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Using Instant Messaging to Engage Children with Reading Comprehension

TomGoogle Docs, Literacy, My classFebruary 25, 200911 Comments

I recently had a great conversation with my teaching colleague Rick about the use of technology to engage children with reading comprehension. This post is about my lesson I taught today as a result of that brief yet productive talk.

Although we have been reasonably successful in addressing how we use our available technology to support the development of times table knowledge, reading comprehension has been much more elusive. This afternoon both Rick and I explored two different ideas we had, regarding the use of technology to engage and support the practice of comprehension skills.

Rick was using the Flip Cameras in his lesson, he had about 3 available to him and was looking for the children to generate their own questions about a text. After talking with a partner and drafting the question on small whiteboards they recorded the question to camera. When there were a few Rick showed these to the class and worked on modelling the answers and then setting the children off to find the answers in pairs. By all accounts an engaging way to explore text.

We have used the discuss tool in Google spreadsheets and presentation chat before to peer review presentations.

I worked with a Google Presentation and wanted to engage the children with the text through the use of the instant messaging window that is available. All of my children love using MSN and Google Talk/Chat, it is the one application that they all use very regularly. For two years now both of my Year 5 classes who have been using Google Apps discovered Google Chat in GMail by themselves and have got busy using it.

So how was this all setup? There are some things that we have in place that have helped. Firstly the children are using Google Apps for Education and have a unique login. Secondly we are working in my classroom on laptops.

I created a presentation, which is in effect our text, in my Google account.
I shared the presentation with the class as VIEWERS. This is important as it will mean that the children will immediately see the file in presentation mode and not in editing mode. Loading time was slow today, although once all loaded we had no other problems.
The instant messaging window will open when they click “View with others” (Bottom right hand corner) you will see their names appear in the “VIEWING NOW” box on your own presentation.
We then did some shared reading of the text about Spies and Gadgets. I used the “CONTROL THE PRESENTATION” tool available to me as owner of the document. As I clicked and moved through the presentation everyone’s laptops updated. This was immediate in every case, not bad for sixteen wireless laptops and proved useful for whole class work.
Once we had a good look through the text as a class, and some initial discussion, I then explained the question answer process. I would add a question in the IM window and they needed to navigate to the correct page and respond with their answer, also in the IM window.
As I typed I muted the projector image so kids didn’t get a head start, that was helpful.
The children answered in the IM window and I could see their name with the response showing ownership.

You may be thinking that some children may just look at other people’s answers. I talked to the class about this and encouraged them to engage with the text themselves, nevertheless seeing their peers answers proved a valuable function of this group IM session. Children were commenting on other answers and it caused some to question their own accuracy if they saw something different.

Of course there was the odd smiley! But that is what the children do when they IM, I was kind of entering their world. It is a delicate balance. I want to harness the engagement that IM brings and yet not make it too schooly so they switch off. I ensured that when they answered anything all of our usual literacy standards applied and the class responded well to that.

We worked on about 10 questions together and all of the children were totally engaged and motivated to find the answers and use the IM to form their response. They also maintained this engagement for considerably longer then when we work with paper and pencil.

As the answers rolled in I was able to immediately give feedback to different children, asking them to look again at what they had written. One particular question about the reasons why we use tables to present information caused the children to respond about the content and not the purpose. I discussed with the whole class what the correct answer might be, gave the children the start of the sentence in the chat window and asked them to answer again.

Beyond this one lesson I think that if the children were to use the Google Talk client then we could be looking at a variety of different texts and not just something created in Google Presentation. With the chat window open and a website or film playing it would allow us even more flexibility. In fact it could work with any other type of available application.

My target in the lesson was to engage the children with reading comprehension using technology we use in our classroom. I think we did that. It is taking what the children enjoy doing and harnessing that engagement, attempting to merge and utilise the skills they use outside of school to impact on their engagement with their learning.

100 Interesting Ways

TomInteresting WaysJanuary 26, 2009April 22, 201929 Comments

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.

Assessing Pupils' Progress (APP) Google Doc

TomGoogle DocsDecember 11, 2008April 22, 20198 Comments

In this post I welcome James Mansell, a fellow primary school teacher here in the UK, who explains about a wonderful resource he has created and brought to my attention that addresses the use of APP in school.

APP or Assessing Pupils’ Progress is the new (?) national approach in the UK to understanding children’s learning needs. There has been a whole heap of related links and materials released through the Primary Strategy site and no doubt if you are Literacy or Numeracy coordinator you will be (or have already) attending training in the UK. I will let James introduce himself further and explain more.

My name is James Mansell, and I work at Earl Soham Community Primary School in Suffolk. We are a small rural school with just three classes. I am currently teaching Years 4/5/6. I have been using Google Docs for my own planning for about a year and a half now. I have found the flexibility of being able to access my plans from anywhere, and link to resources from them, has made my job easier and helped me to be more organised, as I no longer get to school and realise I’ve forgotten to transfer my plans to my memory stick or left them lying on the table at home! In the last year, I have also begun using Google spreadsheets to keep an assessment record. This again has meant that I can access and add to assessment files without the need for carrying bulky box files between home and school.

Download you own copy of the APP Guidelines Doc

With the advent of the new APP materials from the Primary Frameworks for Literacy and Numeracy, I wanted to stick with my new paper-free way of working, but was unable to find an easy solution as the APP guidelines were only produced as PDF’s (ideal for printing, but not much good for working with online). So I decided that I would need to spend a bit of time taking the guidelines and turning them into something that I can use in Google Docs. After much copying, pasting, and reformatting the result is a spreadsheet which contains all of the Maths, Reading and Writing APP Guidelines currently available (Levels 2-5). Each Guideline is set out in the same way as the original PDFs, each taking a different sheet in the spreadsheet, but with two important differences: they are now editable and stored online.

There are a number of ways that the materials could be used, but this is how I intend to use them:
As APP is designed to be used with a sample of six children from across a range of abilities, I intend to select my six pupils and create six copies of the APP Guidelines, with the filename as the child’s name. I will then select the appropriate guideline sheets for each pupil and delete any unnecessary sheets (cutting the number of sheets by a third). Whenever I wish to make an assessment, I can highlight the appropriate statements in the grid, by changing the cell colour, and use the comment feature to reference any evidence I have used in making my judgement. It is then a simple matter of entering a Y or N in the appropriate box to show whether they have reached a particular level. If used with a class laptop, comments could even be made during a lesson when working with a small group or individual child, so that a bank of evidence is built up to support the assessments.

I hope that other teachers find this resource useful, and if you have any ideas for how it could be improved, please feel free to contact me. mr.mansell+app (at) gmail.com

I am sure you will join me in thanking James for the hours of work that has gone into the APP Document and for being willing to share it to help other teachers. Please let us know if you find it useful.

Using Google Earth, Google Docs and Twitter in this Afternoon's Science Lesson

TomGoogle, Google Docs, Google Earth, TwitterDecember 8, 2008April 22, 20199 Comments

In my science lesson this afternoon we used Google Earth, Google Docs and Twitter to help us get a better understanding about how day length varies across the UK, and an insight into the differences around the world.

As part of our introduction to the concept of day length I used Google Earth and the sun/shadow layer to illustrate the movement of the Earth’s shadow. We played the animation for the day and talked about what we could see in the way it moved.

What did Google Earth do to enhance the lesson?

This tool allows you to control the Earth’s shadow – that is a powerful simulation in the context of this lesson.
The timeline at the top of the screen shows accurate timing of where the sunrise/sunset is during a given 24 hours.
You can play through 24 hours of sunlight and darkness in a matter of seconds.
It offers children a global perspective on day and night – and yet in the same moment you could be focused in on your school and explore it on a more local level.
If I was to continue this unit further I would consider a more prolonged and individual use of Google Earth and simple data sets of sunrise/set times. This would provide the children the link between the times and a visual representation of the Earth’s shadow.

In pairs the children worked in Google Docs on a set of sunrise and sunset times for UK cities. They used a simple formula to help them calculate the differences and so work out the day length in hours and minutes. They then looked at ordering the cities according to day length.

What did Google Docs do to enhance the lesson?

The children were able to share document ownership of the day length calculations.
Docs remembers to save the progress regularly – data loss is very rare.
Children’s completed spreadsheets were “handed in” to me to review by sharing with me as a contact. The docs will then appear in my own list and I will get an email message too.
I was able to model on a shared copy of the document displayed on everyone’s laptop screen. The changes that were made were updated in real time on their copy. When they went to make their own copy the modelled examples were part of their own.

As a longer extension to this task I asked on my Twitter network to provide some real locations for my children to research and find sunrise and sunset information for.

I have used Twitter in a similar way in the past and once again I was thrilled to get so many responses that challenged my class. The locations were from right around the globe – India to Australia, from Thailand to Scotland. As an extension my class chose one or more of these locations as they appeared in my replies window on TweetDeck, and found out the day length.

What did Twitter do to enhance the lesson?

Real data, from real people in real locations. I would just explain a little about the person Tweeting if I knew them. Real connections.
Purposeful challenges from real people.
It may only be a short 140 characters from those who contributed but it provided a hugely engaging task that made us think beyond our shores.
I cannot think of any other tool that would allow me to connect to so many teachers so easily.
The contributions were from so many different parts of the world that it provided us with day lengths that we could compare and contrast with our own.
The teachers that connected with us naturally asked other questions and challenges that allowed us to explore other things.
It provided the whole class an opportunity to think, if only for a few minutes, as global citizens.

It was an great hour or so and I believe the tools we chose to use to support our learning were the correct ones. I was of course pleased to see the children engaging with Google Docs so effortlessly, it is just part of what we do now.

Curiously Google have altered the process of creating a copy of a document, removing the “Copy Collaborators” step. This caused us no end of headaches when sharing a doc with many students, as they in turn copied the document and also the 60 collaborators. You can imagine the burgeoning number of copies! I hope our efforts to share what we did contributed in a small way to that development.

Every teacher should use Twitter, not only as a networking tool to help them learn – but in regards to connecting to the wider world to support learning. It is easy, it is fast and in my opinion peerless. Thankyou to all of you who contributed to the lesson with your messages – I hope that this post provides a context for your contribution.

My Proposal to use Google Docs for Online Reporting to Parents

TomGoogle DocsOctober 18, 200834 Comments

What follows is a proposal I submitted to my headteacher regarding a trial of the use of Google Docs (as part of the Education Apps) to deliver online reporting to the parents in my class. I have spent considerable time working with Google Docs both on a personal level, organising planning files and within the classroom as a tool to support learning. The ease with which you can share a document is central to the idea that I could share a collaborative report throughout the whole year – updated at times when units of work are completed or at opportune moments of review.

My headteacher gave me his consent for me to explore the idea and I suggested to him posting the original proposal for reaction from a wider audience, he was also keen for this to happen – as this post and hopefully your reactions will help us develop and refine the whole concept.

What is the proposal?

I am proposing to use Google Docs as a platform to trial the delivery of online reporting to the parents and children in my class for this academic year 2008/2009.

What is the National Picture?

It is clear that the government is positioning itself to deliver real-time online reporting by the target year of 2010 for secondary schools and 2012 for all primary. According to Schools Minister Jim Knight:

“Real time reporting will deepen the school-parent relations and is not a substitute for regular personal contact with teachers. Effective technology systems can actually significantly cut the staff workloads – but it has to be to be manageable for individual schools and meaningful for parents.” Jan 2008

The aim is to develop a real-time reporting system that means parents will be able to access frequently updated information on children’s achievement, progress, attendance, behaviour and special needs wherever, whenever they want.

According to this announcement from the DCSF Primary schools must meet the basic requirement to provide information to parents covering achievement, progress, attendance, behaviour and special needs, on a timely and frequent basis – this should be at least once per term by September 2010 and the real time requirement by 2012.

According to Tanya Byron:

“Schools already using online reporting methods have noted that teachers spend less time in total producing three reports each year online than they did when producing just one by hand. The anytime, anywhere aspect of online reporting allows teachers to have greater control and flexibility of the use of their time. And, importantly, online reporting allows teachers to see the ‘bigger picture’ for each student because they are able to view grades and progress in other subjects.”

Why Google Docs?

This tool presently has three main advantages:

It is already in place to be used within school, therefore no new software or programme has to be installed or found.
It is free – we will not need to buy into any contracts or purchase new software.
It delivers the real-time aspect of the online reporting requirement. This is because parents and children will have complete access throughout the year to the document. It is always on.

What will be the differences with the current end of year system?

We will have to unlearn some things. The sense of a formalised report at one time of the year will no longer exist. In this proposed system the parents (and children) will have continued and timely access to a single document that is the child’s report. That document will be periodically updated by the teachers as various units of work are completed and key assessments are finished throughout the year – not just at the end of the year. There will be key contributions from the children as they also comment on the work they have done and explore their own targets for improvement. Parents will have room to make comments based upon the contributions from teachers and children.

Will it increase the workload for a teacher?

For many their first reactions will be that it will, as you are in effect reporting throughout the whole academic year. However in my opinion the timely nature of reporting extends to the teachers too. I believe I will be able to better report to parents if I have the opportunity to just write comments about, for example, a history unit completed at Christmas time. As opposed to doing it 2 terms later alongside all of the other subjects. I believe I will find it easier to write subject comments if it is all fresh in my mind, consequently this will increase the quality of reporting to parents.

When would the report be updated?

I would expect that comments are updated when major units of work are completed in Design and Technology or History for example. Specific times throughout the school year must be negotiated for adding comments about Literacy and Numeracy and some of the other subjects.

What about parents who do not have access at home?

Although more and more families in the community have access to the internet, due to lowering costs, not all of the children in my class (2008/09) have access at home. For the 2 or 3 families that do not have access I will operate an open door policy in terms of the access to the report document at school. The parents will be welcome to come into the classroom immediately after school and access the document.

What is the teacher’s role?

As the year progresses I will schedule times that I will add comments about particular subjects – at the end of units of work, after major pieces of work in the unit are completed. I will also plan time for children to add their comments about the work that has been completed and support them in adding examples of what they have done. I will also collect evidence that is suitable for the online form of the report. I will notify the parents when these updates have been completed or if there is something that needs their attention.

What is the parents’ role?

In the document there will be room for the parents to add comments and feedback about the examples of work and subject comments about their child.

What is the children’s role?

The children will take an active role in updating the document with examples of their work and comments about their learning. At the end of units of work a structured class activity will see them remark upon what they have learned from a subject unit and the highlights from it.

What is the headteacher’s role?

The fourth collaborator on the report document will be the headteacher who will act as overseer on the process throughout the year. A final end of year comment will still be present but the document will be open to any comments from the headteacher throughout the year.

What might the report look like?

The report will be similar to the existing paper version with areas for subject comments. Room must be made for comments from all of the different stakeholders. Photos of the children working will be able to be included as well as examples of work. Links to other online documents and work examples will be used.

What needs to be in place if we were to begin?

Parents consent.
Email addresses need to be collected from the parents.
Schedule of commenting mapped to curriculum.
Information letter to parents.
An agreed report layout in Google Docs – what would we want to include in the report?
What will happen to effort and achievement grades?
What do we need to unlearn about the current reporting system.

I have much to iron out but would really appreciate your take on the idea, pitfalls that you might see and your general commentary on the proposal. Your comments will help us to develop the proposed system.

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