Parklands Primary BLT

This week’s literacy is centred around science fiction writing, so I took the opportunity for more Myst work. The class had already encountered Myst last term, albeit Myst III, so were eager to find out more about Tomahna. Today I introduced Myst IV and encouraged the children to think about trying to capture the essence of Tomahna in only one sentence. We used the iPads and iPods to find pictures on the web and imported them into Strip Designer where they could overlay a caption. They then emailed their work to our class address and we had them up on our class LP+ blog by the end of the lesson. They’re now ready to explore further…

Here’s a couple of examples of their work.

Well we’ve had the BLT mobile technology toolkit for a few days now and the pupils are starting to use them without asking for Angry Birds every 2 minutes.
I’d planned a poetry unit around Haikus/Tankas etc and thought I had a pretty good lesson planned. I wanted the children to write collaborative haikus using the iPads/netbooks and a Primary pad embedded into our VLE. Then… I started to watch Grumbledook’s live stream from LWF on Sunday evening and half-heard about Lunes. After tweeting delegates and frantic online chat with other viewers for help identifying the App/website, I eventually found a great resource… Lunes. This slotted into my plan easily and so the less-able pupils used the iPods and iPads to write Lunes, while the rest of the class used Primary pad as planned.
The results were better than expected, but better than that was the involvement of the children. I’ve taught haikus many times over the years, but this was definitely the most enthusiastic group of learners I’ve had for what can be a pretty dry lesson.

As soon as I can get sorted, I’ll post some of the results here, but as I’m off to BETT for 2 days this week, it may well be next week before I transfer them from our VLE.

OK – so I found a few minutes to add a screenshot… Lunes to follow…

2011 has arrived, what will it bring to our schools? Well we can be assured that there will be ‘new’ directives from various agencies – that’s the same old story.

But, what challenges will you put in place for yourself? What are you hoping to have achieved by this time next year that will leave you feeling that you have changed something in your teaching?

I’m about to embark on a project involving the use of iPads and iPods in the classroom. Who knows what the outcomes will be, but I can be fairly certain that there will be some degree of challenge involved, not least because I’m unfamiliar with Apple products. It will be interesting to run them alongside the Android based Advent Vega and my own HTC phone. I’ll be posting developments here as well as tweeting for advice at regular intervals. Please respond if you see my cries for help.

BETT will soon be upon us and I’m taking a group of pupils to work on the LP+ stand. Again, there are challenges involved with LP+ as we forge ahead with the development of our learning platform. Most of our staff are now familiar with maintaining class pages, but we want more than just a collection of static pages. Our aim is to create a dynamic learning environment where pupils and parents and staff can come together to continue their learning journey. This is already happening in some areas, but I still don’t know how to motivate some of the more reluctant technophobes who find every excuse possible to block their own enlightenment. I know that this has been going on for many years (I’ve been an IT co-ordinator for 21 years now), but I feel that right now we’re going through some of the most exciting and innovative changes in the use of technology in schools. I know where I want our school to be – it’s the journey that is the challenge.

Frustrated? You bet…!

Any ideas to help me avoid the same old… same old, this time next year?