1. Supporting Children's Learning with ICT Laura Dimmery

2. A brief overview of the schools technology - 260 children attend the school, with 143 children in the Infant department. In the infant department there are two interactive boards that are non-moveable but are of a child friendly height. There are also two recently installed smart boards that are located in the nursery and year one classrooms. The school recently invested in 15 iPads that are rotated between classes. A school app was recently purchased with remaining funds from the ICT budget, this has been very successful in keeping parents up to date with school life. There are two computers in the area in which I work one based in the classroom and the other in the playroom but at the moment they are not connected to our new colour photocopier. Each member of teaching staff has a laptop that is used for PPA and writing reports. There are also talking tins and a recording station that plays CDs and cassette tapes. There is a digital camera for capturing class moments. Your intentions for the activity - I intend to use an app on the iPad called Puppet Pals to support learning for a Language lesson, the lesson is Oracy based with relevant learning outcomes. I intend to carry out the lesson with twelve Reception aged children who are currently working towards outcomes based on their attainment levels. The children are of average and basic skill ability. My role I am employed as a Learning support assistant within the reception class that includes 7 year one pupils, working with children aged 4-6 years. Delivering focused activities to groups of children that have been planned alongside the class teacher. Introduction 3. What do you want the learners to achieve by the end of the session/activity? Knowledge : Retell key parts of a fairy tale story Comprehension : Discuss and use appropriate dialect Application : Apply the skill using iPads Evaluation : Self assessment and Peer assessment (what went well/not so well) Learning Objectives 4. Group of 12 reception children 4-5 years olds Foundation Phase LNF/Bridgend County Borough skills ladders Average and basic skills ability Class dynamics 5. Introduce the story of Cinderella. What happens during the story? Can you retell some of the story with your talk partner? Can you use the Puppet Pals app on the iPad with your partner to retell the story by choosing a character and recording your conversation? LNF/Bridgend County Borough skills ladders- Language, Literacy and Communication Lesson/activity outline 6. Cinderella Story iPads Puppet Pals App Pictures of instructions Resources 7. The BIG picture? Differentiation A f L R.McGill 2012 - @TeacherToolkit Learning Outcomes jja along the way. Use words, phrases and simple sentences Re-tell key parts of the story of Cinderella Outcome 03 Re-tell in simple form the main parts of a familiar or favourite story. Outcome 04 Retell own experiences or stories in the order in which the occur LNF Outcome 03 & Outcome 04 Pupils attainment levels Average and basic skills Cinderella, Fairy Godmother, Prince Charming, the ball, Glass slipper Active listening, Group discussion, Individual thinking, Talk Partners Previous learning experience Initiate conversations about personal experiences Active listening Listen to the story of Cinderella read by the TA. Group discussion discuss charcters and the roles they played in the story of Cinderella. Individual thinking & Talk partners - Decide on appropriate dialect between the characters from the story of Cinderella. Pair work encouraged. Record conversations using Puppet Pals on a iPad and playback. Watch and listen as a group. 8. The Evaluation As part of my Language, Literacy and Communication lesson plan I decided to incorporate some aspects of ICT. The lesson was delivered to 12 reception pupils with average and basic skills abilities. The activity outcomes were based on a LNF statement for Oracy alongside smaller, enabling steps from Bridgend County Borough skills ladders. The pupils learning intentions were differentiated into two outcomes. Outcome (03) retell in simple form the main parts of a familiar or favorite stories, and Outcome (04) Re-tell own experiences and stories broadly in the order in which they occurred, including some detail. The main objective was to listen to the traditional fairy tale story of Cinderella that linked to our theme of Weddings. Then with the aide of an ICT resource the pupils should then be able to record themselves using similar dialect as the characters in the story, by controlling the record and pause buttons then playing it back to listen. Galloway (2007) writes, Having thought about everyday technology, children can put control into practice, perhaps by creating and playing back a voice recording. (P.29) 9. The setting had recently invested in fifteen new Apple iPads for both the infant and junior department to use collectively. I decided that as part of my main lesson I would plan for the iPads to be used as one of the main resources. However on the day of my lesson not all of the iPads were available to me, a member of staff from the junior department informed me that some pupils had not finished their work from the previous day and that they would still require the iPads. After some negotiations between the teacher and myself it was decided that I would be able to use four of the iPads. Although I was restricted to how many iPads the pupils were able to access during the activity, I had however, planned for an element of collaborative work during the main part of the session. Thornwaite (2014) writes, Having a small number of iPads works very smoothly for lessons that use cooperative learning. With cooperative learning, students are set off into groups, working collaboratively on assigned projects. (P.20) 10. The activity involved the pupils working in pairs re-telling key parts of the traditional fairytale story of Cinderella that had been read to them earlier, through the use of an app called Puppet Pals. The app is colorful, child friendly, and has been a hailed a great success with the junior department when covering topics such as the Tudors. As the pupils in my group were of a younger age (4-5 year olds) the important part of using this app was making sure that the pupils were listening, whilst I demonstrated what they would have to do. There were lots of instructions to remember as the pupils accessed the different screens. To help with this I decided to photograph and print out stills of each screen and with the help of the pupils at the beginning of the lesson order them correctly on the board for them to use during the lesson if required. The use of pair work and talk partners appeared positive with the pupils, and they had great interest in the characters that they had selected. The pupils were able to reflect on the characters and decide which part of the story they would want to portray, dialect was sometimes negotiated with some conflicts of opinion on who should speak first. These conflicts were resolved with intervention from myself, I encouraged the pupils to reflect back on the key parts of the story. This then enabled the children to decide on who should speak first, before the pupils finally began recording themselves. There were no scripts and the pupils were encouraged to use expressive language that related to key elements of the story of Cinderella. McKeown and McGlashon (2012) write, The joy of multimedia for many learners is that it does not require good reading skills and it appeals to a range of learning styles. (P.38). 11. The decision to use iPads during the Language lesson had come from assessments during a previous learning experience. Assessment notes had allowed me to see that the pupils were confident in using the iPads, and in particular the app sandraw that had been used for a letter formation activity. It became apparent from the last activity when I used the iPads most of the group had access to an iPad at home or similar tablet device. Leask and Meadows (2000) write, Many pupils also live in homes which are rich in ICT, using computers, CD-ROMs and the Internet regulary with the help of siblings and parents. (P.5). The Puppet Pals app was a more complex app compared to sandraw, with the children having to choose characters and backdrops, making decisions themselves based purely on a fairytale story. There were some errors made when it came to the children recording their voices. Some of the children forgot to press the record button while others could not remember what they wanted to say and needed a gentle reminder from their partner. The children were able to scaffold each other during this period and if further help or guidance was needed I was also there to support and encourage. As a teaching assistant it was important that I had knowledge of the app prior to using it with the pupils and that I had taken part in sufficient iPad training to be able to support the pupils. A whole school iPad training session took place in November 2013, without this prior training I may have been apprehensive about using this particular ICT resource. This, in turn would have affected my ability to deliver the task effectively to my group. Thornwaite (2014) writes, Within schools, whichever scenario is being played out, adequate training for the involved educators is crucial. (P.22) 12. The iPads were a very good ICT resource to aide with the oracy lesson and it appeared that the pupils were fully engaged in the process and I was able to establish if outcomes were met or not. However, levels of noise in the classroom from other children were present when the children played back their conversations, although this was to be expected when working with a group of pupils. Whilst preparing the resources for the activity, I knew immediately there would not be enough iPads for everyone to use, so I decided to set up the interactive board for the remaining pupils until iPads became available. The pupils seem to enjoy using a package called 2simple when accessing the class computer, so I decided to set up 2animate a storyboard animation package from the program, on the interactive board. I demonstrated to the children first what they would need to do, as this package was new to them. Then I asked the children to create Cinderella, and to think about her emotions and facial expressions at the beginning of the story compared with at the end. The children again worked in pairs and took it in turns to alter every other frame using the coloring pens at the side of the screen. 13. However, some difficulties arose when using the mouse, some of pupils found it difficult to control the mouse, with the curser on screen becoming lost on several occasions and the picture envisioned has not been achieved. Fulton (2013) writes, Children have difficulty controlling the mouse when using a painting program and can become frustrated that the picture they are trying to draw does not appear as intended. (P.21) Notes of this were made in the pupils assessment file alongside the oracy outcomes and it was later discussed with the class teacher. Although the learning outcomes were oracy based, I was also able to assess the pupils on their ICT competence, this then allowed for future planning for ICT to become integrated more frequently into everyday lessons. Dcells (2008) state, Childrens progression in ICT capability should be observed with an understanding of childs development and the stages children move through. (P.10). Dialect between the pupils was very good and as a non-participant observer I was able to assess the pupils from the language they were using while accessing 2animate. New skills had also been acquired from using the ICT resource, by the end of the session the pupils were creating their own animations. It has now become a popular choice of the pupils in the reception class, with pupils from the group initially scaffolding others whilst using it. Potter et al (2010) writes, often the most successful technologies have been add-ons to the main classroom experiencesome painting and drawing packages. (P.6) 14. References Bennett, R. (2013) Learning ICT with English. London: David Fulton. DCELLS (2008) Information and communication technology in Wales. Cardiff: WAG. Galloway, J. (2008) Primary ICT for teching assistants. Oxford: Routledge. Leask, M and Meadows, J. (2012) Teaching and learning using ICT in the Primary School. London: RoutledgeFalmer McKeown, S and McGlashon, A. (2012) Brilliant ideas for using ICT in the inclusive classroom. Oford: Routledge Potter, J and Cranmer, S and Selwyn, N. (2010) Primary schools and ICT: Learning from the pupil perspectives. London: Continuum. Thornthwaite, C. (2014) Not a Toy, but a Tool: An Educators Guide for understanding and using iPads. Plymouth: Rowman and Littlefield. 15. ICT iPads and the App Puppet Pals 16. Photographic instructions for the app Puppet Pals for the children to use if required. 17. A child working towards the oracy outcome with the aide of an iPad 18. Children using 2animate to recreate Cinderella 19. A recording of the childrens work 20. A small collection of photographs from the Lesson, enjoy!