The Reverse Key

Tony Ryan's 'Reverse Key' uses words such as cannot, never and would not e.g. list things you would never/cannot,would not see.
When you are planning a unit, include a Reverse key

• Healthy food Unit: Name 10 things you would not put on a sandwich?
• Earthquake: What are some of the things you cannot do in an earthquake?
• Zoo: Name 10 zoo animals that cannot live in your house
• Weather: what are 6 things you would not do in a storm

Or use this key as a reading activity

• Charlotte's Web: List 10 things Charlotte would never do?
• Where the Wild Things are: List 6 things that the Wild Things would not do?
• Fairytales: What 5 things could Snow White/Cinderella/ Rapunzel never do?

These answers could be completed as a collaborative group activity, adding ideas to a mindmapping diagram (such as as Kidspiration or Inspiration, or online mindmapping software such as bubbl.us) .

Computer labs and Management

After observing countless lab lessons and taking a few myself, there are a few strategies I would suggest teachers put in place

1. Control signals to get attention
2. Repetition
   
3. Organisation of sites and links
   

1. It is important that all students will stop when you make a certain signal. You would use this when you want to demonstrate the same thing to everybody. The signals could be a clapping pattern or a voice pattern such as "hands off...look at me'. For older students I tend to use "thank you...looking at me". Then you should stop and wait until all students are looking at you, if they don't I would say "Oh dear, not everybody is looking at me, let's try again..." The common mistake I see teachers make is that they continue to shout instructions to the class while they are all still talking. Once you gain a few students attention, make the comment "Well done Johnny, your eyes are on me..." etc and soon all the students will be looking your way. If it has taken a long time to get their attention, then I would say once they are all looking at me "That was a bit slow, let's try that again, turn back to your computers...hands off, looking at me". Believe it or not, this works! Kids will respond to what you want them to do if you have set the rules and if you keep the same rules and routines constant.

2. As stated before, repetition works. If you keep to the same constant routines of behaviour in the computer lab, all your lessons will go smoothly. SO, make sure the students know what the attention signals are. For more tips on successful computer lessons click on this link 'Going to the computer lab'

3. For younger children particularly, I like to have the links organised through a hyperlinked PowerPoint or Keynote. These links will lead to the Website, game or file I have saved on the network. Students will need to know where to find the file, so make that clear at the start of the lesson, and how to put PowerPoint into Slideshow so that the links work. For older children you could have Class Delicious site organised with all the links to the websites they need to visit, categorised under curriculum areas, topics, or even Group names.

Keyboarding, projectors and PowerPoint

This is a PowerPoint slideshow that has different keyboard letters on each page. The first day you introduce this you would look at the home keys. Students will need to practice those for a couple of weeks. Once they have mastered the home keys then I would start introducing one letter at a time. Depending on how well the children have mastered the letter will decide when the next letter will be taught. These are drills that can be practiced when students come to the computer lab.

Oral Language and PowerPoint

A great activity for starting off the day is to timetable 3 children every morning to open up a PowerPoint that has links to

• the Weather for today
• What happened in History on this day
• the local paper

Those three children find something on those sites to report back to the rest of the class.

The next day three other children have a turn. I like the students to do this before school starts.

Handwriting, projectors and PowerPoint

I have prepared Handwriting examples for a class using the font Jarman. If you prepare all your handwriting lessons like this then you will always have them available. I have created them in PowerPoint. They can then be projected onto the screen for the children to copy out. Modelling how the letters are written can be done over the projection or on another whiteboard. I also like to have an individualised handwriting programme for my students so the separate PowerPoint slides can be printed out and laminated so you have class sets of the cards.

Spelling, PowerPoint and hyperlinking

Create your week of spelling activities in PowerPoint. I like to use PowerPoint because I can hyperlink to websites and files on my computer. In this example I have listed the topic words for the week. Students who have access to the computers can type out this list 3 times and it is projected on the screen for the rest of the class to copy into their books. There is a hyperlink below that to a website called Look, Cover, Write and Check. You can type in your word list and be tested online. This is a great activity for fast finishers and for children who need some incentive to learn their words.
This next activity has been created in Jigzone. Upload a photo to Jigzone, set the number of pieces and save it. I created these images in PowerPoint by typing in all the words, rearranging them, inserting a shape behind them, grouping all the images and then right clicking to use the option 'Save as Picture'. Then I uploaded the image to Jigzone. I could then hyperlink the image I had made from PowerPoint to the jigsaw I had made.





This activity has been created in Inspiration and has been saved as a file to my computer. So all I had to do was hyperlink to the file from PowerPoint.

Reluctant Writers and ICT

Some children just have nothing to write about, their imagination is stifled and they think they have nothing to write about. There are many reasons for this but one I would presume to say is that a lot of students are visual learners, not necessarily visual thinkers (their imagination has been stifled or ideas have been imposed on them).This is where computers can help...at any age level. I am not particularly advocating that they type (or draft) their story using the computer but instead use the visual aids available to

BUILD A STORY

Use Programmes like KidPix, Kidspiration, Inspiration, Pages, PowerPoint or Word, anything that allows access to a graphic library and get the students to build a story using the graphics available to them. They can then then move them around and create a visual story from the pictures they have found. This visual story can be printed out and used for the motivation for writing which could then be drafted in their writing books.
Another idea would be for children to record themselves on an iPod, PDA or a tape recorder talking about their visual story and this can then be played back to them as they are writing.

KidPix and Maths

Maths is one of the easiest subjects to integrate ICT into particularly in the Junior School.
There does not need to be a whole lot of preparation or creating but you will need to spend time showing students how to perform certain tasks and this can be done as part of the lesson.

Most of the time the main tool buttons that are used are the stamp pencil and line button.

One of the first things I ask teachers is "What are you doing in Maths at the moment?" they tell me and we work out an activity from that. Here are some examples of activities.

How many sets of five
can you make with the
stamp tool?




Patterning Copy these patterns and add to them




Matching 1-1 Find the stamps that have a pair and match them 1-1






Fractions Use the
tool to show the fractions


Make the number sentence and circle the set that is being 'taken away'



Here are some basic addition and Greater than Less than examples


In most of these examples you the teacher do not have to create anything apart from what the instruction is going to be. But don't expect the children to be able to just go and do it, you must model the activity first and this can be included into your instructional lesson.

Activboards versus Mimio...some thoughts

There are many types of Interactive Whiteboards and Mimios out in schools. A lot of teachers are not using them to their full potential, mostly because of technical issues of calibration, software and hardware conflicts, setting up problems and most of all lack of professional development. Then there is the issue of 'Which should we buy for our school?' This blog entry makes suggestions for and against both.

I have had the opportunity of seeing both Activboards and Mimios in action in one school. The Activboard has the projector attached to the screen. (Big tick here, no projector or wires hanging from ceilings or sitting precariously on tables).
The screen can be moved up and down according to the child's height. The screen is large and can be seen by the whole class right to the back of the room. Teachers have very little problems calibrating because the projector is fixed to the screen. There is a wireless keyboard that children or teacher can use anywhere in the classroom. The only down was maybe the clarity, the room needed to be darker or the projector needed to have higher lumens, but it was a minor point as it made no difference to the children.





The Mimio is attached to a LCD TV. This works well with small groups or the whole class on the mat in front of the TV. The mimio image was TV quality.

So far my evaluation of this equipment is that the Activboard works well in the Senior School because it can be seen from the back of the room and when you have big children sitting in a classroom with all your furniture, there is not a lot of room for sitting up the front. I also liked how you could direct student's attention to it while they are working at their desks and they could all easily see it.

I would use the Mimio more in the Junior school. It is least distacting for the whole class as it is smaller and could be used unobtrusively with small groups.

See my new blog dedicated to mimios and IWB http://mimioiwb.blogspot.com/

Proofreading and Interactive Whiteboards

• Choose a student's story that has been drafted on the computer and use that as a proof reading model at the beginning or end of a writing session
• Have the whole class or maybe a targeted group discuss what changes need to be made and let the children take charge of the proofreading
• use an example of drafted writing as a proofreading activity to be completed while waiting to conference (several children can be working on this activity at one time)
• have a child drafting using the IWB instead of in their books
• have two children drafting on the IWB creating a collaborative story, print out and they can proofread, edit and publish on their own
• use the IWB as one of the activities on your developmental circuit

See my new blog dedicated to mimios and IWB http://mimioiwb.blogspot.com/