Netbook Adventures in the classroom

As ICT coordinator, a constant challenge is to inspire many of the other teachers (particularly those with techno-fear) to embrace, experiment and enjoy new technology day-to-day in the classroom. The aim of this blog is to describe my weekly experiences of netbooks and other technologies in the hope to share and inspire others. How much can these technologies truely enhance teaching and learning in the classroom?

"It is our professional responsibility to learn and be up to date on everything we teach - this includes ICT."  

Sharing technology in the classroom is essential for allowing the children to develop the skills they will need for the future. You do not have to be an expert - simply an awareness and willingness to have a go. The key reason children learn technology so quickly is because they just have a go and experiment. They have this wonderfully innocent see-something-and-click-it-to-see-what-it-does mentality. This is key to ICT and supports independent thinking and learning skills - we must encourage this at every stage in our teaching.

The following video captures the essence of this - albeit a little worrying for the future role of us 'teachers' - how will this influence your approach to the teaching and use of ICT in the classroom? (17 minutes long and worth every second)

http://www.ted.com/talks/lang/eng/sugata_mitra_the_child_driven_education.html

Netbook use in other schools

Click on the links below to read about the use of netbooks in other schools which were part of a pilot scheme in West Sussex:

Netbook Project - Manor field
Netbook Project - Eastbrook

First Week - Changing the mindset

Speaking with netbooks users in other schools, the first challenging step is changing your mindset - adapting your approach to day to day teaching to take advantage of this technology. You have to commit yourself, every lesson asking - How can the netbooks be used here, and effectively? Leaving old (safe) habits behind is difficult. New routines need to be established.

Allowing the children time to build up basic core computer skills have come to light this week. The children without these skills struggle to meet learning targets - some barely get beyond a title and date! Eek! The following skills (highlighted this week) have been the most important:

- Basic text editing: cursor keys, backspace, delete, enter, underline, allign left and right, center,  undo
- Internet: search box,  go back/forward one page,
- Keyboard & Mouse: left right hand buttons, copy, paste, shift, caps lock

With these embedded - work output has started to be more on target and less "you've done nothing here - ahhh!"

Tip of the week: number/label each netbook. Makes it easier to track technical problems, gives greater ownership to the children, responsibility for plugging it in correctly to charge and if connection to the server is dodgy they can save their work on the hardrive of that machine.

Use of VLE (Moodle) and Forums in Literacy

Moodle is great! Well it would be if it was more user friendly! Perseverence though does pay off as the possibilitites it opens up are quite exciting.

I already use Moodle as a great way to share our learning in class with parents (photos, videos, topic summaries, weekly messages, homework) and to extend the learning opportunities for children at home (links to games/challenges/websites linked to what we are doing in class).

Forums are a great way to get all the children's reactions and ideas for a certain subject or question. They really enjoy reading each others comments and responding to each other. I decided to use this in a literacy lesson today based on describing story settings.

This approach reminded me of the handheld text units that many companies offer allowing every child to type their ideas which are instantly displayed on the screen for the teacher and class to discuss. I set up a forum with 6 pictures of different settings and following the input invited the children to explore the forum and write descriptions for their chosen picture. 

What suprised me was how quickly and effectively ideas were shared. Firstly they could read each others comments as inspiration and secondly I could quickly review all comments on the class whiteboard, sharing and discussing the best throughout the lesson. Real time reviewing of contributions allowed me to highlight spellings (where appropriate), basic sentence errors, improvements etc. after which the children could then go back and edit their ideas. Every child engaged, every child recognised, every child progressing. Just as teachers use the internet daily for inspiration and resources, children here have been sharing and using each others ideas to progress in their learning

The follow up work to this saw the children reviewing all the comments on a chosen setting, selecting their favourite ideas (their choice as writers) and using these to write a short descriptive paragraph. This was handwritten - making sure the balance is kept between handwriting and typing skills.

I wonder in what other ways forums can be used to enhance learning and thinking skills? (peer assessment, reviewing learning,  remote collaborative working...)

Touchtyping

They are many typing software options out there. Busy fingers has been used in our school in the past. The colourful and child friendly 2Simple 2Type has many positive reviews (if the budget is there to invest). I decided to try out a recommended program called TuxType which is free to download from the Internet - Hurray! Which means the children could even download and practise at home (which some did!). The class and I love this program - we try to have a 10 minute session every morning. I discussed hand position on the keyboard, and after a few reminders was amazed at how quickly (and keenly) the children were maintaining the correct hand position. Tuxtype is great fun, which I believe it works so well for the children. You can follow lessons or play games. The presentation of the lessons is very basic compared to other software out there, but they worked for the children. The games are great - really encouraging the chidlren with their key awareness and typing speed as they type word lists to win fish or zap comets :) Evenmore, there is the option to create your own word lists e.g. tricky words, topic related words... A couple of screenshots are below. Great fun. Big thumbs up from the children.

Independent Space Projects

Independent space projects this half term have been a great opportunity for the children to practice, develop and extend their ICT skills. The first page of the project was completed altogether then the children were free to choose what else they researched and wrote up. All children were given the option to use the netbooks or write by hand; interestingly 2 wrote their entire project by hand while 5 others hand wrote half. Many children decided to mix it up by typing, printing out then illustrating/decorating their work by hand. I was hugely impressed by the quick development of skills, not just presentational layout and editing but saving and managing their own folders of files. A great deal of 'technical support' from the teacher/adults in class was necessary at first - this was lessened by focused class inputs on certain skills (inserting an image, moving the cursor, saving etc.). This activity could be further developed by an adult working with different groups each session focusing on key working skills - reseach, writing up in own words, presentation etc. Click here for a link to the SmartBoard slideshow I used to support this work.

Key tip: Encourage the children to support and seek help amongst each other (fostering independent and working together skills reflecting the real world). It was great to see children of varying abilities starting to support peers and others they do not usually work with in class. This connects with the Sugata Mitra research (see video above) and the vital life skills in an ever developing and widening technological world that is becoming more and more chalenging to teach precisely and effectively to young learners.

Moodle support document

To support other staff with the technical joys of Moodle I created a Moodle - How to document. Check it out and let me know what you think. Click on the icon  to enlarge then click on File > Download to get a copy.