tools | Steps in Teaching and Learning

Switching off the Interactive White Board for good

May 28, 2011 in thoughts, tools

IWB’s have had their day. I personally can’t see any future for them in classrooms and the sooner schools stop buying into them the sooner the money can be spent on better educationally interactive tools.

The hype surrounding these boards is what makes removing them from classrooms difficult. Many teachers will reel in shock if they were told that their IWB will be removed but if you ask them what they really use the board for, you will discover that it in general, they use it just like a normal white board except they can ‘put the internet on it’. Occasionally you will meet those in teaching who use their boards as an interactive learning tool, creating content that engages their class. But this is not the norm. Most schools will have older IWB’s which only allow one user at a time, if you want real interaction you need to upgrade the board and that costs a lot of money especially if you are looking to upgrade the whole school.

Training is also a cost factor – yes there are plenty of freely available videos that show you how to do everything you need to know but many teachers will not spend the time to watch them and most prefer face to face training. These sessions are fantastic and leave teachers feeling inspired but within a couple of months the training has been forgotten and many return to their original ‘putting the internet on it’ usage. And if you have Promethean boards then you also have the additional cost of replacing Interactive pens which have a habit of breaking quickly.

I asked my class what they thought about IWB’s and this is what most of the responses were

Never get to use it
Boring waiting for a turn
Fun when a small group use it

And when asked if they could spend the money on a new IWB or something else EVERYONE said something else. What was the something else? A range of devices that could be used anywhere – netbooks, iPads, iPod Touch devices, Nintendo DS devices. My class reiterated that these devices allowed more interaction than an IWB and that is hard to disagree with. If I wanted to buy a fully interactive multi-touch multi-user IWB I would need approx £2000! For the same price I could buy:

5 iPad (2nd generation) devices OR
13 iPod Touch devices OR
9 Netbook’s OR
21 Nintendo DS lite devices

These tools provide interactive learning and are mobile. The IWB is a tool that has had it’s day and it’s time to take a bow. So long IWB, it’s time to be switched off for good.

Tags: iwb
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Bringing technology and children together

May 18, 2011 in Resources in the classroom, tools

in use

Today my school hosted its first multi-school creative technology session involving 15 children from different schools from the surrounding area. The aim was to demonstrate a few tools that my own class use, create a blog and let the children ‘run loose’ on those same tools. The result can be seen on our blog 90minutes which is on Posterous. Here’s Alex from the group to explain.

Children from my own class led the way as ‘techno warriors’ and their input was invaluable as they could help show the visiting children how they used the tools creatively in their own work. The children participating from the other schools had never used any of the tools that I included in the session, but this never hindered their enthusiasm to learn and create. The afternoon session was almost two hours long so we named the blog 90minutes to reflect the time we had available to us. At the end, every child left with a smile and full of enthusiasm, wanting to stay longer and continue creating content.

And that to me is what bringing technology and children together is about.

Tools we used

Posterous to set up the blog
DomoAnimate to create animated cartoons
AviaryEducation to create music
Audioboo to record the interview
iNudge to create loops
Google Docs for presentations

Tags: activities, classroom tech, creative, creativity, ideas, inspiration, Inspirational, learning, teaching, technology, tools, web 2.0
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Invisible Tech, Visible Learning

April 10, 2011 in learning, thoughts, tools

As part of a recent keynote I gave to the PGCE students at the University of Leicester I presented the following video about integrating technology into the classroom.

Tags: classroom tech, creativity, elearning, ICT, ideas, inspiration, integration, learning, resource, teaching, technology
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Ancient Egypt comes to life with Skype

February 10, 2011 in learning, raves, tools

Ancient Egypt meets Skype

Last month I posted a tweet on Twitter asking for help to set up a Skype session with an ancient Egyptian museum so that the Year 6 children in my school could have a great learning experience. There were many replies, one great tip led to the Petrie Museum and today that all came to an amazing and successful conclusion with many children describing it as the best lesson they ever had.

I was put in contact with Tracey Golding, who works in the Petrie Museum, and was extremely keen to find out about my suggestion of using Skype to let the children find out more about their current Ancient Egypt topic. However, last week the whole event almost met a sudden end as I discovered that Skype is blocked for use in schools by our network provider (EMBC) but that is another story altogether. I found a way around the issue and after an impromptu test session with Tony Shepperd and I spoke with Tracey for the first time yesterday. Technical issues were sorted and this morning the whole of Year 6 crammed into one room and awaited Tracey’s call. There was nervous anticipation when the arranged time came and went but then the ringing went across the room and a cheer went up. The class were already buzzing before we had even answered the call. Tracey was brilliant especially so as it was her first ever Skype call and it was to a room filled with year 6 children, their teachers and teaching assistants, myself and the head teacher. She walked us around a room filled with artifacts stopping here and there to describe them and answer the children’s questions. At the end we had a question and answer session and then we said our goodbyes to frantic waving and cheering.

It was a very successful session that demonstrated how effective and powerful a tool such as Skype can be in the classroom. Skype have developed a Skype for Education edition which when released to schools and education establishments will help connect learners to others all over the world. Skype breaks down those classroom walls and is a fantastic example of what making education real is all about.

5 tips for a Skype session in your school.

Test Skype first to make sure it works in your school, it may need firewall settings to be adjusted or ports to be opened.
Check the lighting in your room to make sure viewers can see you, and get them to check their own too.
Check sound – make sure you can hear each other. In a class setting it’s a essential to feed your sound through an amplifier.
Hold a test session so that you can iron out any technical issues.
If you are doing a question and answer session, have your class prepare questions first to give the participant(s) an opportunity to put their answers together.