Integrated, Creative Educational Technology: A Fresh ICT Development

Using ICT to drive subjects needn't be a chore.

What you're about to read is this:

1. Why we're changing things around.

2. What we're doing. Maybe you're doing this or wish to adopt too.

3. A closer look. Examples.

Integrated, creative educational technology means learning to use technology as the joint driving force for the lesson or project in hand. This is the mantra and ethos behind all of the changes we're putting in place at our school. It's a tall order. We have a very mixed set of abilites from both students and teachers alike - new students when they arrive seem to be off the pace and, by contrast, new staff seem to be right on. You can see, then, it's also very difficult to manage training for such a large number of teachers that is both meaningful and has an end skill they can use in the classroom.

So in terms of training we are soon to be running the ICDL (ECDL) - a stalwort of basic qualifications in ICT but I feel it's quite limiting (We have become a testing center thanks to my counter part in secondary). I like the structure of the ICDL, I just wish there was an equivalent for giving you options of other office products. It's fine if Microsoft Office is your only means presenting, text editing, web browsing and communicating but at our school it isn't. We have just implemented a full roll-out of Google apps for school - 1500 accounts for Year 2 to IB. Therefore everyone from the kids to staff are creating and sharing documents (or at least have the option to do so) for each other to collaborate on. We have 45 iOS devices too and we know the difficulities in making universal web-based files on there. Getting them out of the device is always my main goal. So sharing, collaborating is this modern approach to ICT we should all be adopting. Why? Because our students are keen to do it, are keen to be involved in it and can do it because they know it's a labour saving device.

Our colleagues need advice and first hand experience of this - this is also the point of putting someone in the classroom to lead and demonstrate that it isn't all coding and fancy stuff. Simply adding an iPod touch + app/ laptop + online game to an extended plenary can be the difference between your core group getting a concept or missing the point. There are though those lessons where I am going reasonably technical for some - iMovie is one. Scratch as a method of presentation. Mostly though I am choosing a middle ground - something the class teacher will look at and think "I could do this myself. What's the big deal?"

Long term timetable for in-cass ICT

This year our integrated ICT curriculum is being built from scratch. After a long time contesting the merits and pitfalls of a discrete ICT curriculum it seems the best approach is to boldy take ICT back into the classroom. This means a lot of work. A lot of building resources from existing objectives. A lot of planning. A lot of meetings in different year groups. And a changing timetable every half term (or thereabouts). This means I might lose a few Saturday mornings!

We have kicked off the year with the steady weekly teaching of ICT to Reception using the iPads and then in the ICT suite rotating every 5 weeks. This is because last year we went all the way to Easter thinking we had enough time to teach the year group about logging in and finding common links. For various reasons we didn't. Reception children this year though are, in this order, all about:

1. Play and discovery. For this we use Interactive books and simple games. Initially these apps are: Cat in the Hat. Spot the Red Dot. Toca Robot. Drawing free. Photo Booth. Mad Pad. Paint My Wings. Red Fish (Poisson Rouge)

2. Knowledge and Understanding of the World. Toca Suite. Toca Store. Toca Doctor. Toca house. Toca Train. And role play. Learning about Letter formations and initial sounds. QR codes for Occupations etc.

Click to see Video

3. Key PC skills. Turn it on. Turn on the Monitor. Logging in with the 3 magic keys. (Ctrl, Alt, Del). Pointing and finding. Finding applications. Double clicking. Closing. Shut Down (without pressing the power button!). Using common menus. Using common equipment, cameras etc.

Now, the rest of the year groups as you can see above are given blocks of specialist ICT time. This time is for teachers to work alongside me planning and delivering Topic or Literacy lessons where ICT is thought about in as much detail as the original lesson. In addition to this, the classes also receive a maths lesson, planned and delivered by me once a week.

If we take Year 2 as an example (above). You can see what the teachers want to teach themselves in blue and what they want to take on in their own ICT time. This term we are making a longer project called 'All About Me, VIP' and making a film in iMovie (some of the photos are in the slideshow above). This ties in with their Literacy with instructional language (later examples) and building 'Super Sentences' a strategy to add adjectives and connectives . The whole project will focus on the parent's event where we showcase the children's work ever an afternoon. All parents can see the videos both in the class and download via Vimeo.com.

Click to Play

In the slideshow you can also see the children's maths work. Building on the literacy sessions we've combined Maths and Literacy as they are about to start on a instructional text topic. We used the Bee-Bots to make maps and a treasure hunt. They made a game where they had to create directions using cards and compete against each other by passing on their instructions and scoring by pausing on the treasure. A fun way to talk about instructions and incorporates the Bee-Bots (always fun) and the iPod/ iPad app making them share, talk and guide each other in new way.

To round up: Using ICT to drive subjects needn't be a chore. You just need to be open to something new and fun. We didn't go the 'explore' forst route as we are tight for time. But, in future when we are making circuits in Scratch we certainly will be. In the meantime this is what we're doing and it's a darn sight better and more meaningful than teaching discrete ICT.

Digital Displays - No More Backing Paper or (in future) IWBs

ICT display from South Wootton School, NorfolkOver the summer holidays the IT Dept. at our school have been super busy creating the new VLE platform for Admin and parents in readiness for classes to start adding the first snippets of links and letters for home use before the bigger online docs start appearing.

But, one of the more exciting developments in my opinion is the removal of paper backed displays and the introduction of a series of digital displays. There are 6 screens, one for each year group and a shared one for Reception and Year 1. Each screen has a series of videos on loop showcasing that term's learning or important messages to the passing traffic.

The layout of our ICT area lends itself nicely to this kind of sharing of good children's work because throughout the week the entire school passes by our windows and, at break times a lot of the school walks by on their way to the library which is on the floor above. This means that the everybody can stop and watch and see good ICT, not so much in practice, but finished products; they seldom see a repeated screen.

It also means we're not printing a million reams of paper and HP's yearly output of ink to colour them all with. If you think I'm joking and is a bit of an expensive outlay then I'll give you some numbers first. In the whole of juniors we budget for NT$200,000 a year and always run out - that's about $6,800USD or £4,200. Now, in ICT we budget about £1,200 for ink alone (it used to be more with an A3 printer). So, with this cut slightly and moving the printing to be 'necessary items ony' or 'class displays' then this will cut the 'oh little Johnny wanted this to take home' scenario we all too commonly come across. Thing is we can email this home to little Johnny's parents and, with the other children's work he and his parents can see it on the screens when they walk by all term.

Install 6 LCD displays

The other numbers are the costs of this setup. The screens are 27"(originally 23" but was way to small when sat in the windows) Acer LCD NT$7990 X 6 = NT$47940 + the case, wireless keyboard etc was a rough initial estimate and fitting of NT$137,000 was way too high. Plus we didn't need a giant 1TB drive and all the other gubbins you can see in the spec sheet.

So, we got a cheaper case and bits and pieces and paid for higher spec cabling. The cabling was the big draw as its vital to maintain a strong signal. The computer itself is way over to the right (in the pic) and controlled by standing the other side of this glass. So, the cabling had to run HDMI over LAN and back to HDMI again else the signsal strength would be toast by the time it got to the screens. Also, running 6 lots of VLC @ 720p + means the machine needs a bit of oomph.

Display costsSo you can see from the costs it looks a little pricey especially as fitting was about a $1000US / NT$30,000. But, in all it looks good, the children and teachers are in awe of it and the parents always stop and stare for a while so it catches the eye like no other paper backed display - no matter how many bells and whistels you dangle from it!

And, in a few years it will have paid for itself more or less in the cost of paper and ink - this, assuming we would have been changing a similar amount pieces of paper to match the digital output.

We're pleased with it and wanted to share an important part of learning: seeing best practice of your friends, peers and of course celebrating achievement. We're also pleased with it enough to make another giant step in replacing IWBs across the school with 55-60" LED/ LCD monitors controlled with a wireless Wacom Pen and Touch tablet. If you've seen this tablet in action you'll know too that they are not like the old clunkers that meant the pen was a jagged affair. These are smooth with a multi-touch capability much like an Apple touchpad. We will post more about this development as we test this out. Needless to say we're a bit fed up wth IWBs, their non-interactiveness and VGA greyness.

 This is what it finally looks like from the other side of that glass.

 LCD Display in Action

Olympics QR Code Treasure Hunt with iPods and iPads

QR Codes, I have to say, are a marvellous method for discovery in school. Why? Because they offer up the 'unknown' to children and techers alike. The children, as you can see to the left, don't know what is behind the code until the image appears, like magic, before them. The game we played ensures good language and teamwork as they try to work out which image matches the code. Some children didn't know what the Olympics were and none of them had ver heard of Greco Roman wrestling or water polo - "What? They play handball in the water?" Well, yes, they sort of do.

I'm currently part of summer school and even though I didn't really want to be the ICT Guy during this time I really wanted to try out a few new ideas, namely QR codes with older children and mulit-app projects on the iPads.

What I am presenting to you below is an assembly that I ran using the iPads and iPod Touches as part of a treasure hunt activity based on the 2012 London Olympics. The reason I decided to use this approach was the huge range of ages involved. Summer school is 4 -11 and one or 2 children have only just come from Nursery (I'd forgotten just how small they are!). Also, this needed to cater more to the younger children than the older children with the older aiding the younger with loading the codes and steadying the iPads etc.

So, to get this underway I decided to use iPads with the younger children because they already had experience with QR codes and the iPads themselves. The older children obviously have (or should have) more adept fine motor skills to use the iPod Touches speedily in order to help their younger team mates.

Intro.

I made a simple Google Presentation to show the children a: what the Olympics is about (all the children are multi-lingual and English is either a second, third or distant language). The children need as much visual stimulus as possible - part of the reasoning behind using QR codes and the devices.

The first couple of slides show the Olympic Rings, what QR is and a video with Micheal Phelps as the thumbnail. Micheal Phelps is recently the greatest olympian ever with 22 medals. You might want to keep this fact as a tie-break question later.

Play the video. I asked the children to shout out the events they knew but with them being second language learners just shouting running or jumping or hitting was fine. The video plays the events so quickly that they don't have time to really rest. It's just a starter for what's to come.

Where do we use QR codes?

Next, show then QR codes. We have an image of the QR code use in Taipei for Christmas cards and children's presents being delivered to shopping centers. You will want to edit this no doubt.

For the next part you definitely need a large-ish projector screen. The QR code test is for each group of children to try out the App on the Touches and iPads. It also gives you time to assess your network speed too. If you're using this with 20 or more devices then this part is crucial to the succes of the activity. We're using 30 devices and had to move an access point to our ampitheater (we use these if you need a good quality, load-balancing AP).

The children then get a 'feel' for how this works. I then repeated the test with another simple image and told them about the treasure hunt. The game would have prizes of Gold, Silver and Bronze wrapped chocolate bars these were a Twix for Gold, tin foil wrapped Kit Kats (silver chocolate is very hard to come by!) and Hersheys something or other with a deep brown/ bronzed package.

Play the Game

The game would go like this: The children would, in their teams, explore the ground floor area for QR codes. The codes were placed all over the walls, windows, floors and ceilings (Ceilings - make sure they are flat else they bend and are unusable). The children have a sheet to fill in when they think they have found the correct sport to match the name of the event. On the bottom of the QR code is another code that matches the answer sheet the teachers have. See below.

Children's Sheet (Blank)

 

Teacher's Answer Sheet with all the codes.

 

At the end of 12 minutes (we chose 12 as the 2012 Olympics!) the children were brought back and the scores tallied. If there were any tie breaks we chose the ones who had the bonus archery or Water Polo answer. If they didn't have them then it was a simple question (above)

Winners Ceremony

The children didn't know who was gold, silver or bronze. Instead we used the QR code on the big screen for the children to use the iPods and find out. I said the team name and brought up the final QR code for them to find out. Then the prizes were handed out. All being chocolate they went down and treat.

A simple but fun way to explore, discover and learn about new events at the Olympics.

Next, Olympic Art and the strange events that happened at both the Ancient games, the fore runner to the modern games and the modern games from 1896.

The .Zip file of all the QR code Images.

FoBISSEA Games 2012 in Beijing, China - Day 4 and 5

Day 4- Year 4 Football

Written by Jeni Wong over here.

The Football competition started on Day 4 and in the Year 4 competition this involved 5 teams playing 10 minute rounds to make it to the final. Year 4 Boys and Girls put up a tremendous fight in the soccer and both teams made it to the finals with the Year 4 boys winning one of their games by an impressive 6- nil. Both teams played the same respective boys and girls teams which were now becoming quite a regular fixture, for all of our FoBISSEA teams, DBIS- Discovery Bay International School, Hong Kong. The finals were nerve racking with the girls taking the silver and the boys just losing out at the last minute by 2-1. Both teams did very well and as I coached the girls teams, I have to give special call-outs to Jeni for her great kicks in defence, Wendy for braving the tackles, Jade and Niktha for their super mid-field to forward work, Natalie who made some good saves in goal and Tiffany for being the right place at the right time and scoring some goals. Another medal in the bag- TES is the BEST!

Day 5- Excursion day

This was a real reward for everyone for all their hardwork in the competition and their training prior to leaving for FoBBISEA. We went swimming at the Beijing Cube next to the famous Beijing Birdnest stadium. Arriving early but spending some time negotiating door entrance with the 3 rounds of different door people! But a time well spent and everyone had a great time in the tunnels and tubes. After that a lovely lunch in the sun before playing some bowling and then going off to see the Famous Beijing ChaoYang Theatre Acrobatics World. This truely was an amazing show where acrobats showed us their talents by balancing objects, riding bikes and performing stunts with precision and skill. Check out their website www.bjcyjc.com . Rounding off the evening with a yummy buffect meal where the Year 6 boys chomped down steaks and all the meat that you could imagine. 

Highlights of the trips:

See what they were here

FoBISSEA Games 2012 in Beijing, China - Day 3

Day 3 - The T-Ball 

What an amazing day, we had our usual early rise and shine starting off the day with a great buffet breakfast. It was T-Ball day and we arrived at the beautiful Dulwich Beijing sports ground to the cheers of our loyal parent supporters with their horns and TES pompoms! The children got straight to work by playing in a series of T-Ball games which would determine which teams would make it to the finals. I never realised why we practised T-Ball so much during our ECA practices, but after our day today, I could see the huge part of the FOBISSEA games that the event took. Unlike yesterday,where individual medals could be won by doing your best for yourself, T-Ball really did require a lot of TTT- thinking, tactics and teamwork. Watching the Year 4s play was exciting and nerve racking at the same time...but they really did make a super team. Shubh was a quick thinking pitcher working really well with Gill on first base and Jun Sung as backstop. We had some great fielding by Sean, Svente and Lachlan with their good stopping and large throws. Well done to Tiffany who took a brave stop and blocked a strong hit. Jeni, Jade and Wendy gave some good hits and sprinted home. One tactic TES will definitely be remembered for will be its Stop and Scare tactic, which envied by others has been mastered by Natalie, Nikitha and Shubh but with varying levels of 'Scare'. 

Read on over here

FoBISSEA Games 2012 in Beijing, China.

The FoBISSEA Games Attendees, Beijing, China

The first day... What a BLUR!

After a 4.45am meet-up at the EPC the , bleary eyed 2012 FOBISSEA group representing TES were off. The spirits, despite the early hour, were high and everyone was super excited about what the day ahead was to deliver us. The airport check-in went extremely well and before we knew it we were touching down at Beijing Capital Airport, although we hardly realised we were there with the hazy skies closing in.

The Harrow School, Beijing representatives were there to meet and greet us and led us to the awaiting buses. The excitement was now building, especially on seeing the TES logo in the windscreen of the bus! The next journey was to the Beijing Aquarium where Mr Milner had organised for us to see the dolphin show. Something about trying to get us in the mood for the swimming competition!!! We had a great afternoon wandering the aquarium and getting used to being together as a group. 

Carry on reading the full story and day-by-day write-ups from Mr. McKelvie here on the FoBISSEA Games page.