Whiteboard Challenge - IWB users community project

One of the most exciting things about the modern, socially driven internet is the communities of best practices that it can foster. No longer does professional development always require rigorous management and local or regional organization.

What has changed in recent years is that groups of like minded individuals can now quickly create online websites and projects and anyone, anywhere in the world can take part. Promethean Planet and its forum are examples of where a global community can create a powerful resource for itself.

Are we seeing the emergence of Continuous Professional Development 2.0 perhaps?

http://whiteboardchallenge.wikispaces.com is one such community driven PD project, where users of multiple makes of IWBs are taking on several challenges that look at the some of the more key & powerful pedagogical features.

It is free to join and all the instructions are online. Perhaps you may join the list of challengers?

http://whiteboardchallenge.wikispaces.com/The+Challengers

All they ask is that you keep a record of what you have done on a blog… so that everyone can benefit from the ideas that are shared. Blogs are usually free to set up. Blogger, Edublogs and Wordpress.

Of course the additional benefit of this form of PD is that it also develops the essential 21st Century skills with new Web 2.0 tools that you can then use to do similar projects in class!

2.0 Web or not 2.0 Web?

Writing recently in response to a debate regarding teachers employing/exploiting the potential of Web 2.0 I wrote:

“All children, or should I say “learners” learn best from first hand experience. Young children need to physically explore a range of scenarios, before they can begin to appreciate their makeup, their impact, their relevance, their properties, etc etc. What better way is there than allowing them to play?!

They need to engage at their own level, they need to be given an element of free rein in order that they can truly own their learning. We all know how much more motivated we are with some activities over others, leaving those we least enjoy to the end of our lists!! Sharing and co-operating with their peers, learning from what they see and experience first hand and then being able to apply that to other environments. Offering children a range of experiences and activities is key to the Foundation Stage. Continuous provision offerings ensure a backdrop to which children are invited/encouraged to explore certain opportunities. All of these will be immeasurably enhanced with adult intervention. Careful questioning and gentle directing will guarantee that the maximum benefit is exploited from what can so easily be seen as random engagement! The coupling of independent play with the careful supervision of a trained practitioner makes certain that these children are continually motivated and stimulated to learn - encompassing, most importantly, language. These speaking and listening opportunities must be carefully controlled to ensure that high quality talk remains key to any free play scenario. Too many technology driven options restrict a child’s view of the world. No negotiation, no discussion, no collaborative talk - however, there is instant response, instant results, and a constant knowledge that when it suits “they can walk away!” Obviously with social networking this covers some of these instances, but still “control” is very much at the click of a mouse!

Teachers continually take responsibility for their classes’ learning, they ensure a balanced and relevant curriculum and manage to keep OFSTED, DCSF, and any other body who have a spreadsheet to tick, happy. They take risks and they manage - it should not be assumed that everything and anything should be included all at once. 30 Primary aged children all clamoring for the latest and most whizziest piece of kit does not necessarily mean its good or suitable for class based learning. Of course technology has its place and I have made my views on technology clear on other occasions… BUT

Web 2.0…… surely provided it also is seen within the confines (carefully chosen word here!!) as suggested above it too will need mediating and needs also to ensure that teachers aren’t merely told to “do it” ,but that it is seen as purely another tool with which to engage children within the world of teaching and learning….good teaching will always be a balance of collaboration, communication and co-operation - whether it be, children, parents, teachers, technology, or anything else!!”
Can somebody more “enlightened/knowledgeable” about Web 2.0 give me some concrete examples of how I might effectively utilise it within the space of young learners? PLEASE?!!

ACTIVote - Ideas and Top Tips

The Voting Icon

There are times when using ACTIVote when the drop down menu gets in the way. How about putting the voting icon on the page menu bar.

This can be accomplished by dragging the icon from the tool store on to the page menu, I have shown many teachers this since, many of whom have not realised you can even customise this area of the flipchart.

This allows you to roll up the tool bar enabling greater page view and still have access to the voting icon, try it and see if you find it beneficial.

Templates

Creating a question template and using the Activote Question Setting (this is achieved with a right-hand click on the page.

This is very useful too and I always demonstrate this during training sessions. Firstly make a template something like that seen above (see the link below for this and more template pages)

http://www.prometheanplanet.com/server.php?show=ConResource.14149

Go to the question settings and alter as required, you can replicate this page as many times as you like then in page organiser, you can then use question settings on each page as it carries the initial setting, all you have to do is indicate the correct answer for each individual question.

You can get very clever at this point and make the first 6 pages be correct for A, B, C, D, E and F. Then replicate those six pages, indicating which the correct answer is for each page. Then in page organiser you can muddle them up for random answers.

It might take a little time the first time, but once created, you can share and use again and again as a template.

Why not put the template into ‘My Flipchart Pages’ it can be retrieved as an instant as an ad-hoc page or within a set of pre-prepared flipchart pages to add assessment into your lesson when required.

Putting the voting buttons onto your tool bar for easy retrieval is also a very useful idea as you can put them onto your page in an instant and not have to go searching for them, in fact you can put many images onto the right-hand side of your tool bar which you might use on a regular basis.

Odd One Out

When I was teaching as an AST I often used the idea of what is the odd one out? With four images you can ask the students which one they think the odd one out is. There is no right or wrong answer to this so students never felt threatened by getting the incorrect answer. It was subjective and promoted the use of mathematical language and concepts to describe their reason.

You will find some of the flipchart ideas I used with the link below:

Click Here

Peer pressure: Does it cause under achievement?

In recent years there have been studies into whether high achieving secondary school children, particularly girls in co-educational schools, deliberately under achieve in subjects such as mathematics to avoid social exclusion.

A study of students in Canada, Germany and Israel highlighted that this is an international problem:

“Altogether almost 1,700 students were surveyed in the three cultures. Findings of the study make it obvious that—concerning achievement in mathematics—the primary victims of peer pressure in middle school are girls”  http://www.springerlink.com/content/tv3v6624242485v1/

During a recent school visit to a secondary school, I was told about a 14 year old girl and how until recently she had been causing her mathematics teacher concern. This particular year was proving quite uncharacteristic to her previous years’ attainment. This particular pupil was disengaged in classroom contributions and was clearly avoiding to put her hand up to answer questions. It was evident that she was deliberately avoiding any attention to be drawn towards her ability. She did not want to be seen as the “boffin” of the class!

The teacher was keen to turn this situation around, the school had just recieved their Activexpression handsets and so she decided to integrate them into her lesson. She made the decision to use them in auto named mode, which meant that she would know who had responded and the class would have be able to vote without the burden of worrying about what other peer members would think!

This was a remarkable turn around for this particular student. In no time at all she was back on form, participating one hundred per cent and quietly enjoying the knowledge that she was getting the answers right! A secret that only her and her teacher were sharing!

It’s always uplifting to hear such stories and how the appropriate use of technology can have such a major impact in our schools today! However I am sure that there are many more children doing exactly the same as the girl in this story.

Visiblebody.com is to textbook Anatomy as Google Earth is to the printed map

This one really makes your Activboard shine.

www.visiblebody.com

It is to textbook Anatomy as Google Earth is to printed maps and as such, it displays the body parts in all the photorealistic, gory detail that entraces students. It is free, but requires you create an account.

Mandy, a Primary School teacher from Cumbria has this to say, “We were looking broadly at the role of the heart and circulatory system. Through this tool, the children were able to see inside the body and locate the relevant parts. When combined with other heart related animations and resources supplied with the Activboard it made for an amazing lesson. The ability to go to another level of detail and look at the chambers and valves in close up also allowed me to extend the lesson so they could try and answer the questions from them that a simple textbook picture could not. All the medical terms are amazing!”

Is contains extremely detailed 3D models, that with a click of the Activpen, you can zoom and spin to view from any angle. You can also hide and show any system or organ or make them transparent.

For a video overview and quick guide go to:

http://www.visiblebody.com/Tour_Movies

It is currently only available for PCs using Internet Explorer but MAC and Firefox versions are due at some point. There is a 3D viewing plugin to download that takes a couple of minutes and it can take a while for all the models to download off the internet, so in a lesson you may want to prepare in advance and ensure it has all downloaded before switching to it.

You’ll never look at Earth the same way again…

I got this one from a popular science magazine in the UK called “Focus”…

www.worldmapper.org

Developed by Sheffield and Michigan Universities along with the Geographical Association and the Leverholme Trust, it redraws a map of the world based on different banks of data.

What might this picture be telling us? Click it to find out…

You can combine different images easily in a flipchart page and ask children to speculate on the conditions and circumstances that explain the differences.

Of course you need to be sure that the kids actually do know what the Earth actually does look like to fully understand the image… but then this site tells you that their ideas may be wrong too!

Area map of world - each country is the correct relative area

An actual map of relative land area is quite different to the distored mercator projection that is usually used in general maps of the world and which was originally based on the needs of sailing ship navigators around 500 year ago.

Move over Google - SearchMe has arrived….

My colleague Alan is to blame for all the sleep we will lose playing with this!!!

For the iPhone generation, they do not just want to see the titles of some music they want to flick through the covers and lose themselves in the whole immersive experience…

Well imagine if browing the web was like scanning your album collection!

www.searchme.com provides previews of all the pages it finds with your search terms highlighted - making browsing a visual feast.

I cannot imagine all the ways I could use this with kids…. The ability to visually search pages is amazing on the Activboard and a great way to help teach digital literacy.

How about some Promethean images? Click Here

or some pictures from where I live Click Here

…… and then if you feel that Google images and YouTube is looking old hat then you need picLens… This one requires a download to extend your web broswer - but it is amazing on your Activboard.

www.piclens.com

Continuous Provision

An interactive whiteboard is not confined to its uses. If I were to list the ways in which I have seen them used in a Classroom space these would be at the top of my list :

• Teacher leading discussion
• Teacher exploring concepts
• Teacher making notes on behalf of students
• Teacher demonstrating/modelling a process
• Teacher leading reading activity
• Teacher leading writing activity
• Teacher offering some answers for further discussion
• Teacher utilising bespoke software for specific subjects and maybe annotating over the top
• Teacher accessing the Internet
• Teacher using flash based material to enhance understanding
• Teacher using images to evoke discussion

The list could go on and in fact I am sure we could all come up with much more…

However seeing students up at the board is not so obvious, and maybe not so diverse in its examples. The balance between, physically enabling pupil engagement with the technology and keeping pace within a lesson will always be the challenge.

The worst use of the technology is when 30 students sit and watch while one walks to the front to click on an icon or move an object from one place to another. We have to think of more stimulating/engaging opportunities for students to engage with the technology, but my most favourite is with very young children. For those of us who have taught in this space, ensuring that there is a healthy diet of “continuous provision” activity is our goal.

Despite what some think, there is a rationale behind offering a sand and water tray, a role play corner, writing area, etc. Utilising an iwb in this way is a fantastic way of allowing children access to something with which they will explore a whole range of ideas. Their talk as they explore the activity, will inevitably reflect their engagement. This type of discussion, where talk is initiated by the students will undoubtedly underpin their understanding, but more importantly is an opportunity for high quality discussion around a topic.

I once visited a village hall, where a board had been installed. This system had been bought through a Lottery Grant and is one of the very few such venues who can boast this exciting technology. Not only available for the Playgroup, but is accessible by others in the Community. I have been to numerous schools around the country and spoken to a lot of teachers, but to be using the software with two year old Ben was amazing.

This little boy, having never seen the board before, confidently took the pen from me and explored the library of images. He quickly remembered how to move to a new page, and how to “kiss” the library window goodbye. (Clicking on the little cross in the top right hand corner of the window). He named animals, listened to sounds, and began to use prepositional language with complete ease.

“This one is bigger and the bird is higher”.
“The giraffe is very tall.”
“Let’s make the fish smaller.”

At two, Ben was engaged and focussed for over 30 minutes, until his friend rode by on a bike and his wistful glance in the direction of the bike suggested that he had had enough, but no, I was wrong “I want to do something else on the board” he said.

Free (but not too easy)

On a recent visit to Monkseaton High School in Northumberland, I stumbled upon a fanastic use of the free Google program ” Google Sketchup”. Monkseaton are currently going through a new build and Grant Currie, who is one of the IT technicians, has taken the architect’s plans and created an accurate, scale  3D walkthrough of the new school. The roof, walls and windows can be removed at will and all internal structures given texture. This has given the school the facility to place virtual furniture and IT equipment into classrooms and see what the classroom “could” look like, many many months before construction actually starts.  This has been a mammoth, and impressive task. I have even sent him the technical specs for AB+2 so he can build a scale model and use it to determine the best place for installation before the main structure is in place.

If you would like to know more about this project contact Grant

grant.currie@gmail.com

Too Technical for Infants?

How does a child approach technology?

How do most adults engage with it?

As a general rule Young people (3-18) will “go for it”. They will push most buttons to explore and establish, whereas adults tend to check before they push!!

This has been particularly pertinent for the recent introduction of Expression into the market. This addition to the Learner Response Family within Promethean has offered teachers an alternative approach to engaging students in the classroom…..

BUT is it too sophisticated for infants? Are there too many buttons? Will they get confused?

Alison Reese who teaches 6/7 years olds has been sharing her experience in the forum

http://www.prometheanplanet.com/forum/showthread.php?t=6116 - Below is her overall final post, but it might be of interest to read the whole thread!

“We live in the technological age and our children are lifelong inhabitors. They’re not playing catch up, they accept it as the norm. To them a new piece of technology is something to explore, play with and learn how to use. I was surprised just how few of mine knew what texting was and had had a go on a phone before. I thought a lot more than 3 or 4 would have done it. So how have I used them? Well, I could go on forever!!

My children knew that we were getting them and were just as impatient as me for them to arrive. When we did get them we got to look at them and all their features. I introduced the text feature first. I had a big picture of an expression on the board and we looked at all the features and what they could do. I explained that having one button for each letter was silly and we discussed how you tap a key once for the first letter, twice for the next etc. Then we got to try and text in our names. We used shift to make our first letters capital and then I realised I had to go in to more detail as two of my children have two first names! For Sin Kue we had to look at spaces and then making her ‘K’ capital, so scrolling through the options under shift. For Jo-Yee, we had to look at the hyphen as well! Luckily they’re both confident ICT users and had no problems. Then we got to text in someone else’s name. Yup, you guessed it, practically everyone chose to text in Sin Kue or Jo-Yee so that they could use the hyphen, space or extra capital letter! Gotta love kids! Then we text in our number. (All the children have a number for our work buddy wheel and we use this number for the votes/expressions, as they’re all numbered. Means the system is easy to manage in every class.)

After that we used selecting an answer from multiple choice (our favourite colour) this was easy, as we use activote a lot, but of course, the buttons look different. Then we got to choose our 2 favourite colours, then 3. We did some with letters and some with numbers, just to be different. Then we did yes/no/true/false etc. The children accepted this as a matter of course. Lastly we looked at ordering. We did instructions and discussed the correct way first, as I wanted to see if they knew how to order, instead of why they had ordered in a certain way. To finish off, we looked at punctuation and then they had to text in ‘I am …’ with their name at the end and a full stop to finish. This was all in the last 50 mins or so of the day. Over half text in their sentence correctly, complete with full punctutation.

We use them a lot now, in all subject areas, although we do focus on Literacy, as that’s what I said we’d focus on when I applied for the grant to buy them! I often use them to check if the main teaching point has been understood. I used to do this with activote, so that children who have understood can go and start working and those that haven’t could stay for more support. The problem was that some children sometimes got the right answer by chance. Less chance of that happening when they don’t have a multiple choice option. So ask the children to text in any even number. Then any odd number. Do it a few times. Tell them to think creatively! That way you get the children who’ll text in 6/7 digit numbers and those that stick to 1-10. Tell them it must be above 50 or 100 or 1000! This is a really quick way of knowing who does and does not understand odd/even numbers.

One of the other things I used expression for was in that same lesson that I wrote about before. Not sure if everyone knows, but for the past two years the short writing task in KS1 SATs (Key Stage 1 (K-3) (SATs Standard Attainment Targets - tests) has been to write a riddle. I had a riddle I’d typed up on the board and we had previously discussed various story characters. We then looked at a riddle where the clues were in the wrong answer, as the third clue gave away the answer. We thought about what order they should go in and then sent our opinions in. Then children justified their response by saying why they had chosen that order.

Then we looked at another riddle and I revealed each clue one at a time. After each one the children had to text in which story character the riddle might be about. To support the EAL (English as an additional language) with very limited english I had printed out a card with only about 8 characters on, complete with names, so that they could join in. I had no EAL support for this lesson, but I did have a teaching assistant.

After everyone had text in who they thought it was, we brought the results up and discussed why some were/were not good suggestions. For example, if I had said ‘he’ and someone had text in Goldilocks, other children pointed out why it couldn’t be the right answer. Because on Expression you don’t have to have a new page for a new vote it made it much easier and I was able afterwards to track children’s changes to see if they understood and at which point they were giving plausible answers. It was interesting as some higher ability children did not always give plausible answers at the beginning, whereas some lower ability pupils did! After the first two clues I could then see immediately which children were having difficulty (they had only been introduced to riddles the day before!) and support them. I’m pleased to say that by the end of the riddle everyone was giving plausible answers!

Although I was very mean and deliberately mislead everyone in to thinking it was one character, when in fact it was another! Everyone got it right after the final clue, but my teaching assistant and the Deputy Head kept trying to argue it and wouldn’t let it go! All in good humour but my children thought it was hilarious that the adults had also not guessed it until the very end.”

Utilising technology in the classroom is clearly being adopted all over the world and the impact is sure to influence “the adults of tomorrow”, but lets also applaud teachers who are prepared to take risks, but who also recognise the potential of every child no matter what the age.

Engagement and understanding are key…..