For this lecture I was asked to create a presentation based on the Artificial Intelligence pages (p44-46) in the 2016 Horizon Report. I have linked the presentation below:

https://docs.google.com/presentation/d/1EX6HGH6x0KBQV_BRBDJIOtOhYQS9s_TtZpoMNpP7TpI/edit?usp=sharing

The Horizon Report indicates all of the technology which is upcoming into mainstream education and what teachers are able to do with it. I definitely agree that AI is something which is worth investing into schools, based on what the report has said and from my own research- since there is a lot of money going into the development of it for educational use. I really like the way that it enables children’s progress to be tracked, meaning that teachers can be provided with up to date information from tasks and therefore have a better idea of the specific needs for those children.
This data leads to more focused and specialised lessons for the class overall and support for those children who are struggling.

Although, AI could be quite costly to implement across the whole school, and it could also be quite difficult for some teachers who are not as skilled in the use of technology or not not willing to learn how to use it. There could also be the issue of permission and safety to have the all children’s details on the system, as well as tracking their progress continuously and how else or where that information is used.

However, I would aim to use AI in as many ways possible within my own classroom, since I see it as beneficial to both the children and the teacher. Especially when it comes to limiting the amount of paperwork that the teacher is required to do, so that they are able to focus more on the children and lessons.

The KidSMART website is aimed at educating children of the dangers surrounding the internet and to be aware of how they use it. Although, unlike most others the site views e-safety in a strictly positive way,  they encourage the children to be vigilant and think about what they are doing online and how they could be safer. Other websites can shock or scare the children by using a large amount of statistics and focusing on extreme cases, which is not an effective way of educating children about the dangers.

The initial home page is  bright and easy to navigate, meaning that when children are using the site for information or help it is clear where they need to go for it or how to get it. I also think that the questions on the homepage help the children to instantly engage with the topic, since they are given something to think about before they even search for the information or use the resources in more depth. On the children’s area it also uses language and images that are targeted at that specific audience, therefore the children are more likely to connect and remember what they are being told. However, the information is also backed up by games and interactive elements, just to really stress to the children the importance of the subject. On the homepage, there are also direct links to other sites of a similar nature, including childnet, although I think there could be more links to websites, so that when the children are at home they know that there are more people to talk to if they need help- no matter what the time is.

I then looked into the teaching resources, these included plans, powerpoints and worksheets. They seemed to be incredibly well thought out and easy to teach from, creating both interesting and focused lessons for both the teachers and the children. The site seems to have a number of characters which change depending on the age range. The use of characters add a little more of a personal touch, since it allows the children to connect with them and reflect on their experiences. As an example, ‘Smartie the Penguin’ has a range of songs, videos and colouring for the EYFS audience- the teacher is also able to have a toy penguin which brings their experiences to life and so are more likely to remember what they are being taught. This topic also includes Smarties mother, which therefore helps to involve the parents into the children’s learning of e-safety which is incredibly important. I think involving parents is an effective way to approach e-safety, as it informs them of what the dangers are for their own accounts as well. Although, the powerpoints which are provided which are a little out of date and contain a lot of writing, therefore they could be updated into a more animated style story. The words on the slides can also be changed to maybe a teachers version, so that they are able to read the story while the children are following along with the images.

Overall, I think the website itself is an incredibly effective resource itself, as well as containing a range of appropriate and up to date resources. I would advocate for this website to be used across the school, as well as my own classroom. It gives teachers, parents and children a clear idea of what to look out for and how they can stay safe both at home and in schools.

Berners- Lee’s Answers for Young People explains how scientists from CERN (the home of the particle  accelerator) created a system where they were able to store and access all of their information in and from one place. They created various codes so that documents from a Mac could be read on a PC, for example. Although, this was being developed in 1960, the internet was not available for widespread public use until the early 1990s, despite being based on the same theories.

My own personal experiences of the internet differ drastically, this can be from finding sources for academic use to watching funny cat videos at 4am. Although, the main experiences I have had with furthering and developing my education have been based on these three websites: Youtube, Twitter and BBC Bitesize.

YouTube was launched in 2005, then bought by Google in 2006, and allows people to share videos to millions of viewers across the world on a daily basis. I have used YouTube a countless number of times to find out information, this can be for something as simple as a make-up tutorial or looking to find videos which support my Phonics lessons on placement. I personally think that YouTube is an amazing way to research and investigate topics, since it allows me to search for what I want to know, and search through the endless videos until I have found what I am looking for- however this can become time consuming. YouTube also creates recommendations based on what you have been watching, and therefore furthers the possibly of development through offering videos which are linked to the initial topic. Although, this could cause distractions from what you actually set out to do or find. I do believe YouTube has helped to improve my knowledge, and I will be using this as a tool within my own classroom to support and further the children’s learning in a fun and engaging way.

BBC Bitesize was one of my favourite specific educational sites to use throughout my own schooling and now as a teacher. It was designed to cover all the National Curriculum and GCSE exam topics, with differentiation of the levels within each subject area.  The children are encouraged  to aim for the area that they want to achieve or challenge themselves by changing the level. However, the topics themselves are quite general in their content due to their large audience, I found this when studying for my GCSEs as it wasn’t specific to the exam board requirements that I was studying.

The site is easily accessible and easy navigation made it incredibly appealing and fun to use both in primary and secondary school. They achieve this through the use of games, quizzes and revision topics to adapt the content to the ways children learn, allowing them a choice of the way they wish to learn and what suits them best. The BBC also regularly update their games, revision areas and practice tests to ensure that they are providing children with the most up to date information, which I think is really important, due to the ever changing demands of the curriculum..

My favourite game (pictured above) is still available on the website: here. I enjoyed this game so much because it has a story to it, the illustrations are beautiful and it is very interactive, which helps the children to focus on the tasks and questions on each topic. I would definitely use this game in my own classroom, as it can be used to aid  fact recall and as a recap for the core topics.

Twitter is a social media application, which allows users 140 characters to write a status which is then posted to their followers. One of the most appealing functions of Twitter is the option to ‘follow’ other accounts, meaning that their tweets will show up on your news feed. Unlike Facebook, which only shows your friends, you are able to follow: scientists, academics and the famous. When the people that I follow post a link to a blog, the news or an article on a topic that I am interested in a gateway is opened to my own curiosity and the desire to find out more about it. Although, I am not directly learning from the actual tweet, it is providing me with the opportunity to do so and directing me to the information. Another reason why I enjoy using Twitter so much, is that all of the information that is posted is current, this can be from an earthquake that has happened minutes ago to travel updates for my journey home.

Many schools have Twitter accounts for specific departments or classes, they are able to post information or updates to parents and share children’s work. This media could be a good way to communicate with another school or class from across the world and allow the children to learn what their schools and cultures are like. A good example of this is Anson Primary School.

The internet is an extremely useful resource which needs to be fully utilised by modern teachers to enhance and develop children’s learning in an increasingly digital world.

On the 25th January I attended the Bett Show at the ExCel Centre, it is an international convention for all types of different technology worldwide. There were a lot of the big names in school based IT development present, for example Acer, Capita, Google and Raspberry Pi. However, there were also a lot of other exhibiters from across the world, some were specific programmes for example Monster Phonics and Lego Education.

A particular stand of interest I went to look at was a Norwegian based coding company. They worked with sensors and Lego to create a robot which would be programmed to work in certain ways. The sensor built into the robot was programmed through an app which had block commands, when they were joined to the ‘starting’ block the robot would move.  There was a wide range of sensors which could perform different commands, for example there were some that could flip or rotate the structure and others simply moved forwards and backwards. I think this would be a really good resource to be used within the classroom, and I would definitely use it,  since the children are able to create their own creatures or robots. The children will be more engaged with the activity, since it is their creation which they will be programming. This can also be used for cross curricular activities: the children are able to design and make their creatures during DT lessons and then involve them in a story during their English lessons. This can link back to their IT, since they are able to act out the story on a floor mat that they’ve designed. After speaking to one of the exhibitors they directed me to Lego Education, which is their English partner, and where I would be able to purchase the kits and gain a greater understanding of what they offer.

After a quick lunch break, I watched Miles Berry’s talk on Raspberry Pi, and how they are able to be used within the classroom. I found this talk interesting as it gave me an idea to the range of things that Raspberry Pi can be used for and how children are able to interact with it. They also publicised a magazine which was aimed at helping teachers plan lessons based on coding and how they are able to incorporate these into the classroom.

When I started to look at the exhibits again I found a piece of technology that was completely mind blowing. This was made by Nurva. They produced a projector which can be mounted to the wall, and emits infrared rays, and when they are  broken act exactly like an interactive whiteboard- without the whiteboard! This means that the whole wall at the front of the classroom can be turned into an interactive screen. The projector has a 40ft width, which can scrolled through, therefore the whole days lessons can be planned onto one screen and simply pulled into view when they are needed. The teacher is able to make new notes and draw onto the wall using their finger and the options on the board, in this context it works exactly like an interactive whiteboard. Although, what makes it different, is that the children are able to link to the board using an app on the Ipads. They are able to make their own notes using these with their own personal copy of the board in the background. However, if the teacher has enabled it, they are able to swipe the notes onto the main board at the front of the classroom. This would be incredibly useful for research tasks or elicitation, for example the teacher can give the children a topic and they can write as many notes they want and swipe them onto the front to see each others ideas or answers. The children are not allowed to change anyone else’s comments either or anything on the original board. I absolutely love this, as the children are able to fully interact with the board, using their own devices. It not only enables the children to feel included and that every child can have their own say or comment put on the board, but it also saves time, meaning that the teacher doesn’t need to write everything that the children have said during the elicitation onto the board.

I also visited the Raspberry Pi area of the show, and gained some information on their ‘Code Clubs’. These are extra curricular coding clubs which can be set up by teachers and volunteers in the school, and supported by the Code Club network. I would defiantly look into setting up one, or helping with one within my school. Since it allows the children to develop a skill and hobby that can help them greatly when they are going to go into, not only, Secondary School but also when they go into looking for a job later in life. The clubs also bring like minded children together and helps them become known within a wider network of people, helping them to make friends and feel like they are part of something huge.

It was defiantly beneficial to attend the show, since I was able to see a wide variety of what was available to schools and how they can impact the way teachers work and how it can make some simple tasks easier. I would like to go again next year and go to more of the talks, and see what else there is to offer within the area.

After Josh and I had created our plan we started to put it into action. We had already created our Google Classroom and started to work out the aesthetics of it.  We decided on a bold and colourful ‘Phonics’ for the header, and purple for the background. Secondly, we created a structure for the classroom. We organised the activities for both homework and lessons by separating them into weeks. The ‘Topic’ function allowed us to create folders for each of the weeks, therefore the children won’t need to scroll through the entire terms worth of work to find something, they are able to simply click to the side. The  ‘Parent’s area’ is also included in this list so that they are able to access all of the information that they needed based on Phonics, but it also meant that we could keep the information for them and the activities separate. The ‘Parent’s area’ includes a guide to Phonics and how they are able to enhance the children’s phonics education. We’ve included useful links to websites that they may want to look at, and also to the scheme of Letters and Sounds.

Another important function of Google Classroom is being able to differentiate the type of task, the homework is able to have a due date set, so that all of the children know when they need to have the task finished by. There are also reminders which can be set when some of the children haven’t finished the activity. The teacher is able to view the class list and see the work that all of the children have uploaded, and therefore this makes it very easy to see which children haven’t done the set work. The teacher is also able to mark the work online, which therefore saves the time of looking for homework books or trying to find sheets that haven’t been stuck in. The classroom is useful to have to manage the homework the children are set weekly, through advanced planning, but also allows them to see what they have upcoming in the next few weeks. Announcements can be made for the lessons since there is no due date to be set for them, and they enable the children to comment on the thread. This is an important feature that we wanted to include because the children should be able to share their thoughts and experiences on what they are going to do in the lesson. It also provides them a chance to prepare or practice the sounds before the actual lesson, ask questions if they are unsure or need clarification about something before the lesson happens. However, it also gives the children a chance to share what they have been doing at home, with their parents, based on that lesson. The chance to share their experiences engages the children more with their learning and encourages them to learn through social constructivism.

We wanted to include a range of media when creating the classroom too, and therefore took advantage of being able to attach videos and documents from Google Docs into the activities. We found a range of sources on the internet that we could use, for example Youtube and Vimeo. These videos also help to show the children that there are a lot of things out there that could help them.

We visited Rutherford House School to discuss our Google Classroom with the teachers there. We sat with their English/ Literacy coordinator, and explained all of the tasks, the functions and features of the classroom. She seemed interested in being able to set the due date and being able to mark the tasks online, especially as this would help to cut down her paperwork and provide an efficient record of homework for her class. She also liked being able to use Google Docs to create worksheets and provide the children with the chance to create something together, for example this could be adding something to a story. The school also takes a social constructivist approach to learning, and this was something she was really willing to try and develop for her class. The teacher emphasised that the element of being able to keep the parents involved with the children’s progress was important too. She was struggling to keep in contact with some of the parents, and Google Classroom proves the perfect medium for this, as it is all online and is very easy to access. Although, she said  that we could add more colour, images  and videos to the activities to make sure the children stay engaged with the task. She placed emphasis that the children would be able to understand the images  and videos more than the words. Another improvement that she suggested was adding in more information for the parents, for example how children can use their Phonics to help them pronounce words whilst the parents are reading a story to them or some games that they could play on the way to or from school. This helps to imbed the Phonics into both their home and school life, which will help their development.

The next steps to take are to make the suggested changed from our teacher at Rutherford House School and improve our Google Classroom to ensure that it is the most accessible and user friendly as it can be.

Josh and I had started to plan our Google Classroom. We had the topic of Systematic Synthetic Phonics and we knew that we wanted to create something that would enable the children to use all of the features available within the classroom and  develop an immaculate understanding of the sets in Letters and Sounds Phase 2 SSP. The children are then able to build upon this knowledge during Phase 3, become confident using them and helps to establish a foundation for a love of reading. We started out with the initial idea of having the children record or listen to a sound and then comment on what they could hear, which links to the Phase 1 Letters and Sounds scheme, but also utalises a lot of the tools and capabilities of Google Classroom. However, this was also a challenge because then we would need to consider the fact that the children we had as an audience would not be able to read, or if they could it would be very little. Therefore concluding that we needed to either have an option for the children to be able to listen to the instructions or include a video of what they needed to do within each homework task and an example. Although we also highlighted that the most important element of the classroom needs to be retaining the children’s attention, since SSP can be a very difficult or boring subject for some children, they need to be able to stay engaged and the lessons need to be at a quick pace. As a result of this we decided that the homework tasks need to be very quick, easy and interactive so that both the parents/ guardians of the children can enjoy doing them with their children. This then lead onto the important point of  having an area for parents so that they could get a background idea of what phonics is and how they can help develop their children’s understanding of it, since maintaining a relationship between home and school is incredibly important. This enhanced availability also allows the parents/ guardians to help the children prepare for the upcoming lessons, and understand where their child needs extra support.  We then created a basic plan which helped to create a guidelines of what we wanted to include in both the lessons and the homework.

Our initial plan ended up like this:

Week 1:

H/W- Recap Phase 1, Video what they can hear  and comment on each others.

Lesson- Environmental Sounds Flip Cards, what is making that sound?

Week 2:

H/W-  s a t p: Crazy stir fry/ silly soup. How many things can the children find around the house beginning with the selected letter?

Lesson: Rhyming Cards, which of the words rhyme and do you know why?

Week 3:

H/W- i n m d: Treasure hunt/ collecting objects.

Lesson: Geraldine the Giraffe, can the children name something that has that grapheme in?

Week 4: 

H/W- o g c k: Wordsearch of words containing these graphemes and then creating a drawing/song/poem based on the words that they have found.

Lesson: Bingo with  VC, CVC and tricky words.

Week 5:

H/W- ck e u r: Image recall of words containing these graphemes. Children will see a collection of objects, they will need to use their phonetic knowledge to know if the images contain the sounds that they are looking for.

Lesson: Phonics Bug/ Game (Spelling)

Week 6:

H/W- h b f ff: Assessment/ quiz

Lesson: Creating a shared story using words that the children have learnt overall in the unit.

We wanted to focus our tasks on a social constructivist  approach to learning, this means that the children are going to be able learn from each other through comparison of their own experiences. But it also means that all of the children within the class are able to support each other, and a child is struggling the other children are able to support and help them in a comfortable and safe environment. However, giving the children tasks that they are able to interact with and do outside or around the houses provides them with a discussion point and enthusiasm for the lessons that week. This enhances their engagement with the sounds and increases their exposure to them, so that they will be more willing to apply them into their everyday life and within other lessons. This can be done through the simple activities such as bingo or the flip cards, which introduce them to VC and CVC words that they are able to blend and segment. This is supported by the Letters and Sounds scheme which recommends the teaching of SSP though: Reviewing the previous sounds the children have already learnt, teaching a new letter (these are the letters from the weekly sets which are in italics), then practicing the sound and finally applying it into reading and writing. This is an effective way to teach SSP, and is also backed the government funded scheme, therefore we wanted to use this approach to our teaching. We also discussed how we used it in our placement classrooms and it was a very interactive and engaging way to teach, that we both enjoyed teaching as well as the children enjoyed.

We also looked into the resources that we would need to make the classroom, these included making some of our own models and worksheets to the achieve the level that we wanted. Although, we already knew of some websites and sources that we could use to find out the information we needed. We wanted to be able to use the ‘Monster Phonics’ videos, which had been shown to us during a lecture to make sure that the children were able to fully engage with the task, and as already stated the children need to be able to physically hear the instructions for their task. Josh and I divided the tasks that needed to be done between us and agreed the format and layout that we would take. I was asked to make the sources for week 1 and 4, this was the recap video and the word search. I was also asked to find the videos for week 3, 5 and create the bingo lists for week 4 for the lessons.