SMARTboards

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:

1. Open you handwriting page. We created a template on a blank page with the guidelines that suited our scheme.
2. Open your video screen capture application – we use SMART Recorder.
3. Select just the small area that you are going to be writing in – not the whole screen or page.
4. 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.
5. Hit record and complete the modelling of the join or word.
6. Hit stop and save your capture using the join or word as the file name.
7. 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.