Category: Laptops

Videojug | Create a Graph | Good ol' Word

Laptops, Literacy, Maths, My classPublished on2 Comments on Videojug | Create a Graph | Good ol' Word

Videojug and the pursuit for folding glory!

Who is doing instructional writing? We have been covering this text type for a few weeks now and two weeks ago we used this site as part of reading and evaluating instructional text. I decided I wanted the children to compare 3 sets of instructions for the same thing and to rate the instructions I chose to look at a renowned video titled “How to fold a T-Shirt in 2 Seconds”. However I did not reveal the video until the class had tried to follow two different text instructions (no pictures). And yes I did take in a load of T-Shirts for the kids to use! Don’t worry by the end of the lesson you will have all of the neatly folded!

The two sets of written instructions were taken from the Videojug site – a written set accompanies most videos. The first set the kids used was one edited down to one paragraph, no numbers or bullets. They struggled, but the point is they are meant to. (T-shirts become messy at this point) Suddenly the children are talking about how difficult it is and saying that this feature or that feature is missing.

We then looked at the second set of instructions which are just the exact written set from the Videojug site – as you see it online. The children still struggled, even though there are far more reader friendly features. There was some mild folding success, but not much. We discussed as a class why this was and rated the instructions as before.

I then told the children to open the laptops they had on their tables and look at the video. I showed it on the SMARTBoard too. I suggested to pause the video as it played so the children could keep up. It’s good as it has a “You will need” section and clear numbered steps on the video. I would recommend getting the site preloaded if you are getting lots of machines to access it – also if you are working on a wireless network.

Bisect t shirt

There were lots of serendipitous moments and suddenly children were expertly folding the T-Shirts as if they had been working in a clothing boutique for the past 10 years! We then had a Fold Off, children folding as fast and accurately as they could. I even challenged the other year 5 teacher, Rick to a contest. Entering his class with his kids backing him, I struggled and lost my 2nd pinch as he made a beautiful fold to the rapture of his children’s voices, I skulked off and called for the return tie! 🙂

Create a Graph

A classic maths tool, Create a Graph is saved by about 850 other people on del.icio.us and is a wonderfully useful tool for your data handling work. It can of course be used as an excellent way to demonstrate the creation of graphs with a whole class but This week we used it as part of an independent activity in a maths lesson. The children had pulse rate monitors fitted and a laptop to access the site. They needed to record their pulse after 2 mins of resting and then again after 2 minutes of walking around the room. This was repeated for 10 minutes – we tried to predict the shape of the line graph and the children managed very well with the tool. An important aspect of the tool is the ability to add a minimum and maximum value to the graph, so that you can create a more balanced graph with greater detail. We also discussed why 0-30 would not be useful on a pulse rate axis!

Once the line graphs were created we exported them as PDF files and talked about them in the plenary of the session using the SMARTBoard. You also have the option to export/download the graph in other formats: SVG (Scalable Vector Graphics) PNG (Portable Network Graphics) JPG (JPEG, Joint Photographic Experts Group) EMF (Enhanced Metafile Format) Can be imported into programs such as MS Word or MS PowerPoint, EPS (Encapsulated Postscript) Can be opened with graphics programs such as Adobe Illustrator or QuarkXPress. A good range of options to keep everyone happy!

I like the way that you can continually preview the graph as you enter data which allowed the children to spot errors as they built the graph. All in all a good apple!

Good Ol’ MS Word 

Now even though I have dabbled in blogs, wikis and online documents I still think there is great value in just some basic word processing skills. We are using the new MS Word on the class laptops and we have charged the children to write a set of instructions, a help document for the excellent Sploder game creator site. It has been great seeing the children bring to their work basic skills they have learned along the way and to develop some new ones. It has also brought us excellent opportunities to recap saving routines and simple image manipulation.

I know, and have experienced, the value of working on writing with other collaborators, with other children, other schools using new age writing tools. But in this instance I wanted to write without publishing along the way, I wanted the children to hone and master a single piece of work for a chosen audience without the outside world looking in. That’s not so bad is it? We have had some fantastic results, which you will no doubt see glimpses of here soon, and the children have been extremely motivated by the whole writing task.

Sickness | Diigo | del.icio.us

Laptops, My classPublished on7 Comments on Sickness | Diigo | del.icio.us

Unfortunately it has been a while since I have been fit to write as I have been off of work, away from school with a nasty bout of tonsilitis. On a course of penicillin tablets for it now which tastes completely rancid by the way! I am feeling back to my normal self at the moment and have had a full week in school which has been busy as ever.

diigo logo v2

Throughout this week in our Year 5 classes I have planned to utilise our class Diigo account for some simple comprehension work on instructions. Diigo is a tool that allows you to add annotations and sticky notes to any web page – making the most text heavy site partly interactive. As the children roll over these highlights or sticky notes they can read the pop-up message or comment. I have used it to pose some questions about an instructional text on making a healthy smoothie. The text itself is on the excellent WikiHow website and is in fact a piece of shared writing I completed last year with my year 6 class when we did instructional text too.

The children have been working on laptops during the group time in our literacy lessons at this task. The activity has rotated throughout the week so all the children can experience it. Once the children have read a question they can view the text immediately in front of them and they have no need to navigate away to a different window etc. In an ideal world I would have liked the children to answer using something like Google Notebook which is still very much my intention. But I thought that I needed to take things slowly and explore the use of Diigo first. So the children answered the questions in their jotters – a more nostalgic notebook shall we say!

They have enjoyed the task this week and have been engaged and motivated – the problems seem to be the tendency to move the sticky notes around the screen, so the order has been a bit lost. One or two notes have also mysteriously disappeared. I have been signing into the Diigo account so we can see our private annotations, but I suppose that if the notes were public and we didn’t sign in then no alterations could be made. They could be viewed but would be protected. Mmm I will test this out.

del.icio.us has proven to be an invaluable tool with so much constant access to technology with our laptops in lessons. Our Year 6 teachers are getting stuck in too, so our school’s weblink resource will no doubt begin to grow and grow. A great tool for any school that I cannot recommend highly enough!

Sharing a Google Spreadsheet in class

Google Docs, Laptops, Literacy, My class, SciencePublished on9 Comments on Sharing a Google Spreadsheet in class

Today was Day 1 in terms of our laptop use in the classroom and we hit the ground running, so to speak – just how I like it. I am sure you have had days like today, when it is a bit of a whirlwind from 8am right through to 4pm – where does the time go? Today the sands just seemed to slip through my fingers! Not to say it was one of the best days for a long time.

We now have 8 Toshiba laptops running happily in both of our Year 5 classes and today we kicked off with a simple word level activity in literacy. One group worked on Race to Ramses! a game about combining prefixes and suffixes to create new words. I have taught with laptops in the past but the new technology (laptops and WAPs) is just so much more reliable. And it is great seeing children completely engaged with one to one technology supporting their learning, I am so pleased to see it in the hands of the pupils – which is the whole point. You might think “web game, one group…not really setting the world alight” – but I suppose it is a culmination of a lot of work and to finally get things in front of children, reliable and solid feels like a big achievement.

Needless to say in the afternoon we swam into deeper waters and I’d like to think we pushed the envelope a bit…

The morning was successful and the children enjoyed working on their own machine and many children asked for the web address for the game – so we will have to get our del.icio.us account sorted or get them into their Google accounts soon!

In the afternoon we were looking at some science work we have begun regarding healthy living and exercise. Today we explored pulse rates and we used an online spreadsheet to share our results, hence the title of the post. (This work is similar to some online spreadsheet action we had last year with my Year 6 class) I decided to use a Google spreadsheet as I have been using the Docs application for a while (in fact I have a few grumbles about that – more soon) but you could have easily used EditGrid as an alternative – I set the sheet up so that all of the children’s names from both classes were present in the first column. Then 10 other columns were labelled, “Resting Pulse1, Resting Pulse 2…” It was in these cells that the kids added their resting pulse after counting for 30 seconds and doubling.

spread

I then accessed the same spreadsheet through my Google login on all 8 laptops per class that I put around the room – so in effect I logged in 16 times (plus my PC and SMARTBoard, so 17) to the same document from different locations. We talked a little about how to find our pulse and then asked the children to record 10 instances of their resting rate into the spreadsheet. It was great! With the live update feature we were able to see individual results popping up all over the place and even from next door in Rick’s class who were doing the same. Google Spreadsheets has an Auto Save option which makes life much easier and gives you the opportunity to see the live data. Not only did the hardware hold out fine, but accessing the spreadsheet was excellent – even with 17 simultaneous users on a single login. The children really enjoyed seeing each other’s work and it gave them a great overview of not only the class year group working together, but also to the sorts of data people were adding. Children from the other class were nipping across the corridor and questioning the validity of results from kids in my class.

The children had a tendency to sit with the laptop in front of them, in small groups rather than freely moving around the classroom and accessing any machine. But I suppose that is due to the nature of task.

Within the space of about 40 minutes, perhaps less, we collected approximately 600 individual results all in one place. No doubt they will be quicker next time. This method of data collection also allows us the ability to then manipulate the results afterwards, working out averages of the whole year group etc. I would highly recommend doing this if you have the reliable kit in your classroom, we have already said that it will be an excellent data entry method for our maths lessons on data handling.

It is now 12 hours since I started the day at school and I am just about coming up for air, no don’t worry I am not at school still! – but it is great to reflect here on these sorts of days. One to remember and I hope you might take some of these ideas and use it yourself.

The wheels are in motion…

Laptops, VoicethreadPublished onUpdated on3 Comments on The wheels are in motion…

So we are finally getting somewhere. Our laptop project has taken some big steps and we are nearly ready for September and the 4 classes to begin work with their new laptop resource. 8 is the magic number.
8
I have managed to purchase 8 laptops for each of the 4 classes involved which is great news. After much deliberation and balancing of features and budget we have gone for Toshiba A120s and I am happy with the sort of spec these machines have and also the sort of pedigree they come with. We also were able to take advantage of an amazing 3 year swap out and refund warranty. So they will not only replace the broken machine but refund us the cost of the machine!
I never imagined these machines to be high flying super computers. They need to slog through just basic multimedia and online work – as we have a very strong computer suite too, we can afford for these machines to be slimmer in terms of their computing power and features. So what will happen with these new machines? What will be their regular diet in terms of use?

I suspect that it will take some time to get used to the idea that no one is going to book the laptops out or take them away. They are in the classes to stay – what a luxury! But the pedagogical change cannot be underestimated and over the next few days, and early on in September I will be working closely with the teachers involved to ensure our eyes are open to the possibilities.

It would be very easy for someone like me to go charging in spouting about all sorts of stuff that can be done but that would be wrong. My past experiences of colleagues working with new technology has taught me to ensure they are comfortable accepting it into their learning environment and that they can happily access it for short period of time independently. So that they become familiar, they form an opinion and want more. All guns blazing is not the drill here. Remember not everyone thinks like you Tom!

After this initial time I will then work with the staff to focus their attention on specific aspects of the technology and perhaps deliver some training. I may introduce one thing such as Diigo for research or something like Voicethread. This is how I approached the whole school training and development of our interactive whiteboards back in 2004 and that was very successful.

So the wheels are in motion and no doubt will gather in momentum as we get storage and wireless connectivity sorted.

Reality check

LaptopsPublished on1 Comment on Reality check

Following a link to my blog from Stephen Hall at Tech Waves I unearthed a rather strong opinion against the idea of 1 to 1 laptop projects in the US. His post “Laptops are a costly Mistake for Schools” gave a me a good dose of reality just as I am on the brink of finalising our first step in this direction. I was curious to read articles here and here, that clearly illustrated the potential ills of such projects on such a wide scale.

Nevertheless I am determined that our approach is different, as I commented, we do not have deep pockets nor are we going to only measure standards after a year and say it was a failure or a success. We know from our own experiences that such projects are much more complex and often have unplanned impacts.

It was good to read a reply by Dennis Harter to these views and I truly value the variety of opinions that are so easy to access via our blogs. It helps so much as a subject leader to hear these comments and debate such real issues borne of real experiences.

Some of the main differences between many of the US models and our own is:

  • Age of the children – I work in a primary school, so problems evolving from a growing technical expertise within the student body will be limited.
  • Scale – we will be beginning this project with only 40 odd machines, no doubt this will stretch some of our resources, however it is not in the realms of 1000’s of machines to manage. Lessons we learn from this will help to shape the future of the project.
  • Focus – For a long time my headteacher and I have been saying that we want more choice for the children when it comes to technology. So that they eventually will be able to choose the most appropriate tech for their own learning. I believe our measure of success may be different to many of the US schools cited in those articles.
  • Access – in many of the articles there were huge ramifications from allowing machines to go home. For us the laptops will remain in the classroom for those children’s use. No sharing, no trolleys the responsibility for them will be the teacher’s and the children’s. As they will not be leaving the site we will hopefully reduce accidental damage and other related incidents.

With 3 quotations currently in my possession the next step for me will be to meet with my headteacher and discuss the details and what  follows.