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Teaching Handwriting using an Interactive Whiteboard
Nov 13th
We still practice handwriting at school with the children. Since having SMARTBoards I have been using the software to transform the way we teach it and the way we support the children.
I don’t think that handwriting is that important, what is written is more important to me – however the practice does encourage some structure, which can improve legibility.
Instead of just using the board to model the different joins (replace) I use the SMART Recorder to make a little movie of the joins as I model them and play them back, on a loop (tranform). Most IWB software (if any good!) has some sort of video screen capture tool. This allows me to step away from the board and go and support he children as they are working. As the class work they can easily look up and see the modelled join/word playing back on the board.
Before I explain how to do that, here is my routine for teaching any handwriting session. When we begin I remind the children about the 5 Ps.
- Position - I encourage them to think about the position they are in and where there book should be.
- Place - are they cramped or squashed? Make sure they have enough room on their table.
- Pen - I talk about the tripod grip, to watch out for the power grip where the wrist and lower arm is too tense and encourage the precision grip with a freely moving wrist etc.
- Posture - Can you feel the back of the chair in the lower back. Don’t be too upright and tense, be comfortable and relaxed.
- Peace - We all need some to do our best.
When talking about the actual joins or words I ask the children to trace them on a giant scale in the air with their fingers, talking about the movements as we complete them. I then ask them to do the same join on the palm of their hand. We repeat the join on our wrists where it is all tickly and then a final time on the back of someone sat next to them. This helps to feel the shape of the letters.
Megan’s Present / Hand by Aeioux
Attribution-NonCommercial License
Before the children go on to practice in their handwriting books, I complete a modelled example using the video recorder. Here is how you do it:
- Open you handwriting page. We created a template on a blank page with the guidelines that suited our scheme.
- Open your video screen capture application – we use SMART Recorder.
- Select just the small area that you are going to be writing in – not the whole screen or page.
- I find it really useful to have the join/word already written with it’s transparency turned down. So that it is just visible, allowing you to trace over the top. If you are doing a simple 2 or 3 letter join model it more than once.
- Hit record and complete the modelling of the join or word.
- Hit stop and save your capture using the join or word as the file name.
- Playback your movie and set it to loop. Move away from the front and sit with children as they are working. With different movies open in different small windows you can have multiple joins so that children can work at their own pace through the work.
This is a good example of how technology can transform what we have been doing for decades. It breathes life into a common task, providing the teacher the opportunity to support the children at the point of writing. If all we do is write them up on the IWB we are just replacing old ways, we may as well do it on a dry-wipe board, or even just a blackboard or find a cave wall and some berries. The video playback is there if the children need it – they don’t need to remember what was done, they can just watch it, that has transformed the way they learn the joins and the behaviours that support that learning.
Within my handwriting sessions there is that important balance between technology and other approaches, a blended take on it all. Tickling the words on our wrists or a partners back is just as important.
SMART Table in my Classroom – Initial Thoughts
Apr 10th
By the end of next week we will have installed a SMART Table in my classroom. We are part of a small scale (3 school) seedling pilot here in England. As you can imagine, I am excited to further explore what such a device might offer within the primary classroom, and to do so over a longer period.
In my experience there was a muted reaction to the SMART Table (and other interactive multi-touch technologies) at the recent BETT show in London. Clearly the first reactions are hugely positive, I remember using the Philips Entertaible for the first time back in July 2006 – big iPhones! However there were very important, lingering questions that soon simmered to the surface when I talked with Christian Lortz, the product manager for the SMART Table.
My approach to the IWB has been the same since we began using them in 2002, it is not about the device but about the application – it is what you do with it that counts. The IWB is a big control device for your computer. The SMART Table is much the same with the added feature of multiple users. When you work with 9 and 10 year olds you realise that such novelty very quickly wears thin.
These are some fo the ideas and questions I have in mind in the run up to working with the SMART Table.
Depth
I am looking forward to exploring the types of software that can be written that takes full advantage of multiple users. At the moment the brief applications offer little in depth learning activities. With my own year group I suppose I want children to be able to engage with an activity independently or collaboratively for between 15-20 minutes. Not all the time of course, but in my experience children will work through things quicker then anticipated.
I hope our work with the SMART Table will help define software and applications of greater learning depth then what I have seen in the past. Beyond the initial novelty, leading to richer enhanced learning opportunities.
User Profile
How do you track what individuals contribute to an activity? This is an important question for the adolescent multi-touch table. As a child approaches the table, I want their individual contribution to be tracked and monitored as an activity progresses. Who contributes most when working in a group? Who sits back?
Enhance or dilute?
The jury is out. A ready device is on it’s way to my classroom and I hope that in time the learning activities that can be provided for my class will enhance what we already do. Let’s hope that path is swift and the quality of what already is taking place in my classroom is not diluted by the novelty of multi-touch.
Can you stack them?
This was a question I put to the team at Durham University about the design of a suitable multi-touch table for the primary classroom. Mostly serious, I was keen to point out that I want furniture to be flexible so that I can clear room for a drama session or party. A stackable table-top device would be ideal. I am interested to see how the SMART Table integrates into our busy room and what the children make of it’s design. Will they be too big to sit around it comfortably?
Collaborate
We have explored the way that children can collaborate using Google Docs and their own laptop. This also includes the difficulties they often face. So I am keen to see how well they work in a more open, physical digital space. Will the manual style of collaboration change the way they work compared to working as a team in a Google Doc? Again I hope that software is developed that provides more in depth collaboration opportunities, perhaps over a longer period of time.
Of course I will be taking the opportunity to write about our experiences with the SMART Table in blog posts and via my Twitter and Flickr feed. I may even push the boat out and start a new Twitter account for our kids to document what they think.
I have been following the progression of multi-touch technology in primary education for about 4 years now and have been fortunate enough to see and use devices such as the Philips Entertaible in our school, and the early stages of the Durham University Synergy Net project. Looking back on some of the posts that I have written on the subject, there is a refrain about how long it will be before we see these devices in our classrooms.
Well they are here, ready to go. But once again the key thing is to quickly get beyond the novelty and develop applications that go beyond what can be conventionally done and seek out true learning enhancement.
What key issues do you think need to be addressed in regard to a multi-touch device? Does the SMART Table really have the potential to further enhance what we do in the primary classroom? If you have used one, what were your first impressions and what applications do you think have a future with such a device?
If you would like to contribute further to the concept of multi-touch desk development then please consider joining my Classroom 2.0 group.
100 Interesting Ways
Jan 26th
In November 2007 I began the first of a series of Google presentations gathering together some ideas about the uses of different tools for the classroom. I thought that the easy manner of sharing Google Docs was ideal to collate thoughts, tips and suggestions from teachers and educators all over the world.
I began with interesting ways to use the interactive whiteboard and the family has since grown to include, tips for Google Earth, Google Docs and the most recent Pocket Video Cameras. It has been great to watch them evolve as people get in touch and I add them to the document and they make their own edits.
Here is the family photo 
My intention from the beginning was that there should be many authors of the presentations and that teachers and school staff could happily take the resource and share it with their colleagues. As it is in a simple presentation format it seems to have been successful in doing that.
In total we have collated 100 101 suggestions, tips and ideas for the classroom! (I can’t type quick enough and people keep adding more ideas!) It is fantastic to be part of that collaborative effort to share what we do.
The most recent on pocket video cameras seems to have really hit a rich vein of classroom ideas – so far 29 ideas have been shared by people all over the world and I only started it 3 days ago. I haven’t had chance to add an idea myself yet! Perhaps this wealth of ideas illustrates the power and potential of video in the classroom – which isn’t particularly new but pocket video cameras give us, and the children we work with, much easier access.
Who knows what the next 100 ideas will be about but I hope that you can be part of it – please take some time to take a look through some of them above, let me know if you have used the presentations with your staff. If you want to add an idea to any of the above presentations just let me know your email address and I will add you as an editor.
Using Befuddlr in the classroom
Dec 9th
I am thankful that Kristian Still Twittered me Befuddlr, a great little visual puzzle tool. It takes any online image and produces a slider puzzle that is ideal for working on the IWB. As the creators, Eric Kastner and Amy Hoy put it, “a delightful diversion.”
Give it a try now, if you haven’t before, and you will agree that it is lots of fun and would be a nice little activity for the children to do as a reward or during those wet miserable playtimes! I have set the children a puzzle of solving photos of themselves which they really enjoy. But what else can we do with it?
I think that it forms a lovely lesson starter and below I have outlined some basic ideas for using it across the curriculum. Of course the premise is simple: any image related to your lesson and it’s online – Befuddle it!
To find the images relevant to my ideas I have used FlickCC. Once I have found the image I navigate to the original image on it’s Flickr page and I have then used this 
(Drag this image to your bookmarks bar) to Befuddle the picture.
Click on the image previews to have a go at the puzzles.
Going beyond the puzzle in Literacy
- Handwritten or word processed text to piece together – topic related.
- Whole texts to help explore the different features
- whole words – focus on the formation of letters
- whole letters – from Flickr
Going beyond the puzzle in Numeracy
- Sequences of numbers
- Written sums to piece together
- Different types of 2D and 3D shapes
- Fractions
- Numbers around us
Going beyond the puzzle in PE
- What sport can you see?
- Images of the children from the previous lesson.
Going beyond the puzzle in History
- Exploring historical places / monuments / sites / artefacts
- Images or portraits of historical figures.
- Putting a timeline back together
- Scenes from ancient period eg. Gods and Goddesses of Ancient Greece.
Going beyond the puzzle in Geography
- Unscramble a map of countries / continents / the world / local area
- Physical geography images: rivers / coastline / mountains etc
Going beyond the puzzle in RE
- Special places of religious significance – buildings etc
- Befuddle various religious symbols
- Religious artwork
- Artefacts
Going beyond the puzzle in ICT
- Befuddle an image of the keyboard
- Various other parts of hardware to help the children become familiar
- Screenshots of software to encourage the children to get accustomed
Going beyond the puzzle in Science
- Befuddle an image, the image is a clue to the lesson objective (this could be done in every subject) Can you guess this one?
Going beyond the puzzle in Art
- Artwork the children have produced
- To focus on an artist
- Explore a specific style of work eg landscapes.
Befuddlr works really well when used with a pair or small group on the IWB / SMARTBoard. I have also had success with my class working on a puzzle together using a remote mouse, I have a Gyromouse in my class, passed around the children as they sit at their tables.
Clearly if you were to just leave the children to solve the puzzle it is only that, a simple visual puzzle. However if you couple that with some subject related questions as they are working either linked to what they see or the pieces they are moving, it becomes an engaging learning experience.
You may ask the children if they can guess the shape before it is solved, questions could probe about the different properties of shapes they recognise. Can they explain what shapes it cannot be? What can they see that gives it away? Have they been using the correct mathematical vocabulary etc.
Please let me know of any other ways you have used it to support your subject teaching beyond the puzzle.
Image Attributions
Image: ‘Just How Bad Off is the San Francisco Chronicle?‘
www.flickr.com/photos/49502995517@N01/187465586
Image: ‘handwriting meme‘
www.flickr.com/photos/34427466731@N01/189061818
Image: ‘4½‘
www.flickr.com/photos/49968232@N00/132872180
Image: ‘2006_02_26 Ireland Vs Wales_0082‘
www.flickr.com/photos/99708130@N00/110637863
Image: ‘9Puy du Fou9 Gladiatorium‘
www.flickr.com/photos/79795657@N00/366074731
Image: ‘Pharaoh9s jewelry‘
www.flickr.com/photos/44124324682@N01/220820
Image: ‘Europe‘
www.flickr.com/photos/80794171@N00/120077777
Image: ‘Lulworth Cove‘
www.flickr.com/photos/19237450@N00/237798413
Image: ‘Om‘
www.flickr.com/photos/43719085@N00/2080321877
Image: ‘Apple Keyboard (ADB)‘
www.flickr.com/photos/71295840@N00/185830828
Image: ‘Dandelion textures‘
www.flickr.com/photos/14516334@N00/1587765712
One idea, one slide, one image
Nov 19th
Sharing is good. I have started a simple Google presentation to allow IWB users to share a simple idea that has proved successful in the classroom. I would like this presentation to grow and grow as more and more people contribute their ideas. We can then all use this resource to help provide professional development for colleagues in our schools, districts, local authorities…
The premise is simple – you have one slide to explain one idea, in addition you have one image to help illustrate (if you wish). Let your ideas be for any group of teachers or children, from beginners to advanced users of the IWB – don’t be constricted by the IWB type, just as long as it’s a useful idea – I am sure we will all find a way to do it! Write about a simple tip or a longer project – you choose. Contribute one or contribute ten! I have made a start – the process is easy.
- Go to the presentation and take a look at was has been contributed. If you would like to be added as a collaborator send me an email (thomasgeorgebarrett [at] googlemail [dot] com – or use the contact tab at the top of this page) I will invite you in as a collaborator.
- Add your one slide, one idea and one image.
- Change the presentation title slide to match the number of ideas.
It will have a humble beginning – currently the presentation is called:
“One Interesting Way to use your Interactive Whiteboard”
Please help me change the title and create a supportive document that provides valuable, road tested ideas and tips for IWB users, new and old. I am sure we will all learn something.
Image: ‘Sharing‘ www.flickr.com/photos/33128961@N00/142455033
Ferry Halim
Jul 25th
I have been meaning to write about this wonderful site for a while now. It was one of those miraculous finds back in 2002/2003 that fades into your surfing past, but it undoubtedly has been (and remains) one of the most popular websites for the children at our school.
Ferry Halim is a digital artist and has created a site showcasing current projects and flash artwork. I think that searching for examples of excellent flash artwork may have been the reason why I found the site. As part of the little site is a section named Morning Sunshine which has about 60 interactive games that are utterly, jaw-droppingly beautiful. Nothing that I have ever come across on the web can touch these wonderfully crafted little games.
So when I first began playing them I discovered their simplicity and visual appeal would work perfectly for early years children. So I sought to spread the word about the site and I produced a document that allowed staff to see the different skills used by the children in every one of the games. For example the Game Type or Screen, Specific mouse control skills and other skills required.
Back in 2003 I was teaching ICT to every class in the school, including a session with 2 Foundation classes. We always began the session by using the interactive whiteboard and a simple art package like Blackcat Fresco to trace some letter shapes. I introduce the use of a music beater, the cloth covered sort, to help the children use the boards for the first time. I would still recommend this today as they have trouble with tracing smoothly on the board with their fingers when first experiencing the tool. After this short session we would work on simple mouse skills using the Ferry Halim games. “These Little Pigs” is one of those games that I began using with the Foundation stage children. All it requires the children to do is pop a bubble the little pigs are riding on at the correct time to stack them on top of each other. So just a single click. Much better illustrated if you go to the site and play it! Well the children and staff couldn’t believe how engaged they were and with a very peaceful soundtrack to the games it was lovely letting them get on with it.
So the document and site has become a very important part of developing early mouse skills at our school. I would also continue to recommend the use of the site for the early days of interactive whiteboard use, as I have done in the past when working with other schools.
This is an extract from the document I refer to just to illustrate what I mean.
My top three games from the site would have to be High Delivery, Pocketful of Stars and Bubble Bees. Please let me know what are your top three games. It looks like more games have been added since I edited the document back in 2006 so I will need to add the extra details about the games on soon.
Please use the games with your children (even the older kids love them) and let the staff have the document to support your school’s ICT planning and development in the early years.
International Voices Podcast – Show #1
Feb 4th
Well this is my first trip into the vibrant world of podcasting – but luckily I have had some friends to help me along the way. I am happy to say that I am part of a group of international teachers who have setup NextGenTeachers.com we come together to talk about current issues in the classroom and hopefully give some timely advice that arises from the varied work we are doing.
It is a fantastic opportunity to hear the current practice and thinking of teachers that are making the most of the latest technologies.
This first show has all of our introductions and some information about how you can get involved. We end up talking about the use of interactive whiteboards in schools and mull over some points about their successful use and implementation.
So how can you listen? Well 3 different ways:
- Here is a link to the mp3 file – International Voices Podcast Show #1
- Use the GCast player in the left sidebar.
Take your pick…
Take a look over at the NextGen site for the show notes and links that are discussed.
I would love to hear what you think of the show…
