marlyn.moffat

I’ve done this for a while now. They tell me what they like about it, what they think they can learn from it, what stage they think it is for, too easy for them , too hard etc. So I take their advice and offer it to the stages they suggest and they watch the others use it and then we take their comments.  We have bought, over the years, much software with good educational purpose, which has largely lain unused and is now unable to be used, due to advancing operating systems. I’m sure other schools have done the same. It’s partly because the staff have not had opportunity to explore the potential, and don’t allow it to be used, so I now believe, give it to the children and they will explore and explain. Staff can then see its relevance for purpose and will enable its use. Sometimes that’s all they have to do…allow!

So this week Primary 3 have looked at some of the things I brought back from eLive.

Beep from Sherston, they decided was fun and way too easy for them so would be best in a P1 classroom, but they would like to show it to primary 2 to see what they thought. So I set it up on Wednesday such that they could show it to them. P2 enjoyed the fun, bright colours and activity, but said it was easy for them. Well, nice for Sherston to know they were right when they suggested age range 3-5 for this and excellent feedback to primary 3 to know they had evaluated accurately. They thought it was important that it worked interactively on the whiteboard, because the wee ones could draw with their fingers on the Smartboards. Hey!

They also had a look at Flobot, a Sherston newbie. They thought Level 1 in the teacher options was just right for them, ‘cos they’re smarties, but that level 2 might go all the way to primary 6. This is a simple to use control programme. And hey ho Sherston suggest its levels would be level A-D.

For the most part, I now advise against buying software with  a limited educational focus, unless required by pupils with ASN, preferring as I do, things that can be applied in any cross curricular context, or can be found online already, but to have the children pick out learning objectives, for others, from things they enjoy doing, can’t be bad, eh?

There was much more this week but folks don’t read long postings!

This might sound to others like Geekmeet, but not a nerd in sight, just a group of people interested in taking technologies forward in classrooms and talking informally about how it might happen. The fact that it is informal and involves some food and wine and comfortable sharing of experience means everyone has something to share. We met where there was wifi, so we could show and tell. Primary, secondary, subject specialists, retired from teaching communication enthusiasts and technical folk were bonded in common respect. The discussions ranged from proper use of the apostrophe and correct grammar in children’s blogging to scratch. I had gone looking for something that might replace the old Logo and that was it! It’s  free from MIT.

Have been this week at the eLive conference and exhibition in Edinburgh. The welcome was pleasant and the atmosphere relaxed. There were only 32 exhibitors, but there was an eclectic variety of seminars and keynotes. What came across very strongly, was the City of Edinburgh’s commitment to ICT in all its forms, in education. I didn’t blog about it there, because I didn’t know, initially, there was going to be wifi freely available, and on the second day, was too interested in what was going on, to spend time doing so, in case I might miss something.  We had a mini Sett event in Argyll a couple of years ago that had the same sort of aura. Several of the exhibitors there expressed interest when I mentioned it, so I have encouraged them to be in touch with those who might be interested in repeating the experience. So why did size matter? In two days I was able to visit all of the stands, have meaningful conversation and demonstrations at each, and picked up some great ideas and material to evaluate, something for every stage in my school. Not all good stuff costs money, unless ‘Time is money.’ Picked up some very simple solutions to very complex problems. More to follow.

What a good day! in primary 3!  Don’t blink or you’ll miss it! All three seconds of it! Language the script. Problem solving the shots and storyboarding. Art the modelling and drawing. Maths the frames per second. PSD expressions and feelings. ‘I can animate’ the isight camera, the whiteboard, the ICT. This was the first one, so that’s why it’s here, but some of the others are just great. I keep saying it ‘Give them the tools!’ Lots of serious communication and the least confident child, academically speaking, set up the computer and the board for us to use. Happy teacher.

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We had 5 new Promethean boards installed today. I spent some time showing how to operate, raise and lower etc. I already had done the CPD on calibration etc. So they were ready.  And within 5 minutes of the installation engineers leaving,  4 were in use and the fifth had been described to me as ‘ that monstrosity that has been put in my room’  Tell you anything? 20% of our teachers….???  Mmmm…?

It only seems to crop up at this time of year. Reporting! It’s as well that our format does it as you go! Save! But do you make a backup, somewhere else? The hard drive in the staffroom is there for that very purpose. A teacher had almost finished 29 reports and her computer which had been playing up, previously, though she had not notified, and continued to use, despite its erratic behaviour, crashed and gave up the ghost, big time. (A white screen with blue strips.) It would not shut down or, after the removal and replacement of the battery, start up independently. Because of the screen it was impossible to tell if it had started up from a system disk. It did start up holding down T, while linked to another with a firewire cable, so her work folder and her reports were retrieved, but the reports were corrupt, presumably because she was working on them at the time of the crash. I copied them to a couple of other machines and got the same message and was instructed to use ‘recover’, but that was not an option. So I dashed down to Springbank Distillery and borrowed their copy of File Salvage, but that didn’t work. It recovered the damaged file.

Then the ‘Eureka’ moment. What if there were other options on the Filemaker menus in the full version of Filemaker? Open it from within Filemaker, put in on my old Masterclass machine? And lo there were! The magic word ‘Recover’. Result! One thankful teacher who had spent over 25 hours, working, but did not value her work enough to back it up, till it was apparently lost! And all would have been totally lost if the format created in Filemaker had not been saving for her already. I explained to her, it was not me she should be thanking, but the person who introduced me to Filemaker. I should have thought of trying that first!

So reports…Backup… backup ..backup and don’t dare moan if you don’t, and something goes wrong! Set your programmes to save every five minutes and save some grief. This teacher was lucky that the format she was working on did it for her.
Hey, we’ve all been there!

Anybody watch it? I only discovered it recently. So what, you might say? Well, amongst other interesting stuff,  they review resources and websites, show snippets and children using them. So what did I do in My McCrone time today? Watched TV!  Well for some of it. The Primary ICT prog was interesting. Ok some it exemplified my pet hate of showcase ICT ( there is a difference between this and showing examples of good practice, subtle though that difference might be, but it can give you ideas) as compared to, this is what we really do. Quite good to feel I was up to scratch with what they were talking about and was doing something right, though! Today they were having a look at an online publishing site for children where they can place their stories, and the ones voted for are published in an anthology,  a real offline book. Many of the programmes are online and can be downloaded for CPD sessions, from Teachers TV. Have a look, why don’t you?

Oh and…..

Birmingham City Council have many excellent whiteboard resources and links to lots of others. So there’s no need to reinvent the wheel till you’ve had a look, there, too.

The question arose from my observer as to whether or not I was being best used, showing a class copy and paste, when surely their teacher would know that. Fact of the matter was, she didn’t. She didn’t know the shortcuts AppleC AppleV either. She also admitted that she did not know you could take bits from copywrite free sites like scran. She had been in a variety of schools over a period of years and had missed out on a lot of ICT support. However, an honest sincere educationalist she is, and is trying to catch up and has been very appreciative of any help she is given and follows it through in her classroom.

I’ve asked her if I could blog about her comments, to explain that there is an assumption that all teachers, because of CPD and INSET opportunities, now have mastered basic skills and to substantiate my belief that it is simply not true, yet. It’s not always about reluctant older teachers. It’s sometimes about hardworking folk wanting to be sure they are doing the right thing by their children, and unsure about how to do it. So here are her comments.

‘I use the interactive whiteboard almost daily, because you showed me how easy it was with a class and the children are quick enough to help me when I don’t get it right. I’m not afraid to let them help now and it’s good for them too.’

‘I didn’t know what my class were already able to do and I was limiting them. It was great to have a chance to watch them in action, without feeling responsible. I could see who was needing help and I felt good being able to help them. ‘

‘I’m really pleased  to have focus and relevant tasks for them to do, especially since they now know how and where to save their work. I always saved to the desktop before, so I could see it.’

‘Thanks a million for creating these links. I wouldn’t have known how to start looking for things they could do online. It’s easy now. All we need to do is login and click. Terrific.’

‘I hadn’t seen Clicker or Kidspiration before and because you picked out the bits that fit our project the resources are so simplified. So, since they are now on all the machines we can use them easily.’

‘File endings were gobbledygook, before.’

‘I couldn’t see how I could  ‘ICT’ my planner, so thanks a mill.’

‘I was used to having a couple of computers in my classroom and the thought of dealing with fifteen at a time terrified me, but the children handled them so well, I feel better. They knew how to deal with the problems better than I did.’

‘We’ll be ready for you to see what we’ve done in 3 weeks time’

Hey that’ll do for me!  One small step for man and ….well you know that quote!

This afternoon I had to do an observed ICT lesson, with a class other than my own. The idea is that I am in a class, to take the stress away from the teacher, such that he/she might see how things are handled when they go wrong, and how it might be overcome, without her/him feeling that she/he is failing, and that they might pick up on a wee something they themselves did not know. It also gives teachers the opportunity to observe their pupils in action, see who needs most support and builds their own confidence too.

While today was basically about copy and paste for P4/5,  it showed them where they could copy and paste from and  save to, for their project about animals. It also led them into various ways in which they could add to their paper free project, unless their teacher needed printed material to display. They will later , in class with their own teacher further explore the materials I have prepared and left in their folder. So we looked at a checklist of what they could do in their pairs. Minimized the window and at the end of the lesson examined the list again and changed what they felt confident with. The outcome will be that they, having collected material, will pull it together in a flipchart to use on the Promethean board, to show the class. We had a look at scran and how easy it was to get images, too.  They did well!

I included in the folder, on their desktops, suggested tasks, a list of online resources, with prepared links, and books and CD’s for offline use. I’ll be back there, in three weeks to see what they have gathered. Hopefully there won’t be lots of stuff lying about on school machine desktops, ‘cos they’ll now be confident about where to save it to.

As to what their teacher felt about the lesson…..That’s another whole post.

This toondo thing has got me!

If only we had reliable online access (It’s on it’s way) Will this be blocked in school? Time will tell! Could add to sound files eh?