Today’s lecture was presented by Darren Savage. He spoke about the future of technology and how the internet is changing. One piece of technology, from the several presented, which caught my attention was Estimote beacons.

Below I have attached a video which explains what these are and how they are going to be used in the future.

So I thought to myself, how could these be used in the classroom?

1. Teachers could record their voice and attach it to reading books. This allows every child to access these book.
2. Teachers could use them to send information to parents.
3. Teachers could set different activities and task to each sticker.

Although this piece of technology is still in development, I believe, it will change the way people receive and obtain information.

Another interesting piece of technology Darren Savage spoke about was Nest. Although it is designed for homes to control and measure the house temperature and energy consumption, I believe it can be used in the classroom.  The video below explain what Nest is.

So how might it be used in the classroom?

1. Teachers are able to control the temperature, lighting and heat thus providing the most suitable working conditions for pupils.
2. It can be used when teaching about energy consumption.

On the 28th January I attended Bett . This was my first time attending.  I had learnt a lot from this experience – the vast number of companies competing with each other for a sale.  The Bett show presented many different technologies which could benefit the classroom. For example, BrainPop an online website which provides teachers with various resources and lessons which follow the National Curriculum.

What I found very intriguing was Edbot.  This was a robot which could be programmed to carry out different tasks using different coding software such as Scratch, Java, Python, etc thus making it very versatile. By having the ability to either use pre-coded movements or designing your own code makes Edbot great. It allows pupils who are less confident to experience with coding before creating their own codes.  The video below provides more information and ways Edbot can be used in the classroom.

Further into my day, I also had the opportunity to listen to Miles Berry talk about Raspberry Pi and Jason Bradbury  talk about the future of the internet. Miles Berry  spoke about the future developments of Raspberry Pi and ways Raspberry Pi can be implemented in the classroom to enhance children’s developmental skills.

Below are a few pictures I took during my day at Bett.

Teaching e-safety is essential. With the growing use of technology by kids, it is vital that every child is aware of the dangers of the internet and how to stay safe on the internet.

In this weeks’ lecture, I have created a presentation regrading the importance of staying safe on the internet (link below). The presentation is aimed at children between 7-9. The presentation briefly explains the dangers of the internet and how children can stay safe on the internet. Although this presentation is aimed at children, it is equally important that adults have a sound understanding of e-safety and ways to protect their children whilst using the internet safely.

http://https://docs.google.com/presentation/d/1vKgcaYOe1T7WCQMpmAFi2Q_o31qiT0uhxRs_To4H4Nc/edit?usp=sharing

We visited Rutherford House School to present our main projects to the teachers there. Our project was using Google Classroom to create resources for teachers. Google classroom was something new to teachers. They had never used Google classroom and after using it found many drawbacks and positives. The first drawback being very time consuming to implement lessons and the second one being the difficulty in using Google Classroom. Some of positives included being able to access all the information in one place and being able to reuse the information again for the following years.

The teachers provided constructive feedback.  They found the presentations provided a lot of useful information, however, was not very interactive. The teachers had suggested to include interactive quizzes made on Kahoot.  They also suggested including a instructions on how to use Google classroom. Furthermore, they loved the activities however the activities were not very inclusive for all children. They suggested using voice recordings as a means of providing answers for homework questions and providing pupils with more videos.

Overall, they had loved the Google Classroom we created. Moving forward we will ensure we add more videos and games to our VLE as at the moment it is quite text heavy and would not be appropriate for the younger years.

The lecture today took place as a video conference. Of course, anything via the internet will have its negatives, such as not everyone was able to connect or the connection was too slow thus the video conference lagging. Overall, the video conference was great. Being able to access the lecture at the comfort of your own home. Why not?

In the video conference we discussed the Horizon report. I looked at deeper learning approaches (Presentation linked below). I found this topic very interesting.

https://docs.google.com/presentation/d/1AYXg1Covd9wYrAZDcMs6SayL6WQFcUclKhieRQVJmqs/edit#slide=id.g2261fc9ca0_0_0

Deeper learning approaches are ways which promotes children in critical thinking, problem solving, collaboration and self-directed learning. For example, this might mean giving children a problem to solve which involves children coming together to collaborate their answers to obtain the final answer.  Deeper learning approaches are becoming more widely used in technology for example, children can use wevideo to collaboratively edit and create a video or use Twitter to share and comment on different ideas.

So why use deeper learning approaches in class? Well, research undertaken by several organisation have stated when children are working with tasks which require deeper learning approaches it has caused an increase in academic results, stronger interpersonal skills and higher enrolment and on time graduation rate than those who did not incorporate deeper learning approaches.

The kidSMART website

The purpose of kidSmart is to educate children on how to stay safe on the internet. It does this through the use of games, images, videos and texts. KidSMART is child-friendly. It has a uses a range of colours, text types, games and images making it attractive to children.

As e-safety is increasingly important in today’s society  due to the number of child internet users increasing it makes it essential that children are aware of the dangers of the internet and ways to stay safe on the internet. To an extent, Kidsmart does this effectively. The site breaks down e-safety into several important topics such as staying safe whilst gaming and staying safe whilst using social media. Although the site provides useful information and covers the important tips and ways children can be smart and safe whilst using internet, it is out of date. Rather than children being informed about staying safe on Facebook they are informed about staying safe on Bebo, which is not used as much anymore.

In today’s lecture we looked at different online websites which can be used in the classroom to enhance pupils learning. My seminar was to do with Twitter and how ways it can be used in the classroom. The Link below explains the advantages and disadvantages of Twitter in the classroom.

https://docs.google.com/presentation/d/1n_cHgWFDitJ-0kEAcUVjDO2t3F9yPl4lWh93wNsM5xg/edit?usp=sharing

One of the my colleagues  based their seminar on Nearpod.

What is Nearpod? 

Nearpod allows teachers to synchronize their lesson presentations with all pupils devices in the classroom. It allows pupils to either work through the presentation at their own pace or teacher’s pace. Nearpod allows teachers to create quizzes and obtain real-time feedback from pupils. It also allows pupils collaborate their ideas thus allowing allow pupils to share their ideas.

Furthermore, it allows teachers to upload videos, games and share links to pupils, thus creating a engaging and fun lesson.

In conclusion, I believe Nearpod is a great tool which can be used to enhance pupils learning.

The 5 stage model (shown below) helps to scaffold children’s learning. It is used in classrooms to successfully carry out e-Activities.

The first stage of the model is ‘Access and Motivation’.  In order for the e-learning activity to work it requires pupils. To obtain these pupils, pupils must be motivated. For example, if I was going to create a blog for my class, the internal motivation for pupils is the ability to work together to share information about a particular topic.

The second stage and third stage of the model would be children working together across the world to send and share information about their topic. This could be in the form of video, web links or commenting on each other’s work. Children could also provide challenges and quizzes for pupils online. This relates back to stage 1 ‘Access and Motivation’ as children will be motivated by the ability to communicate, challenge and quiz pupils from around the world. To ensure children are always motivated teachers should provide different interesting scenarios or topics to blog about.

The fourth stage of the model is ‘Information exchange’. This is where the blogs can be used by pupils in class to share and send information about a particular topic. During this part of the model, it is essential pupils are provided with time to comment and discuss their findings. This again relates to the first part of the model ‘Access and Motivation’ as children are motivated by being able to share and discuss information they have found out.

The final stage of the model requires children to develop their ideas. For instance with blogging, children would expand their idea by linking it to things they may have witnessed or seen.

In conclusion, both parties’ teacher and pupils are essential in smoothly using the 5-stage model to successfully run an e-learning platform. It is important that teachers create a e-learning platform which is not only motivating and engaging, but, supports the learning of all pupils.

I found the article by Barrs and Harrocks to be very interesting. The article talks about the importance of blogging and ways it can effective ways it can be used in Primary Schools. Research suggests that teachers have asked pupils to write blogs without providing pupils with means of obtaining information for their blogs or the question is too vague. This led to pupils either providing too little or too much information in their blogs or putting less effort into their blogs. Barrs and Harrocks suggested teachers should provide questions which provide more guidance, for example, the questions can contain video links and web links which will help pupils to obtain the answer. It should also provide an opportunity to allow pupils to comment on other pupils blog. I Believe this helps pupils to gain ideas and helps to motivate them.  He also suggested blogging should be more engaging but tailored to meet the needs of all pupils, providing an opportunity for all pupils to blog, even those without internet access.

In this blog post, we will look at various School’s websites  and discuss why these websites are either poorly  or well-designed.

The first website I came across was Dovecot Primary School’s website.

This is a well-designed website which takes into consideration both adult and child users. The bright colours used throughout the websites makes it attractive and  child friendly. A study conducted by Boyatzis and Varghese in 1993 and further studies undertaken in 2001 and 2003 showed the relationship between colour preferences and pupil’s performance.  The studies undertaken proved that bright colours such as yellow and greens increased student’s performance.

In addition,  the texts style and font used throughout the website makes it parent and child friendly. The text is clear and easy to read thus allowing both children and parents to access the information. In addition, the website contains navigation buttons on a sign post which is different from the normal drop down menu at the top of the page which we usually see on websites.  This adds to the child friendly  interface. Furthermore,  the use of the noticeboard allows parents, pupils and teachers to quickly stay up-to-date with the latest information from school without having to search the whole website.

Furthermore, the website provides a language option which allows parents and pupils who are non-English speakers to access the information in their preferred choice. I believe this is useful tool to have on all websites as it makes the information accessible to everyone.

The Dovecot Primary School’s website also contains a kid zone (shown below). This contains various activities and games pupils can use to enhance their learning. I believe this is a great way to get pupils to study at home and keep up to date with the topics they learn in school. It also allows struggling pupils to practice topics they have struggled with.

In addition, the website has a section where teachers can upload pupils work and topics they are currently studying in class (shown below).  This allows parents to view what their child has been learning and doing at school. I believe by doing this, it makes parents feel more involved in their child’s learning.

It also allows has a section where pupils can contribution ideas of how to improve the website.  I believe this is a great way of getting children more involved with their school and makes the website more personal to them, thus becoming more wiling to use the website.

A poorly designed website I came across was Beckford Primary School as shown by the picture below.

The reason I believe this is a poorly designed website is because the website is aimed at parents and not parents and children.  Although the website contains different website links for children, it is not very child friendly as shown below. Beckford Primary School could have made this better by including a section which allows pupils to have a discussion about a weekly topic or provided different activities for different year groups, just like Dovecot Primary School (mentioned above).

Although this is a poorly designed website, it still provides the necessary information to parents and keeps parents up to date with what their child is doing in school.