ICT and Literacy

The course was run a second time, this time with seven participants. Again we used a heart to show things we loved about the day, a suitacse to show things we took away from the day, a question mark to show things we would like to learn more about and a bin to show things we didn’t like.

Hearts-seven responses

I loved..

• Comic Life
• Playing with the Playdough to make an animated film.
• Really enjoyed the Animation exercise.
• I Can Animate
• Variety of resources shown in ICT especially I Can Animate.
• Enjoyed the friendly atmosphere.
• Information about Starwriter, Kidspiration etc.

Suitcase-seven responses

Things I will take away from the day…

• I would like to try iPhoto to set up a slideshow for parents’ night.
• iPhoto, Comic Life
• iPhoto, Comic Life
• iPhoto
• Comic Life, Brilliant!
• Will definetely check out Interactive Language Websites
• Would love to try Animation in the classroom. Kids would love it!

Question mark-five responses

Thing I would like to learn more about…

• Worried it won’t work! ie the technology.
• How do I get over my sense of being overwhelmed by technology?
• Questions, not yet but will use the blog!
• How do I add captions to an iPhoto slideshow?
• I intend to make more use of the digital camera. Need to learn more about iPhoto, (try it myself first.)

Bin-five responses

Things I would leave out…

• Don’t think I would use the blog.
• Loads of info – I hope I don’t get swamped and can remember it all.
• Some aspects went straight over my head -(I’m not at that stage yet) eg Bluetooth, blogging.
• The sweeties – bad for your teeth OR make them Jelly babies.
• Nothing to bin!

Through discussion we considered that the use of ‘I can animate’ addressed the following areas of language.

descriptive writing in general

• use of adjectives

characterisation

development of plot

Planning

• use of mind maps
• scriptwritinguse of music for effect / to convey meaning
• Use of lighting

Discussion  / collaboration

Gave a real purpose for designing & making

Listening & Talking

Sequencing

• storyboarding
• directing skills

There was a foundations for writing feel to the whole process.

It could be used to set the scene for Writer’s Craft.

fun and enjoyment

• comment about how ICA reflects this principle

depth and challenge

• comment about how ICA reflects this principle

active learning

• comment about how ICA reflects this principle

motivation

• comment about how ICA reflects this principle

personalisation & choice

• comment about how ICA reflects this principle

refer to kidspiration example include chart of postit notes

During the course a participant asked:

” If I want to include photos of children in either a Blog or on a school website, what do I need to do? Are their certain rules I need to follow?”

Berni directed staff to Standard Circular 1.19 which deals with School websites. There is also a Draft Blogging Policy which teachers may find helpful.

At the outset of the course participants were asked to interview each other to identify the technologies that they used to support literacy. Discussion then took place about different the ways and circumstances in which each resource was used .

As the list below shows teachers in classrooms across Argyll & Bute are already confident in using a very wide range of technologies to support this cross cutting theme of the curriculum.

• Digital photography
  • slideshows
  • groupworking
  • making books
  • in video Presentations
  • to address individual needs
    • as a stimulus for writing
    • to support communication
• Digital Projector
  • direct teaching
    • literacy world
  • setting the scene
  • providing a backdrop / creating a context
  • Powerpoint for presenting (pupil work)
• Interactive Whiteboard
  • handwriting patterns and letter formation
• Basic Computer skills
  • building confidence
  • Developing knowledge & understanding
  • for enjoyment
  • encouraging different forms of access
  • SMART LEARNING
• Kid Pix
  • creating pictures
  • using tools for a specific purpose
  • using and starting to understand terminology
  • structured & focussed exploration
• Talking Books
  • ‘the children love them’
  • they encourage reluctant readers
  • children gain confidence in using the hardware
  • Access
• Online resources
  • Education City
  • Grid Club
• CD ROMS
  • BSL sign Language
  • Riglo for teaching French to P4
• Internet (for research)
• Making Mock websites
• Digital Video
  • for self & peer & formal assessment
  • showing improvement to parents (baby steps)
  • Helping teachers to make good observations
  • Drama

The infant pupils of Kilninver Primary have been studying dinosaurs this term, and…they have all really enjoyed it. They all had lots of ideas about what they wanted to learn and the activities they wanted to do using dinosaurs so we just made the topic up as we went along , experimented a wee bit, had heaps of fun and learned loads of interesting things along the way. Oh, we also made a huge dinosaur or two, reconstructed the land before time and shot some films and cartoons along the way.  The idea for this apatosaurus came from P2 when they were reading ‘The land of the dinosaurs’ from Oxford Reading Tree. Sometimes an apatosaurus is called a diplodocus, we called this one Daisy. She stands in the sink in our class and watches over us while we work. While reading their ORT reading book the P2s asked if they could make the giant footprint that the children in the story found, somehow…this suggestion led to us all pretending to be palaeontologists digging up ancient fossils while wearing hard hats   and using old paintbrushes as tools for the delicate work of unearthing the bones that had been hidden in the soil for millions of years, researching information that other scientistists had posted on the web and giving lectures about our findings to all the other boys and girls.

Here are some of the digital photos of the exciting and interesting activities we took part in. We used an overhead projector to display the shadow of some of the bones we dug up and described their main features and suggested what creature they once belonged too. Some of the children chose to refer to books and materials they had downloaded from the Internet during their lecture to support the ideas they were discussion.

All of the lectures were recorded using a digital video camera. By replaying the tape we used a well known and familiar peer assessment technique to help each scientist to identify elements of their speech that were  effective and to improve upon the weaker aspects of their performance.Having taken lots of photos of dinosaurs in very specific poses we imported them into Comic Life and added speech bubbles of the creatures having conversations. This gave us a chance to use the new words that we had learned during the topic in a real and exciting way.

Most recently we have written and dramatised some simple stories set in prehistoric times using plastecine models and some of the small dinosaur models. We recorded the short stories using I can animate and we can’t wait to do it again. meghan.mov  

  We used a heart to show things we loved about the day, a suitacse to show things we took away from the day, a question mark to show things we would like to learn more about and a bin to show things we didn’t like.

Nine members of staff attended.

Hearts-nine responses

I loved..

• how easy it can be to use ICT across the curriculum and that I am already on the way.
• plasticine animated stories.
• I can Animate – loved it!! So simple.
• Really interested to learn about the animation programme and the use of it to enthuse and stimulate the children, and to further develop their literacy skills.
• relaxed atmosphere, everyone contributing to discussions, oportunity to explore own preferences.
• enjoyed seeing examples of what’s done in another school.
• doing the animation.I Can Animate & the planning of bernie’sDinosaur topic.
• More of the same!  – & using digital video camera

Suitcase-six responses

Things I will take away from the day…

• I Can Animate, hope to buy this programme.
• Great ideas for using in school especially animations.
• Animations. Opening presentation about ACE
• An enthusiasm to go and plan next term’s topic and to include the elements of ICT that I have learned about today.
• Blogs
• Bloglines

Question mark-five responses

Thing I would like to learn more about…

• Working with iMovie.
• Need to think further about blogging, maybe for short term projects / stand-alones.
• Using blogs.
• Blogs. Film editing.
• Bloglines

Bin-no responses

Things I would leave out…