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Literacy
Seeing Ripples
Mar 21st
When you share your classroom experiences and ideas, one thing you hope for is that they are transferable to other classrooms. This week I was delighted to see three examples of my ideas being successfully applied elsewhere.
The first is from Peter Richardson a primary school teacher in Preston who took my idea for using Voicethread for peer assessment of writing and used it for work in their Egyptian work. Here is the Voicethread he shared.
Kevin McLaughlin is a Year 4 teacher in Leicester and after reading my blog post about using Twitter and Google Forms for a data handling lesson, has applied the same ideas himself. His class compared music tastes from Kevin’s Twitter network (via a Google Form) with their own. I am pleased it worked well for his Year 4 class too, as Kevin explains,
The data that we now have will be used next week in further Maths lessons and the children added that they will continue to use the survey over the weekend at home and with friends. Real data from real people. This is what makes this type of investigation so very useful and brings an added dimension to data collection activities.
The final ripple I caused comes from Jan Webb another Year 4 teacher in Cheshire. Jan took up the challenge of using my Maths Maps idea with her class and developed a series of activities in a Google Map of Berlin for her class to use.
View Berlin in a larger map
Jan explains on her blog how they enjoyed using the resource in her class.
…a great deal of discussion arose from finding the shapes in some of the buildings and finding how many rectangles we could see in a building! We all really enjoyed these tasks and they not only let us discuss aspects of shape, but also provoked discussions about aspects of life in Germany.
These ripples are very encouraging as you are able to clearly see the effect sharing your own practice has on other teachers and subsequently other children’s learning.
If you have always thought about starting a blog but never got round to it, why not give it a go. The more pebbles in the pond causing ripples the better.
Superhero Ideas That Didn’t Make It Through the Revolving Doors
Mar 20th
Earlier this year we completed a very successful Superheroes topic in school. However many of the initial ideas I had never made it out of the revolving doors, so to speak.
One of the biggest influences for ideas and content was discovering the Brooklyn Superhero Supply Company and the spin off thoughts that occurred. The Superhero Supply store is a real shop in Brooklyn which sells all sorts of hero paraphernalia, from capes to muscles in a tin. Behind a swinging bookcase is of course a secret lair, a children’s writing and tutoring workshop.
The Superhero Supply Company is part of 826 National a non-profit organisation in the US to help support school children with homework and writing. Established by Dave Eggers it now has “stores” across the country with a simple aim:
Our goal is to assist students ages six to eighteen with their writing skills, and to help teachers get their classes excited about writing.
Of course what struck me about the concept and especially the Superhero online store, was the level of meta fiction that could be explored. This topic can easily focus on the comic book fiction but the mundaneness of shopping for a suitable replacement cape struck me as such a great idea to work with.
- Turn your classroom into a store for Superheroes.
- Try and find a mannequin that you could use to show a superhero outfit.
- Use the Pixar film The Incredibles.
- What happens in the everyday life of a Superhero?
- In drama explore everyday routines with a superhero costume on – queuing for a bus, picking up some milk from the shop.
The online store provided me with a rich vein of ideas for writing beyond children’s own fictional heroes.
The persuasive language used to sell the special products on offer would be a great text to unpick. For example on sale at the online store is Item No. 2503 - STANDARD 58″ SUPERHERO CAPE.
For over two centuries, the BSSCo. Standard 58″ Superhero Cape has been the industry standard in fly-wear for professional heroes. Every cape we ship meets all Superhero Alliance and FAA regulation requirements, and is specially designed for maximum flight control and resistance to air burn.
If you’re a working, flying superhero, the Standard 58″ Superhero Cape is a must-have. Because let’s face it. Without one, you’re just some guy who looks like he’s falling.
Available in a variety of colors.
The act of exploring the sophisticated persuasive devices used in the short product descriptions would be an excellent class activity.
- Develop your own online Superhero Supply store.
- Invite children to bring in toys and gadgets that could be rebranded as hero gear.
- Model how to write a similarly persuasive piece for their own gadgets.
- Children could role play the real life store or an order by telephone- Superhero and sales assistant, “I’m looking for something a little darker…”
- Develop a customer newsletter from the store or a flyer.
- What other things might we find in tins? Muscles, gravity – create your own Hero Basics range
- Script a radio or TV commercial as a Superhero endorses the store.
Further to these ideas we looked at how the children could design and make their own superhero costumes. This could be done so that they could wear them and then use them in subsequent drama and fictional work.
On reflection we did think that full size costumes for each child might end up quite a complex operation, so considered three alternatives. (1) To buy lots of dolls that could be dressed in miniature (2) Invite some local fashion design students to help (3) Creating a utility belt may be a design project that would allow children to work individually.
Accompanying these little design and make projects children could provide instruction manuals for the products that are created, such as the functions of the belt or the unique features of their cape.
Of course the stores have real products and their sale raises money for the 826 tutoring programmes and running costs. Each store has a different style as explained on the 826 National web page:
San Francisco’s pirate supply store sells glass eyes and one-of-a-kind peglegs, 826NYC’s Superhero Supply Company offers custom-fit capes, Seattle’s Greenwood Space Travel Supply Company sells all your space commuting appurtenances, 826michigan’s Liberty Street Robot Supply & Repair Shop specializes in must-have mechanical conveniences, while 826LA features a time travel store, there’s a secret agent supply store in Chicago, and the Cryptozoology shop in Boston is now open!
Spend any amount of time browsing the products available in the online store and you are bound to be inspired.
It is unfortunate I never got to put some of the ideas I have outlined into action, but I hope that sharing them here may give you the opportunity.
Pic: Jeffrey O. Gustafson
3 Educational Web Applications I’d Like to Make
Feb 19th
I am sure you have had moments when you discover your inner inventor too. Here are three web based applications I have much pondered and if I had more time, money, expertise would probably have made by now.
The old Story – A2 by h.koppdelaney
Attribution-NoDerivs License
StoryBook Earth
Inspired by my work on storytelling using Google Earth and WeTellStories, StoryBook Earth would be a place to share, develop and create geotagged stories. When we write or tell stories we are picturing a location, a setting. In combining the imagery of Google Earth, the ability to add text, audio and even further media to specific places, you have a powerful storytelling form.
StoryBook Earth would develop the idea of “story” and “narrative” and to connect students in different parts of the world. It would also be an attempt to explore how the local becomes the global: to provide an appreciation of students in other parts of the world. It would provide an alternative way of “seeing” and “reading” the world, and possibly introduce students to young people who have experienced:
- Very different lives and personal circumstances
- Conflict
- Natural hazards
- Different climates and natural environments
- Alternative cultures and traditions
I remember watching a 9 year old in my class tell a story to a friend whilst looking at his street in Google Earth, there is something very immediate about such narratives – similar in part to historical walks that explain a story in the places they occurred.
In partnership with the Geographical Association, StoryBook Earth was entered into the Google GeoChallenge grant application process but unfortunately was rejected.
(Thanks to Alan Parkinson at the GA for all his help developing this idea.)
On the platform, reading by moriza
Attribution License
My Reading Diary
In our school the children use little paper reading diaries, similar I am sure to many other primary schools. In it they record the books they are reading, their progress and there is a place for pupils, teachers and parents to make written comments too
So for this one think: Shelfari for kids. A learner centred online tool that would allow children to do all they could with a paper diary – without the worry of losing it! But it would also have a database behind it that would allow children to tap into further reading recommendations. Children could read reviews from other users and discover new genres or books they may not normally.
I would imagine that My Reading Diary would have the potential to integrate with library management systems, so children could read a review or see a recommendation and immediately know if it is in school – and if it is available to read or someone else has it out already!
A further unique feature of My Reading Diary would be as a reading portfolio for children as they progress through school. With simple book profiling it would allow teachers and parents to see the types of books any child is reading and make future suggestions.
I think there is huge potential in this to not only provide a manageable online system to track reading progress throughout school but to also engage children with reading and a social, smart, personalised reading diary.
This idea was sadly rejected by Channel 4’s 4iP which is an innovation fund to stimulate public service digital media (beyond television) across the UK.
Firespeed by kwerfeldein
Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs License
Connect Collaborate Content
I don’t know what I would call this application but I think it could be very important in the way teachers work in the next 5-10 years.
I would propose a single online place for teachers to find curriculum resources and ideas, connect with colleagues teaching the same topics and a platform for collaboration.
Ian Yorston quite rightly said that this place is the web. It perhaps is a matter of pulling streams of different information together, but I just don’t think there has been a purpose built online space that does all of these.
I am doing some work on the Victorians next half term – with my proposed web idea I want to be able to do a single search for “Victorians” and see a multitude of things that we regularly look for and seek out in further web queries elsewhere.
- Resources - planning, images, video, notebook files, PPTs, worksheets, that sort of thing.
- Ideas - the resources found on the web do not often come with the narrative behind it, I want to be able to read blog posts and summaries of experiences from those who have taught my topic already. My search results would draw in comments from Twitter and other platforms too.
- Connections - so many schools, teachers and pupils are working on the same topics, I want to know who is actively doing them too.
- Collaborate - once I have discovered that XYZ are doing the same topic, I want to have the means to collaborate and work with them.
We have a myriad of educational blogs to cover the ideas, places like Gareth Pitchford’s Primary Resources, Classroom 2.0 that does much to connect teachers and then there is simple tools like Teachers Connecting from Ben Hazzard that is a platform to connect and work together.
But we need one place to do all of this from a single search query, that would be the unique feature. You enter a single topic key word and your search results provide everything.
Another aspect that is important is what happens as we share our current classroom work. From blogging about my topics at school this year, for the first time my network has brought resources and ideas to me. Not as a result of me asking, but because they “read a post a few weeks back that I was doing sealife”. If we are all more aware of what topics colleagues are doing in their classes our sharing of ideas and resources can be more purposeful.
It will be intriguing to see what develops with mycurriculum.com from the QCDA and whether it will be able to build the critical mass of users to make it truly worthwhile – and also if it is smart enough to do some of the things I have outlined.
It has been an interesting process getting these ideas down in a post – let me know what you think of them and if they would have value in the educational world we work in. The ideas are there, feel free to go ahead and make them, just let me know you have so I can use them.
Using Voicethread for Writing Ideas and for Peer Marking
Feb 1st
In the past week or so our literacy work has focused on a short sequence from the comic Spiderman #1. Our Superheroes topic is going well and in this post I explain how we have used Voicethread as a creation tool, a writing scaffold and as a way to do peer marking.
We began with the sequence in the comic where Peter is attending a science fair at a local school and is bitten by spider that has been zapped by one of the radiation machines on show. I wanted the short 5 panel sequence to be the focus of an extended narrative. I liked the tight focus on a few moments and the action and comic imagery would really help us to write some interesting narrative.
To begin with we made some notes about the short sequence as a whole class, mainly key words, things that just jumped out from the images and from the facial expressions of Peter.
The next step was to import the five panels from the comic you can see in the above image into Voicethread. I just used a screen capture tool and created some separate image files for each. The Voicethread was to be a collection of first ideas. At this early stage of the writing process I think Voicethread plays it’s hand superbly.
The children have the opportunity to say their ideas aloud. To articulate, listen back, correct and re-articulate very easily. All of the children in the year group worked on writing and recording ideas for the Bitten! sequence and as you know they are privy to all of the comments from their peers in real time. We used the vocabulary above as a stimulus throughout this early task.
After sharing literally hundreds of narrative ideas for the sequence, the children were put with a writing partner. Often we focus on writing in solitude but I think the support and insight children can get from working together is hugely rewarding. They get to see how someone else might approach the same piece of writing.
I modelled the up-levelling or improvement of some simple starter sentences for each of the panels. We worked together as a class to extend and improve on them using the language already collected. The children used Google Docs for their work and I encouraged children to also have open the Voicethread of ideas that we had created. The 5 panels acted as 5 simple paragraph changes. In this step the children are using Voicethread as a source of ideas and as a writing scaffold. They listened and read back the comments others had left and I think found these really useful in kick-starting their work.
As we were working in Google Docs I dipped into their work as they were busy writing. I have written before about how this is less obtrusive than looking over their shoulder or taking their books off of them. I added a header to the Google Doc and then used CTRL+M to add a named and dated comment. I would back this up by a quick chat with the pair if needed to ensure they would act on my advice and feedback.
The children had of course shared their Document with me and their writing partner. In my Docs home screen I used the star label to show which Docs I had marked and which I hadn’t. You can read some more ideas for marking with Google Docs in this blog post.
As part of the writing process I explained we would be publishing some to the class blog. I wanted the feedback from the blog to be part of the improvement process for the children. I think that if you plan to publish examples of work in this way, and the kids know this before they begin, you are not just bolting it on afterwards. The children know that the blog readership will be their audience.
We were able to publish 80 percent of the work from the class, those that didn’t were just unfinished. The comments that we received were fantastic and greatly encouraging for the children involved. We would revisit these later in the process.
Although the children have a finished piece of work at this point we are only part of the way through the writing process I had planned and this is where we turned back to Voicethread again. (We kept a printed copy of this first draft.) I have often said that the use of PDFs in Voicethread is overlooked. Clearly the use of images and video is very engaging, but adding PDFs is really useful functionality.
I did two things before exporting the children’s work from Google Docs. Firstly I added their names next to the title of the work. I knew from who shared it with me who the owner was, but as a plain PDF it would be missing that. The second thing was to increase the size of the text so that it was clearly visible in Voicethread.
Voicethread allows you to zoom in to text or images, but when you need to use the pen highlighter it zooms out. With a full page PDF the writing can sometimes be too small to see. Ensuring the text size is set as high as possible is really important if you want to take advantage of the pen tool.
Once this was done I exported all of the Docs as PDFs (no need to worry about the file names as you added their names to the text already) and imported these into a new Voicethread. I noticed that some of the pages were jumbled, in other words if a piece of work was over 2 pages these pages were split. Naturally you want them next to each in Voicethread - watch out for that, however it is easy to move pages about from the upload screen.
Saying that, it is hard to see from the thumbnails which belong together – maybe that is something for Voicethread to work on. Either a magnify function on the upload page for each thumbnail or better assurance PDFs will stay in the correct order.
Once the Voicethread was ready to go I asked each pair to record an audio comment of one of them reading out their own work. This is a simple step you can take to allow all of the children in the class to access the different pieces of writing. If they struggled reading it, there was an audio version! We talked to the children about adding comments and feedback and I stuck to a simple 2 stars (things they liked) and 1 wish (something to improve) which we have used before. I encouraged them to use the pen tool to highlight words, phrases, sentences and paragraphs that they were referring too and this proved very successful.
Interestingly the process of reading your own work out aloud and recording it made the children realise where they could improve their own work.
The final step was to revisit their original writing and complete the editing process. It is sometimes hard to find time to review work in light of comments but is essential in helping children improve. Those with blog comments on their work were encouraged to look at what was written. Everyone had numerous comments on their own work as part of the Voicethread - they went back to their Google Doc and made alterations and improvements based upon the feedback from me, their peers and the wider audience on the blog.
I went to every single pair and asked them to talk through some of the alterations they had made and guided them to focus on anything they had overlooked.
In short the sequence looked like this:
- Reading the focus sequence
- Gathering initial vocabulary and feedback
- Voicethread of sequence – children add ideas
- Writing begins – using above resources
- Writing is published to the class blog and uploaded to Voicethread
- Voicethread of work – children add feedback
- Edit in light of teacher, blog and peer comments
This was over the course of about a week and half to two weeks. This sort of timescale really allows you the space to establish some quality and immerse you and the class in the piece of work. After all, we were only writing about a very short moment in time.
It may have only been a few fleeting, painful moments for Peter when he was bitten, but we found this extended writing and review process really successful.
Spiderman Digital Comic – Exploring the Front Cover
Jan 14th
Today we began reading Spiderman #1 which is the main text for our Superheroes unit. It is a free digital comic from the Marvel Kids site. I have chosen it because it covers the process of change for Peter Parker’s character and the development into a superhero. Some of the other free comics deal with the heroes in well established storylines. The origins of the superhero outlined in this first issue allow us more learning opportunities, and of course more opportunity to explore the storytelling.
The comic opens in the Marvel Digital Comics Reader (Java) which is a lovely way to view this sort of text. It gives you a variety of different options for viewing. We found the SMART PANELS option was the best to zoom into the details, parts of speech and narration.
The first thing we did was to spend time looking at the front cover (see image above) so much is going on. I told the children to take everything they knew about Spiderman, gather it all up and put it in a box in their minds. And then to push that box away. I wanted them to focus on what we can find out from the front cover about Spiderman. We talked about the striking imagery and how it showed movement. We delved further into the background and unpicked the details too. You can see the notes we made together on the screenshot above.
It was a good challenge for the children to try and explain what they can learn from the image, back it up with reference to the “text” without referring to something they already knew. Someone said Spiderman can shoot the web/rope out from his hands. We discussed this carefully as I contested there was no evidence in the image – we did all still have a go at doing Spidey fingers and shouting “Go Web!”
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.
Sealife Action Text
Nov 6th
Learning a short piece of text has proven really valuable to many of our Year 5s who find it harder than others to begin their writing.
An action text is a short, simply written, piece that allows us to add actions to represent the words. We would learn the text and the actions as a whole class, inviting the children to suggest memorable actions for the major words. We had lots of fun doing this and even came up with a “link” action (hands clasped together) to show the connectives in the writing, such as “and” and “before”.
I invited the children to create little doodles above the words to help them remember them too. Here are some examples.
During some lessons we worked on taking some of the simple sentences and improving them by adding some more descriptive vocabulary or more detail. The text we used for Sealife was a general piece of description that could be used in other ways – a flexible set of ideas.
We had been looking at scuba diving underwater signals and the children have been developing their own. This worked nicely with our action text as we used some of them to reinforce some of the language in the passage.
You might wonder if learning one piece of text leads to lots of the same pieces of work. However we spend just as much time extending and personalising the text as learning it verbatim. Those more confident writers stamp their personality on it and we tend to see glimpses or phrases from the Action Text in their work.
Some children just find it very difficult to begin a piece of writing, draw upon example ideas or even remember modelled writing from the teacher. We have found that the children needing the most support have recalled this Action Text really easily giving them a great starting point for their writing.
Using Endless Ocean (Wii) in the Classroom, Weeks 1 and 2: Dive and Discover
Sep 19th
We have been working with Endless Ocean on the Wii for a couple of weeks now as crucial element in our Sealife topic this half term. I thought I would grab a few minutes and return to the surface to reflect on it’s impact so far.
The game has been perfect for our work in class as it is so open ended. There is no specific path or “levels” that need to be completed in a certain order. Once you are through the brief tutorial, which covers some of the basic controls, you are free to explore the ocean depths.
These open ended, sand box style simulations provide great learning opportunities for classes.
The currency of progress comes in the form of fish of course, or indeed any marine life you encounter. During our first week we organised a set of 5 activities in our literacy lessons that were rotated (a carousel) throughout the week. These included a teacher led (guided) reading session, some online research on the species we had already found and a group playing the game to explore it for themselves. It is important to allow children time to play it independently or in a small group.
I provided a simple factfile template (differentiated for a couple of levels) that gives the children some structure to their research and has proven useful for them to collate notes from the game. Here is a little video of some of the gameplay you would experience in Endless Ocean.
Each species that is found is recorded in the game’s Marine Encyclopedia (See 2:05 in the film above) which is proving a useful record. I also have lots of fish shaped card and written the names of what we find for display in the classroom. Children can then choose something from the display to go away and research without being tied to the game. I think it is useful to display your progress of discovery in this way. Taking the game out of the console into your room continues the engagement.
When you find a fish in the game you have to interact with it to learn something about it. In the film you will see each species has 3 facts to discover. The longer you interact with the fish and the more frequently you discover them, the more facts are revealed.
The children have been very engaged with the topic so far – we were using the Wii in our first literacy lesson in Year 5. A pretty interesting start to the year for them, not what they were expecting perhaps.
Many of the children have discovered fish during their time playing the game – you may have seen from our class Tweets of our dives we have been excited to find, amongst others, the Japanese Bullhead Shark, a Red Stingray and the Leopard Whipray. The children take great ownership of these discoveries. After I remarked on a certain type of fish I had not seen before, a boy proudly turned to me and stated, “I found that yesterday!”
Their engagement goes beyond the discovery. It continues onto trying to find out about the species in more detail. I think they make a connection between their simulated experience in the game and the desire to find out more. They want to find out more as they have invested something. With a trip to an aquarium planned for later in the term we will hopefully close this loop of experience with real life examples.
The experience of using the game so far shows me that a rich, games based simulation adds an ingredient that is hard to replicate in any other way.
I said in my last post I wanted an edge to our learning that provided moments of shared discovery and we have had many of those. For example, as a group has found a species like the Scalloped Hammerhead or the first sighting of a dolphin we have all downed tools and just enjoyed that moment.
In one shared dive with the whole class we swam away from the coral reef (which we have been learning about too) and in the murky depths I could see a large grey and white tail swishing away from us. We began to realise what it could be and I had to swim to catch up with it…suddenly we were surrounded by a group of Indo Pacific Sailfish. We thought it was a shark. It was a lovely moment of discovery we shared as a class and one that captures what is possible with these games.
You can probably see that these moments offer some excellent opportunities for narrative or recount writing which we have been exploring in the last few days. There be a story in them murky depths…
