SUPPORTING CHILDREN'S LEARNING WITH ICT

Alexis CollisonFoundation Degree for Learning Support

INTRODUCTION

I am a teaching assistant in a year 2 class of an infant school. I

have planned to set myself a challenge and ultimately engage the

children with the task and I hope they will be enthusiastic in taking

part. I hope this will be something we will do regularly and it wont

just be a ‘one off’.

We are very fortunate to have excellent ICT provision throughout

our infant school. We have an eager ICT coordinator who ensures our

equipment is in good working order and she has a ‘wish list’ to keep

it up to date with current trends!

LEARNING OBJECTIVES

This will be a Literacy session and I have planned to use the ICT

equipment as a way of recording or creating a story and its

characters.

Some children find it difficult to sit and write a story but through

using equipment such as a microphone or ipad they can record their

own story without fear of correct spelling and keeping pace of writing

during the lesson. They can also record in short bursts, save and

return to add more when possible.

Ultimately I would like them to enjoy being creative and explore

how to use this wonderful equipment but also share what we have

created with others.

LEARNING OBJECTIVES

My key action verbs:• Knowledge: identify, record, remember, tag.

• Comprehension: chat, explain, describe, recognise, variety• Application: demonstrate, achieve, relate, utilise, carry out

• Analysis: explore, examine, scrutinise, compare• Synthesis : invent, plan, devise, create

• Evaluation: Assess, evaluate, consider, reflect, think.

CLASS DYNAMICS

We have 26 children in our class. We are a year 2 class

with the majority now aged 7years old.

We have a good range of ability with most achieving

Foundation Phase outcome 5.

The lesson I have planned will be covered by the whole

class eventually but initially I intend to work with the lower

ability group who are currently achieving a good outcome

four but with elements of outcome 5.

CLASS DYNAMICS

I will be referring to the Framework for Children's Learning for 3 to

7-year olds in Wales to set the activity to the expected standard for the

age group and the outcome we will be working towards. It covers the

seven areas of learning. I will be looking at the outcome for Language,

Literacy and Communication when designing the activity.

I will also be making links to the Skills Framework for 3-19 year olds

in Wales to ensure I am including the development of skills in thinking,

communication and most importantly ICT.

The skills framework works across the curriculum and skills that the

children are developing through this activity will be transferable to other

subjects.

LESSON/ACTIVITY OUTLINE

We have found it difficult to get some children to write a story! They may

share some lovely ideas with you about a character or theme of a story but

when it comes to writing it they become distracted or tell you they cant do

it. I intend to use our ICT equipment as a way of them recording their

ideas and stories and building upon this by using other methods to extend

their story. They could also use their recordings as a prompt to help them

write it into their book. Through using the ipad and class computers the

activity is achievable for all ability groups but when we observe and assess

the end product that is where we will see the differentiation in content and

how they plan to extend their work.

LESSON OUTLINE/ACTIVITY

I feel this will have a solid purpose and enhance their prior knowledge. The child

may find a resource that they really enjoyed learning and it will give them

confidence in their ability in story writing.

When making a cross curricular link it is important it is done with consideration of

the end product and what the child would have achieved in relation to their

progress and development. There is no point doing a literacy lesson and adding an

ipad just to tick a box if neither part actually work together.

The Learning Wales website gives guidance for using ICT to support Literacy. It

provides links to current documents from the Welsh Assembly but also shares case

studies of good practice from other schools. It interesting to see what others do and

from this you are able to be inspired with what is possible in your own classroom.

FOUNDATION PHASE OUTCOMES

Framework for Children's Learning for 3 to 7-year

olds in Wales

Outcome 4 – Children speak audibly, conveying meanings to a

range of listeners. They begin to extend their ideas or accounts

by including some detail.

Outcome 5 – Children speak clearly, with increasing confidence

and use a growing vocabulary. They show an awareness of the

needs of the listener by including relevant detail.

RESOURCES

We will be using two of the class computers, three ipads, one tuff

mic, one flipcam and one tuff cam.

Children who aren’t using equipment will be working in pairs to

plan their story using a giant story map or puppets. The more

confident story writers may be writing straight into their books or

using a sheet set out like a film reel to segment and plan their story.

We will be working towards everyone producing their piece using

the equipment.

5 Minute Lesson PlanThe Big PictureLang, Lit & Comm lesson – creative story telling and

preparation for writing activity.All children have previous

knowledge of story writing but this will demonstrate their ability to create a story through another

medium (ICT).The link will be Literacy and ICT.

Some children will work independently and others with a

partner to share ideas.

ObjectiveTo begin to produce a piece

of work using the equipment.

To be able to explain to some one else how they created

their piece of work/character.

EngagementThe children love using

the computers and ipads and I will explain

what we hope to achieve. Replaying

what they have done and giving positive and specific praise to keep

them engaged.

Stickability!

Hopefully they will take away the fun they had creating their story.

What else they could with that

equipment. What they

would do to improve/do

different next time.

AfLI will be working with the group so as they progress I will ask how they feel about using the equipment and observe their level of engagement. Ask them specific questions about characters/scenes and if they think they could improve. During the plenary we will share our progress.

Key WordsCharacter/s

sceneConnectives

OpeningBuild upProblem

ResolutionGood adjectives

DifferentiationMore able will be creating their story map/writing to

prepare to record.Average creating their

story map or using puppets

Below average will be using small world to play

out a story and computer/ipad to create a

character.

Teacher/StudentCarpet session to

introduce what everyone will be expected to do and state objective. I will emphasise I’m

there to help but I want to see their ideas and the story developing.

I will give opportunity for the children to

experiment and just observe and ask

questions as I move around each activity.

THE EVALUATION

The session began well with the children eager to get started on their activities. A

few children volunteered their suggestions for characters and scenarios to begin

their story.

Initially the children just wanted to play and a couple of children found it hard to

get started and were looking at others were doing for reassurance so I partnered

them up and asked them to collaborate to produce their story.

I was pleased to see all remained on task with a few asking for my help with a

few technical issues!

It was a learning opportunity for both me and the children. When using the apps

on the ipad such as puppet pals the children were able to extend their story by

changing the scene and adding in their own characters.

THE EVALUATION

I supported them by demonstrating how to use the equipment and allowed them to

‘have a go’. I offered reassurance when needed but I was just there to observe

progress and support when the children were working at their story.

Observing their progress through the session most were consistently engaged and

everyone produced a very good piece of work. I am intrigued to see how we will use

these devises in the future and the skills they have gained from this session.

I feel it was beneficial to allow some children to record their ideas and not to only

give value to work if it is written in their book which some find very difficult.

Through apple tv we were all able to watch the ipad videos which was a very proud

moment for the children involved and others are keen to complete their videos to

share those too!

THE EVALUATION On occasion the classroom did get quite noisey with some very

interesting character voices and the excitement of being let loose with

the resources. Perhaps next time I would withdraw a group to another

room or the hall to give them opportunity to record with background

noise.

We are fortunate to have a lovely outdoors area which could also be

an area we could utilise for future ICT investigations.

I do feel inspired to include more ICT when producing work. With

literacy it fitted well to the individuality of a story writing activity. It

was achievable to all and required very little differentiation during the

lesson but our more able and talented children will be enhancing on

their work.

THE EVIDENCEThis group were using the small world farm to create their story. To begin they decided

on the problem, where a horse goes missing from the farm. One child filmed it using

the ipad. The other two children then carried on just playing out the story as they

wanted and improvised as the other added to the story. They worked well as a group

and when the activity finished they were eager to share their next idea for the run

away horse!

THE EVIDENCEThese are screen shots of a Puppet Pal story. Its an app we have used

before on the ipad. Its quite simple to use and allows the child to

change scenes and sizes of characters. Through apple tv we are able

to view the stories as a class. We have used this app before. The

children have complete control over the story building and they love

adding their voices to the characters.

This is another app on ipad where

a child has drawn what he thinks Mr

Stink looks like. He didnt want to

create his own so after hearing the

story at home he thought he would

draw him and think of his own

adventure for Mr Stink next time!

This particular child does not enjoy

story writing and currently under

writes a few sentences which he

finds a challenge.

I feel he enjoyed this activity and

next time I hope he will record a

description of his character or retell

his favourite part of the story.

THE EVIDENCE

THE EVIDENCE

This is the beginning of a story

recorded on the easi-speak mic.

The child struggled to think of a

beginning to their own story so

they chose to innovate the story

of Jack and the Beanstalk.

THE EVIDENCEWe use textease for the children’s work on the computer. During this

session the children used its paint package to design their character.

Another child chose to start their story and changed the font and colour

to make it ‘different’. They are confident using textease and some of its

features as they have been using it since Reception.

TO BLOG OR NOT TO BLOG!

As part of my assignment I had planned to set up a class blog. We

had a carpet session where I explained to the children it would be

our class diary where everyone got to contribute something about

their day or an achievement. They shared lots of ideas of what they

would like to write about.

Due to some restrictions to our class computers we were unable to

set up our class blog by the deadline for this assignment but the IT

co-ordinator is going to put a blog space on our school website which

we are really pleased about.