QR Codes and Handheld Learning

Marc Prensky on Handheld learning in the classroom


Last week a class of P6 children came to the university to take part in a treasure hunt using QR codes and handheld devices such as iPods and iPads. It was amazing to find out how many of the children owned or had access to handheld devices such as iphones, ipods and ipads. Pinder (2008) suggests that we as educators have to "recognise the technology already embedded within the lives of many learners, especially young people" and use this to create meaningful learning experiences.


Before the children arrived we had planned out a treasure hunt using QR codes which were going to be hidden around the University campus. The children would have to scan the codes using the iPod touches to find out the activity they would have to carry out and their next destination. The children would have to use different applications on the devices such as video recorder, camera and games to complete the activities. Once back at the computer suites they used  'iBookcreator' a program that helps you to create an on-line book using video, text and picture. 


















Evaluation


The children seemed to enjoy having to search for the QR codes and carry out the activities. The children had to work in teams of three which posed a few issues. Firstly there were an odd number of girls and boys which meant that one girl had to go with two boys which at the beginning did not seem to much of an issue. However as the activity progressed some children were not sharing the devices and not listening to others opinions in the group.
Once back at the IT suite the children were shown how to use 'ibookcreator' and then left with our help if needed to work together to create their book. I feel this activity related to the principle of personalisation and choice within the Curriculum for Excellence. The children were able to choose for themselves how they were going to display their text, videos and pictures. In addition there was evidence of co-operative learning as the children were working together, sharing ideas and supporting each other. Although there were some disagreements on the whole the children worked well together.
At the end we did an on-line feedback activity using everywhere poll. This allowed the children to anonymously write what they liked or disliked about the afternoon. The responses were in the main extremely positive and that the children would love to use iPod touches for educational purposes in the classroom. 
This experience allowed me to see the different ways handheld learning can be used in the classroom and also what an effective learning tool it can be. Although there are perhaps a few things I would change about this afternoon I would definitely use this activity as a basis in future placement and my career.


References

Pinder, A.(2008) Andrew Pinder on Handheld Learning

Available:

http://www.handheldlearning.co.uk/content/view/58/60/

Scottish Government. (2009) Curriculum for Excellence. Principles for curriculum design. Available:
http://www.ltscotland.org.uk/understandingthecurriculum/howisthecurriculumstructured/principles/index.asp

Scran

© Scran / Edward Martin. Licensor www.scran.ac.uk.

A picture downloaded from Scran.

Future Technologies

Technology is constantly evolving and it is a huge part of many people's lives. People are constantly searching for new and improved ways to do things. Techonology is being used in schools to support children's learning more and more.

Above are some videos showing some of the new techonogies that may be around in years to come. I think some of the concepts are good and could be developed into great products but some I feel are a little far fetched. Many of the technologies could be adapted to use in schools but who knows in 50 or 60 years time children may be learning from virtual teachers... I hope not. 

Just Dance

This week our task was to create a games based context using a game that we were all familar for a class of p6 children. We had a choose a game and pick out the different learning areas that could be covered from the features and themes of the game this could include literacy, maths, expressive arts and social studies. Games based contexts also link to the principles of the Curriculum for Excellence such as challenge and enjoyment, relevance and breadth and depth.


We chose to base our context around the game Just Dance for the Wii. We thought this would be a good choice as most of us had played the game before and felt it was a game which would encourage collaboration as more than one child could play the game at once and also had a keep fit element to it. 
We chose to do two activites with the children. Our first activity was allowing them to play the game. They divided themselves into 2 groups of four and while one group were playing the game the other group would be doing the 2nd activity. The 2nd activity was to design a poster to advertise their dance crew using the game as inspiration. We gave the children a list of criterias that should be included in their posters for example name of crew, venue, cost of tickets, logo, bright and eye-catching.

Evaluation


The whole class was divided into three equal groups and spent time at each context. The majority of the children had games consoles at home and had played a wide variety of games including Just dance. It was very interesting to observe how each group responded to to the game and poster activity. I felt that the majority of children engaged with the game and really seemed to enjoy playing it. Before we began I was a little apprehensive in our choice of game thinking it may appeal more to the girls than the boys. However I was surprised how engaged and enthusiastic the boys were towards playing the game. There were a couple of boys that did not want to participate in the game but they were able to complete the poster activity and watch their peers play the game. In future I would perhaps ensure when choosing a game it would suit both girls and boys equally which would be made easier as if I were doing this with my own class I would know the children and be able to make a choice based on what I thought they would all enjoy. At the of the session we asked the children what they had enjoyed about the game or what they would change if we did it again and they said; that the all enjoyed playing the game  but that next time there could be two consoles so that they could all play the game at the same time. There could of been a choice of games and that they wished that they had had longer to play.

In relation to the second activity I felt that not all the children were fully engaged and some were distracted by the other group playing the game. Many of the children struggled to think of names for their dance crew and so in future I would perhaps have a sheet of example names that they could use. Another issue was time by the time we had explained the activities to the children each group only had 15 minutes to do each activity. This was not so much a problem with the game but it was when designing the poster. Just as the children were getting into the activity it was time to stop. The children were able to take the poster back to school with them and finish it at a later date. This made realise the importance of ensuring you plan enough time for activities to be completed. The feedback we got from the children was that they had enjoyed the poster activity but next time we could perhaps have an activity where they have to make up their own dance routine and perform it to the rest of the class.


Overall this was a great experience and I feel our context worked well. Although there are a few areas I would change next time based on what I observed and the feedback from the children I feel that they got alot out of the context. This experience has also made me think of the behaviour management and organisation side of creating a game based context. For this context there were five of us and only 8 pupils but in a class there would only be one of me and up to 33 pupils. This is something I would definatly need to think about when planning a context like this to ensure every child gets an equal turn of playing the game, ensure that the children not playing the game are not distracted from their work and ensure the behaviour of the class are appropriate.


At the end the children were asked what games they would like to see used in school and some of their suggestions were Piggy Panic, Need for Speed and Fifa. (Need to ensure they are both age and stage appropriate)

Games Based Learning

"In classrooms throughout Scotland a range of game based technologies are now being used to help make teaching and learning experiences within Curriculum for Excellence challenging, demanding and appealing." (Scottish Government 2010)


























This week we had inputs from David Miller, Divya Jindal-Snape and Jill Shimi on games based learning in the classroom.
David Miller firstly talked about using Dr Kawashima's Brain Training within the classroom and the benefits it had for not only the children's numeracy skills but also their self-esteem.
Divya then talked about using Guitar Hero as a context for the transition between primary and secondary and the benefits it had for the children.
Lastly Jill talked about the reaserched she had carried out using Nintendogs with eary years classes.
Games such as Nintendogs, Guitar Hero and Dr Kawashima's Brian Training are called COTS games.
COTS stands for Commercial Off The Shelf games, this means that they were not designed for educational purposes, however when used within a context can be a great learning tool to motivate and engage children.

I am going to focus on the research carried out by Jill on using Nintendogs within diferent contexts in early years settings. The research was carried out using four primary 1 and 2 classes in Aberdeenshire over a summer term. The teachers were able to choose the context that the Nintendogs games would be used in, and also how often or little the game would  be played.
One of the main reasons for this reserach was to find out what effect the nintendogs game has on social aspects of classroom life. The findings showed increased social interactions, especially in less confident children. The children were able to talk to each other about the game and also have some common ground with other children in the class that they may have not been friends with before.
There was also evidence of PAL(Peer Assisted Learning) which showed that there was examples of greater collaboartion and also peer tutoring. An example that Jill gave of this was a child that was of very high ablity was struggling to work out how to play the game correctly and it was a child of a lower ability and someone that the child did not normally talk to that was able to help them understand. The importance of this is highlighted by LTScotland that state that "Peer education has a strong emphasis on personal development and can be particularly effective in allowing low achieving pupils to fully participate and succeed in a wider range of educational and health promoting activities". I feel that using games such as Nintendogs in the classroom gives children who may stuggle with certain aspects of the curriculum an opportunity to be involved in lots of different activities that will play to their strengths and allow them to succeed. It will also increase their self-confidence and motivation to learn and participate.


This project not only increased the children's motivation and enthusiasm but also their level of engagement. Using Nintendogs within a context also relates to the different principles outlined in the Curriculum for Excellence. I feel that using Nintendogs in this way will relate to the principle of challenge and enjoyment as the children may find it challenging at the beginning to work out how to play the game and look after their dogs properly but they will be engaged and having fun at the same time. It can also relate to the principle of relevance as the activities the children do can be can be related to real life situations for example discussing the pets they have at home and what they need to do to look after them, ask a dog walker to come into the class and talk about their job or even go for a walk with them or keep a doggy diary.


When using games based learning, although it is very important to ensure that it used in a appropriate way and that the children see a purpose in playing these games there are many benefits to using it for example:

• motivating learners to succeed and to continually improve
• fostering self-esteem, self-determination and enhancing self-image
• facilitating collaborative learning
• implicitly developing learners ability to observe, question, hypothesise and test
• facilitating metacognitive reflection
• developing complex problem-solving skills
• making school an exciting place to be
• offering inroads into other curricular areas
• sharing practice features that show how games have enhanced learning in the classroom.  (Scottish Government 2010)

To find out more about using Dr Kawashima's Brian Training look at http://iteach-ict.blogspot.com


To find out more about using Guitar Hero to support transition look at http://missh29.blogspot.com/




References

Scottish Government (2010) About Game Based Learning. Available online at:

http://www.ltscotland.org.uk/usingglowandict/gamesbasedlearning/about/understanding.asp [accessed 16/2/12]

Scottish Government (2010) Peer Education. Available online at:

http://www.ltscotland.org.uk/learningteachingandassessment/approaches/peereducation/index.asp [accesssed 16/2/12]

Fife Education Digital Literacy and ICT

In our ICT elective this week we had a visit from the Fife education team that specialise in ICT. They went through and explained a number of areas within ICT for example games based learning, Music and ICT and programmes such as comic life and pivot that can be used to enhance the learning expereince within the classroom. I felt this was an extremely informative and useful session as we were not just sitting listening to people talk we were given the opportunity to use the software for ourselves which made it far easier to understand and allowed us to begin to think of the different ways we could use it within the classroom.


One point that I felt that each person from Fife education made very clear was all forms of ICT can be used in differnet contexts to help support cross-curricular learning. I feel that Games based learning in a context lends itself very well to cross-curricular learning and to the Curriculum for Excellence principles of depth and breadth. (Scottish Government 2009). A depth of learning would be shown by the fact that children will be able to take the knowledge they learn from one subject area and apply it in another to deepen their understanding of the topic or conext as a whole. The principle of breadth would be shown through the wide range of subject areas that would  be covered and they would all be linked through the games based learning context. An example of this is using Guitar Hero as a context. The link below takes you to the videos which explain how one primary school class used Guitar Hero as a context and all the learning that was able to take place through that context.
http://www.ltscotland.org.uk/sharingpractice/g/guitarhero/introduction.asp

One of the tools we learnt about, that is used within many schools is Comic Life. Comic Life is a piece of software which allows you to create comic strips. It is set out in a way that children would find easy to use. It allows you to choose the layout of your comic, the style, size and colour of the text, it gives you a choice of speech bubbles and also allows you to choose different pictures that can be added to your comic. It is also possible to draw your own pictures and uplod them.
Although I had heard about Comic Life I had never used it myself or seen it being used within schools before this input, so I found it a very useful tool to perhaps use in furture placements if possible.
 I feel that this software would relate to the principle of personalisation and choice within the Curriculum for Excellence (Scottish Government 2009) as the children would have the freedom to choose what style of layout, text or pictures they would like to include in their comics. I also believe that it relates to the principle of relevence as many children still read and love comics today, and will be able to make a link between the comics they read and ones they are creating at school.
Comic Life can be used across the curriculum and engages, motivates and can support children who perhaps struggle to write down their ideas and much perfer to draw their ideas with captions. It also allows children to be as creative as they want and put their own individual style to the comic.


(Sarlitto 2003) explains some of the key benefits of using comics in education;
- A great visual Representation of Knowledge

- Presents what is essential
- Easier to remember a visual graphic containing key information
- Engaging through thinking, creating and writing.
- Perfect avenue for writing dialogue
- Incites students with low interest in writing
- Helps organisation through storytelling and storyboarding
- Using visual images convey meaning to a story or topic
- Develops creative and higher level thought processes
- Develops composition techniques through visual-verbal connections
- Enriches reading, writing, and thinking
- Serves as and assessment and evaluation tool
- Sequencing promotes understanding

Overall, I found the input from Fife Education extremely informative and very useful. It was great to have the opportunity to try out the different software as well as learning how it is related to the Curriculum for Excellence. I had not heard or seen any of the software being used before and I now feel I have the confidence and knowledge to on furture placements use some of it in the classroom. 

References

Scottish Government (2009a) Curriculum for Excellence: Principles for Curriculum Design.

Available at http://www.ltscotland.org.uk/understandingthecurriculum/howisthecurriculumstructured/principles/index.asp   [Accessed 05/02/12]

Comic Life in Education (2009) 

Available at

http://plasq.com/education/

[Accessed 05/02/12]

Scottish Government (2009) Sharing Practices

Available at 

http://www.ltscotland.org.uk/sharingpractice/g/guitarhero/introduction.asp?

[Accessed 05/02/12]

Moving Image Education

Throughout my placements so far, I have not had the opportunity to see moving image education (MIE) being used in the classroom and so before researching it did not fully understand what it really was. 
However I now know that  the term "moving image education refers to learning and teaching practices which develop moving image media literacy." (Moving image Education no page given). These practices involve analysing moving image text, creating them, exploring,  appreciating and sharing them and being able to make judgements about them. This can all be shown through the 3 C's of media literacy which are creative, cultural and critical. Many people believe that the 3 C's  overlap each other as one whole and help to support the development of each other rather than each one being a separate learning experience.


In relation to A Curriculum for Excellence Scottish Screen (2009 no page) believe that "Moving Image Education (MIE) – the analysis, creation and appreciation of film texts – can and does provide many broad opportunities for pupils to develop within the four capacities of A Curriclum of Excellence." I agree with this as I feel that the use of MIE motivates the children and it gives the children opportunies to work in groups, allows them to give their own opinions about the different aspects of the moving images including character, sound and setting and learn to respect others opinions. It will also allow the children to communicate in different ways and in different settings. Therefore MIE will help to develop the children in to successful learners, confident individuals, effective contributers and responsible citizens.


In reflection I now believe that MIE has a definite place within the classroom as children are exposed to  moving images from an early age through watching cartoons, films and adverts and it is a large part of our culture. Within the classroom it is possible to use films as a stimuli for creative writing or allowing the class to write, film and edit a short film. This was something thatmy group and I did last week about the Discovery ship in Dundee. I realised by doing this the different cross-curricular areas that can be included and that it is definately a way of engaging and motivating children. 


MIE in practice


One way in which MIE can be used in the early years is a through a model that Mairi Flood one of Scottish Screens lead practioners developed. One of examples was the children were firstly given the role of film detectives and they then had to watch various films and discuss and analyse them using the crtieria of colour, camera and character and story, setting and sound. They then used what they had learnt to create their own short clips using photography and sounds. 


To learn more about the different areas that were included in Mairi's model go to:


http://www.ltscotland.org.uk/earlyyearsmatters/m/genericcontent_tcm4453413.asp

References

Creative Scotland (2009) Moving Image Education.

Available online  http://www.movingimageeducation.org/ [Accessed 29/01/12]

Scottish Executive (2006) Moving Image Education and A Curriculum for Excellence.

Available online  

http://www.scottishscreen.com/images/documents/MIE_ACfE_for_ScottishScreen_email.pdf  [Accessed 29/01/12]

Social Media Tools

In our ICT elective yesterday we were discussing social media tools in education and the theory that underpins it. We firstly discussed the different types of social media tools we use for example email, facebook, twitter, skype, google docs etc and whether these were syncronous or asynchronous. Synchronous means that the response is instant for example skype or facebook chat. Within the classroom this could be used to share ideas with the teacher,other memebers of the class or to share videos and photographs. On the other hand asynchronous means that there is a delay in the response and so is not instantenous for example twitter, facebook and email. In the classroom this could be used to support collaborative learning and group work. There are endless possibilites when using social media tools within a school setting. It can give classes the opportunity to communicate with different schools within the UK and further afield. This would allow children to learn about other countries, their cultures and education systems and compare the similarities and differences to their own.


We then began to talk about communties of practice. Wenger(2006) believes that "Communities of practice are groups of people who share a concern or a passion for something they do and learn how to do it better as they interact regularly". Communities of practice are found everywhere and anywhere. I believe that a class is a community of practice as the children are all working together to achieve the same outcome. Teachers also form a community of practice with community, learning and development officers and social workers in realtion to child welfare. This relates to a module I studied during first year called Working Together to Achieve Social Justice.


The people that form communities of practices all bring different personality traits to the group which aid the success of the community. 
This is shown by Belbin's 9 team roles(right).  
It was interesting to discuss these roles in our group 'iCan' and see which roles we all thought we would play. I felt that I would definatly be a team worker as I feel I am a good listener, I enjoy working co-operatively, I like to avoid friction and confrontation and I am an extremely indescisive person. Not all of us knew exactly which role we would take but I am positive that the more we work together throughout this elective, we will find out.


References
http://www.ewenger.com/theory/index.htm

I believe

The Beginning

This is my first blog.