Supporting Children's Learning with ICT

Supporting Children's Learning with ICTRhian daviesp138844

One of the great things about working with computers is that we are constantly learning from each other. No matter how confident and experienced we are, other people may have a different way of doing something, a quicker short cut, a more useful tool.Galloway (2004) p.8

We live in a wonderfully challenging time. We invent tools of great potential that promise much delight. providing breakthrough combinations of learning approaches, achieving a synergy between what works for learners and what reinforcement and enrichment the creative use of technology can provide.Davitt (2005) p.10Every parent as well as every teacher is acutely aware of the importance of developing childrens literacy and numeracy capability both for their success in the world of education and of later life. In our increasingly technological age becoming a confident user of ICT is increasingly recognized as vital. Cook & Finlayson (1999) p.8

IntroductionOur school has interactive whiteboards in every classroom, a laptop that is shared between the teachers and TAs, one computer in each classroom and a room that is used for interventions, an iMac, iPads, notebooks and digital cameras. The iPads are divided between each Junior class and the Foundation Phase share four. One whiteboard is a Smartboard and two are touch screen boards. The others are Promethian Whiteboards.I am a HLTA in school and I work with most of the classes. I support a group of children in Year 6 on Mondays, I teach the Year 1/2 class on Tuesdays and Wednesdays, on Thursdays I do PSD activities with Year 2 children in the morning and I do PPA in the Reception/Year 1 class in the afternoon and on Friday I cover SENCO time in Year 3/4 in the morning and then cover PPA in the Year 6 class in the afternoons. I teach a variety of subjects including Maths, English, PSD, Music, Art, Drama, R.E and P.E. I enjoy working with all of the children but feel restricted with undertaking activities such as this as I have such a rigid timetable with no room for any flexibility. I intend to undertake a lesson for my PSE group of Year 2 children. I want them to use Puppet Pals and act out a scenario using characters that the children make themselves. I will work with three children who are Outcome 6 and will see how they respond to the questions asked of them, how they use the Puppet Pals programme and how they work together as a team.

Learning ObjectivesICT must be used across the curriculum, in the same way that a pen and pencil are used in most subject areas. What we have now is a much more flexible tool which can greatly enhance the leaning experience. (Ager, 2000, p. 15)

By the end of the lesson I would like the children to be able to have achieved some of the PSD outcomes and some of the ICT skills (see the lesson plan). The children should be able to recognise the Puppet Pals programme and discuss how they could answer the questions given to them. They should also be able to plan and perform using the characters they create and apply their knowledge of how to behave to demonstrate that they are at the appropriate PSD outcome. After they have used the Puppet Pals app they should be able to evaluate their performance assess whether or not they answered the question.

Class dynamicsThere are 29 children in the Year 1/2 class (17 children in Year 1 and 12 children in Year 2).The children in Year 2 range from Outcome 4 to Outcome 6. I chose to work with three of the children who are Outcome 6 for this activity.I work with Year 2 children one morning a week to work on activities relating to the Outcomes they are working towards.I used the PSD document and the ICT Scheme of Work from 2008 from www.learn-ict.org.uk (which was given to me by the Foundation Phase leader).

Lesson/activity outlineSubjects: PSD and ICTA group of Year 2 children who are PSD Outcome 6. (Child A, Child M and Child Z)Objective: to create a Puppet Pals show using What would you do if?Resources: iPad, Puppet Pals programme, What would you do if? cards (see resources page).ICT skills: save work with assistance, take pictures with a camera, use menus to find information, share and work with others using ICT equipment.PSD Outcomes: learning that they can and often do control their emotions, identifying problems and coming up with solutions to solve them, show understanding of how they should relate to each other morally and ethically.Lesson: Ask the children if they have ever used Puppet Pals on the iPad before. Explain that they will be given a question or scenario to create a Puppet Pals show. Give them time to familiarise themselves with the Puppet Pals app.Demonstrate how to make themselves as characters on it. Allow them to work together to take photos, draw around their faces and choose a body to put their faces on.Show children the What would you do if? cards and decide together which question they want to create a Puppet Pals show with.Children can use the menus to decide which background , music and any additional characters they want to use.Choose a second question and repeat the decision making process.Save their work and watch their performances.Evaluate with the group and discuss any changes they would make if they were to do it again.

ResourcesiPad (Puppet Pals app and camera)What would you do if? cards

The EvaluationWhen I asked the children about their previous knowledge of the app they had all used Puppet Pals before so they knew how to use the menus and the basic principles of what they had to do and how to record themselves. The used the time I gave them to familiarise themselves with it again, use the menus and see what choices they had with the backgrounds and music and the variety of characters they could work with. However, they did not know how to create themselves as characters. I demonstrated how to do this and one of the children told me that this was amazing and they seemed to really enjoy creating their own characters. Cook and Finlayson (1999) state that Children can develop their electronic sophistication particularly if they see an adult or older child making use of them. (p.15) They discuss the use of electronic equipment that children come in contact with and write that they become more competent the more they use ICT equipment at home and at school. Children learn off each other and adults and learn by trying out the equipment alone or with others.

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They took photographs of each other, traced around their own faces and made their mouths move. They then added their faces to a body. They had some difficulties with swiping too far and going back to the home screen and they also had problems with sizing the characters and making them too big. Child A was able to delete and start again.

Once they had made their characters they chose which question they wanted to try to answer and show in the Puppet Pals performance. They decided to try What would you do if you could choose one superpower? They then used the menus to see the backgrounds and music available to them and discussed what they should use.

They talked about their superpowers and how they were going to perform it but when they started recording Child Z was very timid and lacked confidence. Child M did most of the talking and did not give the other children the opportunity to join in. Child A kept whispering and did not speak loudly enough for the iPad to record her voice. She was whispering to Child M what to do but I encouraged her to do it herself. I think this was because Child M was sitting in between Child Z and Child A and was very confident and was also holding the iPad. They created four performances altogether and they took different roles in each of these. Child Z became more involved with the other recordings and was able to save each of the shows using different titles.

They had a different question for the second show which was What would you do if you saw someone stealing from a shop? They wanted to add a police car and a police man so they paused the recording but one of the children pressed the wrong button and the recording stopped. They then saved the recording and continued with the scene on the final show. Child Z did not participate with this one. When I asked him why he did not want to join in he told me that Child M wanted to be in charge all of the time. We found that noise level was a problem as we could not find anywhere quiet in the school. Every room was being used by a class or a group of children. We found one room that was empty but then a group of Reception class children came to work in there and the children found this quiet distracting. The other children in the room impacted on the sound on the recording. This was discussed by the children when they evaluated the recordings.

I found that the children were able to discuss what their super powers would be and what they would do if they saw someone stealing with ease but when it came to filming it on Puppet Pals they found it difficult to portray their feelings and ideas. This was possibly because they thought that they were other characters on Puppet Pals and put on different voices and they were not concentrating so much on answering the questions they were asked. I also found that the children I expected to take control of the iPad and perform more confidently were very shy and sat back while other the other children took over. I was very surprised at Child M who does not normally take charge of situations but during this activity she led the group, wanting to sit in the middle of the other two children and hold the iPad. The other children did speak and press buttons but I had to ask her to let the others hold the iPad during some of the recordings. All of the children normally work well in groups and this they did during most of this activity but when they were recording certain childrens personalities altered from how I expected. I tried to encourage Child Z and Child A to participate more and once I spoke to them they did become more involved.

The children achieved the ICT skills I had planned and were able to save their work, take photographs using the camera, use the menus on the app to find information and they were able to share and work with each other using ICT equipment. I would give them this task to do at some point in the future but I would talk about this activity with them from a PSD point of view rather than ICT and ask them how they would work together in a more positive way so they could all be more involved in the recording and hopefully Child M would allow the other children in her group more opportunities to say what they want to say and move their characters around. I would definitely spend more time with them discussing how they could answer the question from the card and ensure that they understand that answering the question is a very important part of the Puppet Pals show. Having already had this experience of using Puppet Pals they could spend more time on their actual performance rather than creating their characters as they have already made them.

The children told me that they enjoyed using this app and would like to use it again. Their favourite part of the activity was taking photographs of each other and making their own characters.

I find Puppet Pals an excellent app to use as my son who is in Year 3 uses it a lot at home and creates lots of shows on there using characters that were already on there and characters that he has made himself (his own face and photographs of Lego figures). I will use it in school again but I will rethink my delivery of the lesson. The children used it well and were able to use all of the ICT skills I had hoped they would be able to achieve but they were less concerned with the PSD Outcomes I had planned. They were able to achieve them when we discussed the situations but they did not portray them on Puppet Pals as I had hoped. Instead I could have used another app such as Morpho Booth where characters can be photographed from a book or they could have used themselves or other people as characters and they could be brought to life with the childrens own voices to

show empathy with how the character is feeling or what they might be thinking. I could also have tried Word Photo (where children can use words to describe feelings or actions). I chose to use Puppet Pals as this was the app that I have had the most experience with. However, when my son uses it, he uses it alone and the children in school had to work in a group which would have involved collaboration and planning together.

I hope to encourage children to become confident when using apps and exploring them to find out new things. As Cook and Finlayson (1999) write, Childrens confident approach to exploration provides a vital foundation for ICT learning and should be fostered and encouraged. (p.13). It is also our job as Teachers and Teaching Assistants to provide them with the opportunities, as Cook and Finlayson (1999) also state that Teachers face the same decision-making processes in using computer software as with any other curriculum resource; that is, how to integrate it smoothly into existing provision in a way which enhances learning. (p.38).

The Evidence

Pictures of the children creating their characters after taking photos of each other.

Puppet Pals Performance 1

Puppet Pals Performance 2

Puppet Pals Performance 3

Puppet Pals Performance 4

ReferencesAger, R. (2000), The Art of Information and Communications Technology for Teachers. London: David Fulton Publishers.

Cook, D. and Finlayson, H. (1999), Interactive Children, Communicative Teaching. ICT and classroom teaching. Buckingham: Open University Press.

Davitt, J. (2005), New Tools for Learning. Stafford: Network Educational Press Ltd.

Galloway, J. (2004), ICT for Teaching Assistants. London: David Fulton Publishers Ltd.

Suitable Contexts For Assessment in Personal and Social Development, Well-Being and Cultural Diversity. Neath Port Talbot County Borough Council. (No date)

www.learn-ict.org.uk