Initial Plan

My initial idea was to establish a group of digital leaders from P5 and P6. I have done this previously, and had P7s taking on the roles. However, this time round, I felt that at this stage in the year, P7s may not have time. I am also hoping that the P5s and P6s will carry forward and continue their roles next session.

Microbits

When I heard about the Microbits being delivered to schools in the near future, I thought this would be an excellent starter project for the Digital Leaders. I already have some experience with these, and we have several already in school to use to practise. Having learners trained as experts will hopefully ensure that the Microbits can be used effectively.

Timescale

I asked for volunteers from the classes this week, and had a very positive response. I have now chosen 5 children from each class to begin their training during lunchtimes once a week.  I hope that this will be enough, but will review it after a couple of weeks.  I plan to give them certificates and badges once they have finished their training.  I am hoping that the training will be complete by the beginning of May, and they can then begin teaching their classmates with my support in class.

Predictions

I will be looking at two different aspects; the Digital Leaders and the other children in the classes.

For the digital leaders themselves, I hope that they will gain a sense of responsibility and achievement and develop their coding skills further through teaching others.

I also hope that this will inspire the other children to see what they can achieve. I think that this will also help to get more children interested in coding and develop their growth mindset to believe that although it can be challenging, they can all have success.

Finally, I also think that having more people in the classroom able to assist will help to speed up learning in the classroom.

Potential Challenges

Timescale – trying to get children up to speed with Microbits over a few lunchtime slots. I hope to overcome this by adding in more slots if necessary or potentially an after school session.

P5a – One of the classes I won’t be covering for RCT next term. I am going to see if it would be possible to swap for one slot to get them started and then spend time with the CT demonstrating the equipment so that the digital leaders can take over.

 

 

Where to start?!

I’m a class teacher at SS Peter and Paul’s where I’ve been for 15 years. My interest in digital learning came from doing RCT 6 years ago and being asked to cover ICT. I absolutely love how enthusiastic the children are when using technology and I’m a complete convert to the life skills which can be practised and learned through computing.

Six years ago, we had a computer suite and promethean boards, but little else. We now have laptops, netbooks and ipads available for the children to use, and lots more scope for really getting going with developing digital technology throughout the school.

I have lots of ideas of what I would like to do, so just trying to organise my thoughts and begin planning for this project!