I was helping a teacher with ideas of how to integrate ICT into her classroom programme. I asked her what her shared book was and suggested how she could teach 'Shared Book' using the class computer and a group of children. (Read the Shared book with the children first)
Start off with a blank page, introduce the shared book, ask what the title is, type the Title in
in the sub title box type by Room #
Insert a new slide
Read the text from the Shared book and then start typing it in
ask questions like "What do I need to type first?" "What goes at the end of the sentence?"
Computer skills are taught as they are needed i.e. "How do I make a capital letter?" "Who can show me how to type a full stop, what finger should I use?
As the book was one about 'I can run, I can draw' etc. The teacher taught the children how to take photos, so these 5 and 6 year olds took their own photos and the teacher inserted them into their PowerPoint.
To finish it off she chose a design template and this was all done as part of the lesson with the children participating alongside.
All this was part of their shared book learning experience, and put their learning into an integrated, authentic context. They now have this story on the computer as an extra reading activity.
As a follow up to this, students can take photos of other things they 'can' do and add them to this shared book or create an new one.
I was working with a computer lab teacher today looking at ways to work with students. She had a class of Year one students came in!
You need to put some sanity saving measures in when working with a class of 5 and 6 year olds in a lab. They can't sit for long, because they are too excited, so it is best to get them on the computers straight away. If possible don't have them sharing as their collaborative skills at this age aren't that great! Beforehand you will have needed to teach a couple (or more) of more able students to help the others to log on, and then click on the programme they are going to be using i.e KidPix or Paint. Let them go for it, experimenting with the tools or doing their favourite thing. Once everybody is logged on and in the programme, THEN you can start to add some order to your lessons.
The following are the stages you could go through with Juniors These happen over several sessions!
free play
while they are in free play, work with individuals showing them a new tool i.e dragging background pictures and adding stamps
show them the typing tool and type their name (you will need a display on a wall that shows the Upper and Lower case letters for those who haven't mastered them yet)
type the words they know how to write (have high frequency words on the wall for students to look at)
first official lesson can be drawing a picture about their topic or what they are writing about in their classroom LIMIT THE TOOLS! Pencil and Paint Can ONLY
Repeat this session many times but bring something new in when the students look ready for it like typing your name (I also teach new things to students who look like they are capable of it as I walk around)
next session might be typing a sentence
at some stage teach the more able students how to save (they will help you to save students work)
once the students are used to all these steps then you might introduce a new programme/Application
at the same time talk to the students about the magic line, put two hands on the keyboard, this hand can't cross over this side of the magic line and the other hand can't cross over that side of the magic line (I put little pieces of folded paper between the keys to create a magic line)
Once the students know the routines and how to use one or two of the programmes, then start using your computer lab time as curriculum teaching and learning time. Writing is a good area to start with. Use the projector to model your writing genre. Students can have their writing books (there should be a container of pencils in lab). Send a small group of able students to the computers to draft (use Kidpix, Kidspiration, Pages, Word etc). The rest of the students can be drafting in their books. Children could be sent off to the computers to...
draw a picture for their story
Type a heading for their story that could be printed out
find a picture in Kidpix that could be printed out
While this is all going on, integrate keyboarding skills at the same time
always remind them of the magic line
thumbs only on the space bar
pinkies only on the delete key
rest fingers on the home keys (those students whose fingers can reach and are ready for it)
With little ones it is all about learning the basic skills and developing that fine motor control. Some students will need more time 'with free play'. If you have students that need mouse skills then set up Interactive Learning Centres such as... Mouse Practice
To make these Learning Centres follow these instructions
Finally, limit the time students are on the computers, 30 minutes is plenty of time for younger children to be staring at screen. If you have extra time over, then bring out the cameras and take photos that could be used for motivational writing or for publishing their work. Just remember at this age more than any other age, the students will develop their skills at differing speeds...some a LOT faster than others. Identify those children that have those skills and use them to help you to teach the others. You will find that children learn best from each other!
There are still a lot of teachers that are sending children off to do 'research' on Google using one key word.i.e bird (253 million hits later). When they finally find a page that has the information they want, it is invariably printed out, and trawled through looking for information.
This is long, tedious, boring and usually irrelevant!
Become a smart researcher with some of these strategies
1. have at least 3 key words if you are looking for information on birds, what sort of birds are you looking for, what country etc so now the Google search becomes 'bird native wading' and because we want to search for New Zealand Birds we click on pages from New Zealand. Now we have 10,400 hits!
3. Go back to the internet site you have chosen, press Ctrl F (Command F for Macs) type in one of the key words from questions in mindmap like 'eats'
4. The word eat did not appear on my page so I used a synonym such as feed, click the next button to see each instance of the word feed until you see a sentence that will answer your question 5. Go back to your mindmap and type in the information you found 6. Go between the Internet site and the mindmap adding information 7. Add a picture to your mindmap by right clicking on a picture in your internet page, select Copy Image, go back to mindmap and paste (Ctrl V) 8. Don't forget to reference where information and picture came from
Model this way of researching to your class. Use this model in all curriculum areas. Become a smarter researcher yourself and your students will follow!
There are few games that I like to play with students when we have a few minutes spare, you need at least a projector (and laptop) and even better a mimio or IWB.
Free Rice Free Rice is my first favourite. For every question you get right 10 grains of rice gets donated through the World Food Programme.
The reason it is my favourite is that if you click on Change Subjects you can choose from other subjects.
I particularly like to do the Geography questions as most children in New Zealand schools have very little idea of where other countries are in the World.
Lemons for Literacy
Then there is Lemons for Literacy. With this site every correct answer helps somebody to read in America. Money is donated by the site creators to purchase literacy materials.
With this site you can click on the speaker symbol to hear the words and meanings.
You can also change the type of game by clicking on the 'Defintion Matching' dropdown menu to choose Word meaning. You can also choose a subject rather than General (some of the choices are Business, Medical, School, travel or hospitality). You can also adjust the level of the words.
The goal of this game is to test your knowledge of places on the map. Every correct answer means that freepoverty.com will donate 10 cups of water. The further away from the correct spot and the cups of water decrease, if you are too far away there is 0 cups of water awarded. Unfortunately it does have advertisements on it so check what they are advertising that day before using with your class.
The reason I like using the mimio or IWB is that students can use the pens to interact with words and the maps rather than one person using the computer.
And here is one more I have just found
Free Flour
Free flour used to donate one spoonful of flour to World Hunger, but they are looking for sponsers. You can still play the game for free.
In this game you get questioned General Knowledge questions. Check out what the advertisements are advertising before using with children.
A teacher said to me today that her children were always publishing in the same way, in Word with a frame and a title. She wanted to know some different ways to publish. I showed her my slideshare presentation '59 ways to publish'
Journal Publish We decided to keep it simple and look at only using Word and PowerPoint. We looked at the Journal story idea. When you look at school journals, most of the pages have pictures in the background and text overlaying the page.
This is an example of two Word pages side by side. The photos cover the whole page, some of the photos have been lightened with the Washout button and then text has been inserted using textboxes. (Remove the background colour and line from the textbox by clicking on the Fill can and selecting 'No Fill' and the outline shape or line button and select no outline or line).
Publishing using PowerPoint Templates
One single PowerPoint page can be used for publishing as well. Open PowerPoint, choose a design theme.
Select a slide layout, type in text, add graphics. Print out single page.
You can adjust the colours of the template by
Mac: Open the Toolbox and choose a colour theme from Document Theme
One of the activities I timetable children to do each day before school is to find out what happened on this day in History. Some of the sites I had been using were American (and were the day before, because of time difference).
Sometimes the information on those sites were not really appropriate for children in New Zealand. I came across this site New Zealand History online. What a great way to teach our students New Zealand history.
How to use in the Classroom IWB Make a file using the notebook software of the IWB you are using. Add the links to the first page.
I also link to a weather site and current news site.
Students are timetabled (3 a day) to click on a link, read the page, decide which item they are going to copy and take a screen capture to a new page. This becomes part of our oral language time in the morning where all 3 students have a chance to report back to the class what they have found out. They particularly like using the IWB to navigate to their pages and we always take the opportunity to use the highlighter pens to identify key words, nouns, great adjectives etc( what ever happens to be our focus at that time.)
Projector only
Make these links in a PowerPoint and hyperlink to the address or the pictures. When presenting back students click on the link and find the item they want to talk about.
No Projector or IWB
This still works well without a projector, students take notes of what they have found out and report back to the classroom. This is great activity for making sure that all children get hands on time using the computer and the internet every two weeks.
I have written a series of technology units that have an ICT focus and I am going to share them over the next few weeks. The first one is Ancestral Seafarers. Students will use Google Sketchup, Digital Lego and Paint as some of the ICT tools. This unit is designed to integrate into the main Science and Social studies focus. Setting: We have been looking at how the early Maori people migrated to New Zealand. They used many forms of navigation tools such as the stars, migrating birds and tidal flow. Brief: It is the year 2010; we have sophisticated technology available to use. If we were going to make the same trip and were able to use the technology available today to navigate, then what and how would we use it? Plan a model using Sketchup, Digital Lego or Paint and identify all of the technologies you have used. Specifications:
The boat you travel in can be no longer than 20 metres
You must justify the use of each technological item
'So canoe traditions do not only explain origins. They also express authority and identity, and define tribal boundaries and relationships. They merge poetry and politics, history and myth, fact and legend' (retrieved from TeAra)
What does this mean? How can it relate to your own design?
Try out the tutorials in either Sketchup or Digital Lego Draw your plan itemising all of the technological improvements that you will use for navigation. Level 1: Describe your plan itemising all of the technological improvements that you will use for navigation. Level 2: Present your plan to the class explaining the outcome you are developoing and describing the technological improvements Level 3: Describe your outcome explaining how it will suit what you plan to do with it, identify the technological improvements and describe in detail how they will assist with the final outcome Level 4: Identify what the need or opportunity was, describe the technological improvement and how it will benefit the stakeholders.
TeAra the The online Encyclopedia of New Zealand is a wonderful resource to start with when researching anything to do with New Zealand. TVNZ on demand is another valuable resource and Waka Hui had several episodes on Ancestral Seafarers.
There are only two weeks left until the end of the school year in New Zealand,
so it is time to start thinking about Christmas activities we could do with the students in our classes. Even though Christmas is during Summer we still adopt a lot of the Northern Hemisphere traditions and teach them in our classes. One noteable case last Christmas was showing the teacher of the bi-lingual Tongan unit how to make paper snowflakes online and offline! The next few posts are going to concentrate on Christmas activities you can do in the classroom using computers.
Twelve Days of Christmas
This was a favourite activity I did with students every Christmas where we would
students could draw or paint pictures, take photos of final products
or use online programmes to create drawings such as Sketchfu ( need to set up an account, click on Download to see image and screen capture or print); Odopod is more suitable for older students, drawings look like watercolours; Sumo is more suitable for older children as it has quite comprehensive tools; Artpad is a simplistic art tool suitable for all ages, take screen captures of finished art work
other programmes that could be used are PhotoStory 3 (Windows only), Moviemaker (Windows) or iMovie (Mac) Insert photos, record voices or add a music track to create movie.
Inspiration or Kidspiration could be used for the mindmapping of the ideas and publishing as well. Both Kidspiration and Inspiration can be hyperlinked to websites, Inspiration can also have movies embedded on the page.
ComicLife is also another easy way to publish students work. Use their drawings or photograph artwork and add it to the comic.(If you are using images from online don't forget to reference!) If you don't have ComicLife then use the Autoshapes in Word
A simple but fun activity for all ages is building a picture in Kerpoof and adding text, you can search for graphics and make it as unusual as you like. Print it orscreen capture it when finished.
Of course the ever popular Wordle should not be left out. Adding a Tilde ~ in between each word will allow phrases to appear. This is when children need to learn how to copy and paste as there is a lot of repetition going on.
Themes Different themes could be decided on. There are different schools of thought on the original meaning of the song. Here are some ideas for themes that could be used
characters and settings from a fairy tale or favourite book
indigenous items from the child's country of origin
favourite sports (teams)
international themes such as Global Warming, Third World countries, Disasters
based on a Social Studies/Science topic studied that year
presents they would like for Christmas
presents they would like to give for Christmas
based on people in the school/classroom
based on a favourite movie (See the youtube movies below)
look through a current magazine or newspaper
write about noteable school or personal events
How about a non-Christmas theme?
There maybe some students in your class who do not celebrate Christmas so they could have a theme about the holidays. I saw a great book in a classroom a few days ago called 'The Twelve Days of Holidays'. This is written from the mother's perspective as she is increasingly getting 'fed up' with her children at home during the holidays. Students could write about
the holiday they are going to have
their best holiday
their worst holiday
their dream holiday
or from the perspective of a member of their family
Other versions of 'The Twelve Days of Christmas' that can be viewed that could motivate students are the following
this one is a slideshow with pictures (paintings) of each day
This next Youtube movie is a good example of how you can create your own Twelve days of Christmas on a particular theme, in this case on Disney stories.
This version will appeal to Shrek fans. This is a great theme to use picking out characters in the movie.
And if you want to see the lyrics have a look at this Youtube movie
For more advanced ideas of presenting the twelve days of Christmas which could be embedded into Blogs and wikis...
Wallwisher: Add posts to the wall, could be an individual wall or a collaborative wall
Glogster a poster yourself application enables you to embed graphics, movies and link to websites.
Create an online book
Mixbook has some great Christmassy templates. Students can publish their Twelve Days of Christmas in Mixbook and then embed into their wiki or blog (for free). They can also be purchased from $6.99 US and sent to you.
There are a lot more online ways of presenting 'The Twelve Days of Christmas', for more ideas look at
Where the Wild Things are is an old favourite book of mine and one that I have used with classes many times. The movie is due out on the 3 December 2009 (in NZ) which will renew interest in this old classic. A few years ago I developed some activities using the context of the book and integrated it into the maths we were doing at the time; tessellations and rotation. The skills students learned from working with shapes enabled them create their own Wild Things.
Teachers want to know ways to engage students in editing their own writing. If you have a projector, whiteboard (or even better an IWB) try this. Start off with Joe Davis's site http://www.telescopictext.com/ I ask students to describe what the tea could taste like, write some answers above the text, then click on the word 'tea'. New text will be inserted into the sentence.
We carry on in this mode predicting, describing and analysing the new edited text until we can go no further.
The next day we can look at this website which is based on Joe Davis's site http://basseq.com/fun/telescopictext/ Now we can add our own words by replacing the text that is already there by highlighting the word to be changed, click on Replace, type new word and then click on Submit changes.
The third day can then be spent looking at Tripticos Word Magnet site. Type in a sentence. When you type in the full stop make sure there is a space between it and the last word. Click Next.
In the next window you can choose from many different backgrounds but for my editing lesson I will keep to a blank page
Click on Done and the next page will appear with your text broken up into text boxes. Click and drag them up to make a sentence.
Now start adding new words by typing in the 'Add new magnet box', once you have clicked the + symbol, click on a colour to change the colour of your text box. Drag it into the correct place. Use the colour coding to identify adjectives, conjunctions etc.
This is a great way to get students interested in editing their work and to see how a sentence can come alive. These are the type of activities that I like to use with children as part of my modelling and teaching. This will work well with just a projector and computer, but the Interactive Whiteboard would allow students to take over the manipulation of text and objects.
All this was part of their shared book learning experience, and put their learning into an integrated, authentic context. They now have this story on the computer as an extra reading activity.
