using it with older children, I would ask them to write a story to perhaps use with a younger pupil for paired reading etc.

Paired reading is a fantastic way to help pupils read in school. Although some pupils believe that the younger pupils are the only ones that learn from paired reading. I believe this is not the case.  I would allow younger pupils, including nursery to just experiment with the tools. I would try and encourage them to add text, but if focusing on nursery, I would not put emphasis on this and would be very pleased with just the connect between text in stories. This would be a sign of emergent writing. If pupils are making the connection that stories have both images and texts, then they are beginning to develop their knowledge and understanding of story books.

I think pupils would find storybird fun and exciting and a good collaborative process. I think the advantages would include being easy to use and it helps collaboration between pupils. A disadvantage would be any one can edit the wiki, unless it is set to private. Another blogger has evaluated wikispaces.


This week, I bought a blackberry. I was torn between an iPhone and a Blackberry but due to pricing, I chose the Blackberry. Next week I intend on evaluating the blackberry (providing I have figured out how to use it!) and reflect upon the educational values on the Blackberry.

Blogging - What is it?

So, What is Blogging?

Well.... Cambridge Dictionary states that a blog is "a diary (= regular record of your thoughts, opinions and experiences) that you put on the Internet for others to read and which often contains links (= words or pictures that connect to other places on the Internet)".  I fully agree with this. Whether people blog for educational purposes (like myself) or whether they want to share what they have been upto, it is all a way of sharing things on the internet with other people.

We learn from others, but this does not necessarily mean that we have to be face to face with people to learn from them. We can learn from their thoughts, opinions and perhaps research that they place online. BBC reported 3 years ago that blogging was starting to be used for academic purposes. It is another communication tool between lecturers and students, but I feel this can be used within a classroom as well. A blog can be set up by the teacher that directs perhaps tasks or homework that the pupils are to feedback usign comments. The only issue I see with this, is that they do not use it in the correct way. A lesson would be needed to teach the pupils what is meant to go in a blog and perhaps how the class is using it, if in a different way from others. I would make the pupils aware that anyone can see this, and in this case I would tell them not to put their name on their posts. Although pages can be made private, I would prefer to not have an issue arising.


Although I would use blogging for educational purposes, I think pupils would need to be aware that blogging can be used for personal purposes also. Pupils need to be taught how to do this safely and that this should be shared with parents. I feel that blogging should be shared with parents, both for academic and personal purposes. Parents should be able to be a part of the child's learning.

At university, we communicate with our tutor/lecturers in a variety of ways. (Email, Blogger.com, facebook, blackboard etc. ) Email is good for communicating quickly but I feel that blogger is much better for giving my views and opinions about education.

I believe blogging is good both educationally and personally, and is a good tool for both reflecting and learning from.