Category: Technologies

Satisfying the yearning for mobile learning!

Stuart Lennie and Malcolm Wilson of the Falkirk Council Education Services Curriculum Support team have been working to create a Mobile Devices in Falkirk Education Blog.

The blog is designed to support Falkirk Council education establishments in their use of mobile devices in learning and teaching.

Beginning from September 2013, this site will develop to have further materials as work develops in establishments.

Click here to visit the blog: https://blogs.glowscotland.org.uk/fa/mobiledevices/

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Powtoon, School YouTube Channel, Twitter for Schools, Maths Interactives and History On This Day – a support session for ICT Co-ordinators in Falkirk Primary Schools

Powtoon, School YouTube Channel, Twitter for Schools, Maths Interactives & History On This Day – some of the tools presented by Malcolm Wilson (ICT Curriculum Development Office in the Curriculum Support Team of Falkirk Council Education Services) at the support sessions for ICT Co-ordinators in Falkirk Primary Schools (and to which secondary ICT Co-ordinators are also invited) – an opportunity to be guided through a hands-on exploration and use of a variety of online tools to support learning and teaching in Falkirk primary schools.

* The YouTube Channels for Falkirk Council Education Services and schools provides a resource to share videos created for Education Services in Falkirk Council as well as a link to each of the YouTube channels of Falkirk Council educational establishments. Having a school YouTube Channel provides a means to upload school-created videos and more easily share or embed elsewhere such as class blogs or school websites. Playlists in a YouTube Channel also let you bring together videos, of relevance to your own school, created by others from elsewhere on YouTube in topic/curricular headings. Falkirk school YouTube channels are created centrally for each school on request so that the technical setup of settings, etc, is not a burden on schools, yet the control for the each school channel is with the school.

* Powtoon provides a free online tool to create short animated promotional videos for schools or event in schools. These can be embedded on school websites and blogs. These animated videos can be used to promote a school event, activity or explain a topic. A description and examples can be found here: http://glo.li/WY4Ek2.

* Interactive Teaching Programs for Numeracy and Mathematics are free online resources designed for whole-class teaching via interactive whiteboard. Each tool is versatile in letting teachers use it in any way to best suit the needs of their learners. For each tool there is an extensive helpguide available as a pdf for viewing either on-screen or printing out. These tools are designed to support the teaching and learning process with a teacher guiding a pupil, group or class of pupils, through their learning, and a pace appropriate to them. They are flexible tools so can be used at many stages in primary school. There is a host of tools included covering: Area, Calculating angles, Coordinates, Counting on and back, Data handling, Decimal number line, Difference, Division Grid, Fixing points, Fractions, Grouping, Isometric grid, Line graph, Measuring cylinder, Measuring scales, Moving digits, Multiplication facts, Multiplication grid, Number dials, Number facts, Number facts, Number grid, Number line, Number spinners, Ordering numbers, Place value, Polygon, Remainders after division, Ruler, Symmetry, Tell the time, Thermometer, and Twenty cards. They are available online here: http://glo.li/UR9HOS

* #OnThisDay in History – resources for connecting historical events, related to specific anniversary dates, to pupils today, can provide a means to connect events of past with work in class on specific days across curriculum – helps make connections with the past whether for a curricular area, a historical topic era, or lesson starter on any specific day. These free online tools provide short descriptions of events which happened on each day in the calendar (for any year). They can be searched on specific days, and any year. So if studying a historical period such as World War 2, the Romans, etc then events in sequnce day by day in any particular year can be shown. If teachers like to help pupils relate to historical events sometimes the starting link can be to look at events which happened on the day (in any any year) of their birth, or the year of their birth. If looking for links to music events, or studying art techniques through artists in history, then there are specific sites here which group these related anniversaries of events (including first performances, display, births and deaths).   The information which suits the occasion for the teacher and learners on any specific occasion can be used on a class blog or school website as a “hook” to connect events yesterday and today http://glo.li/Whu37F

* Twitter for schools – most Falkirk schools have school  Twitter accounts to help share activities going on in the school and increase engagement by the wider community. A list of these Falkirk educational establishments with links to their Twitter feeds (as well as resources supporting the use of Twitter by schools) can be found here: http://glo.li/12iKXTz. Once the Twitter feed of posts is embedded on school websites, posting information via Twitter on a mobile device makes it quicker to add news items onto the website as the information being shared by the school is instantly shared on the website without the need to log into the editing panel of the school website. Using Twitter also means that parents and others in the school community can choose to follow the latest information from the school, and share this with others to help more widely spread the good work of the school. Support can be provided to schools looking at setting up and using a school Twitter account or getting it added to a school website.

Feedback from participants at the support sessions included:

“Great, practical ideas as ever!” JC – St Bernadette’s Primary School

“Lots of useful resources.” AW – Head of Muir Primary School

“Lots of great ideas today – very worthwhile.” GM – St Joseph’s Primary School

“Now a convert to Twitter!” CM – Bo’ness Academy

“Yet another very useful session – many thanks.” LB – Moray Primary School

“Helpful and informative insight into ICT developments.” SD – Grangemouth High School

“Lots of great ideas.” FB – Kinnaird Primary School

“Great information – thanks!” FK – Bantaskin Primary School

“Thank you – very informative as always!” CH – Comely Park Primary School

“Very practical and helpful as ever.” RO – Easter Carmuirs Primary School

The Tireless work towards Wireless

 

Stuart Lennie, ICT Curriculum Development Officer in Falkirk Council Education Services Curriculum Support team, has been working with ICT Corporate Services to implement Wireless Technology into Education Services establishments. The installations follow many months of work to research and evaluate the best solution, with small scale pilots being undertaken in both Primary and Secondary schools.

The chosen solution, using Cisco Wireless Access points, provides fast and reliable Internet connectivity throughout the school. This means that Council ICT mobile devices, such as laptops, can be used at the point of learning, rather than the pupils moving around the school to access ICT. At the moment the solution is being deployed across all Secondary establishments, but by the new session work will have begun to progress installations in Primary schools too.

One added benefit of the solution is the additional provision of guest access for personal devices- which could be a laptop, tablet, phone, or media player. This access, often referred to as BYOD (Bring Your Own Device) or BYOT (Bring Your Own Technology) allows staff and pupils to connect to the wireless network using their existing username and password, providing them with filtered and secure Internet access in the school building.

Currently a small scale pilot is underway in Denny High school to allow pupils in two Senior Phase classes to receive this access on their personal devices. This work will allow for the development of policies and guidance documentation, as well as starting to build good practice in safe mobile device use in schools.

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Putting it on Record

Stuart Lennie, ICT Curriculum Development Officer in the Curriculum Support Team of Falkirk Council Education Services, is supporting the introduction of YouTube access for pupils in Falkirk Council classrooms.

YouTube is an online video streaming website that can provide useful knowledge and education content for all stages in schools and nurseries. In addition, users can create content and upload it to the site in order to store it or share knowledge or learning with others.

YouTube has been open to staff in Falkirk Council for many years and has proven to be a vital tool in terms of classroom practice and staff development. It is regularly the top visited site in education establishments and staff now integrate the content into their lesson plans and activities.

Currently, all pupils are blocked from access to the YouTube site, plus any embedded YouTube content in other websites, in Falkirk schools. This decision was taken based on two main factors:

  • The limited bandwidth available to our schools and the demands upon it.
  • The proportion of content deemed unsuitable by staff.

Recent developments in bandwidth improvements and safety filters put us in a position where these two factors no longer apply.

To facilitate such change, a Technologies in the Classroom group has been formed, made up of classroom practitioners from all stages of education in Falkirk Council. This group will have the mandate to call upon advice from appropriate groups of additional individuals including pupils, parents, and partners.

The immediate tasks for this group will be to:

  • Create support materials for staff and pupils
  • Develop methods to educate staff, pupils, and parents on the safe filtering features in Social Media sites and to ensure acceptable use in line with the Acceptable Use Policy and schools’ positive behaviour policies
  • Pilot pupil access with schools
  • Work to gather and analyse evidence of how YouTube is enhancing learning through previously unavailable delivery methods such as Flipped Learning models which enables pupils to bring to the classroom project work and studies undertaken outwith the school.

Here is an example of one of the support videos for teachers, hosted on YouTube:

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In addition, education establishments will be set up with individual YouTube channels to act as an official public repository of content for their establishment.

ICT Resources to Support Social Subjects in the Primary School

Malcolm Wilson, ICT Curriculum Development Officer in the Curriculum Support Team of Falkirk Council Education Services, presented a session with primary class teachers on a variety of ICT resources to support teaching Social Subjects in the Primary School.

Resources

Here are links to some of the resources shared:

What was there, then and now – Tools to compare photographs of same views then and now http://glo.li/pzwVdT 

Class character exchange – engaging with another class in another part of the world by exchanging a soft-toy character or other figure. Provides a route into pupils having a better understanding of people in place. http://glo.li/NUzqij 

On This Day in History Link topic to events by particular days http://glo.li/Whu37F

Timeline Tools – Marking Milestones in History Timeline Tools including Fakebook – Facebook-like timeline, Twister – Twitter-like events as they happen http://glo.li/IYu6fU 

Geograph the British Isles – combining mapping, photography and gaming http://glo.li/HbTeQZ

Our Governments – Scottish, UK and EU parliaments http://glo.li/mSDggW

World Disasters and Emergencies – Learn about natural disasters around the world. Resources to support dealing with emergencies http://glo.li/JxNmxr 

Use digital video cameras for pupils to engage with social studies topics and demonstrate their understanding of the information. Create stop-motion animation to illustrate features, concepts or event sequence. Resources here for video cameras: http://glo.li/gTmdzS. Resources for editing video: https://blogs.glowscotland.org.uk/fa/ICTFalkirkPrimaries/2010/09/16/video-editing-with-windows-live-movie-maker/Resources here for making videos from still image photographs: https://blogs.glowscotland.org.uk/fa/ICTFalkirkPrimaries/2011/03/09/photostory-3/

Outdoor Learning – the outdoor clasroom http://glo.li/rycd4U

SCRAN – Cultural Resources Archive – Images & videos with full descriptions and automatic credits for use in class projects. Free access through Glow http://glo.li/mTo4Ui

Google Earth – Explore anywhere in the world http://glo.li/v4NDkU 

Quiz-creation tools – create self-correcting quizzes, provide feedback on what has been learned by pupils, pupils creating quizzes motivates & helps embed learning http://glo.li/g73CnR

Further Online Links

Teaching Ideas – a series of crowd-sourced ideas shared by teachers http://www.teachingideas.co.uk/history/contents.htm

http://www.teachingideas.co.uk/geography/contents.htm 

Cybrary Man links to resources by category http://cybraryman.com/socialstudieslinks.html

Using a Smart Board to Support Active Learning in Primary Mathematics

Anne Forrest from Steljes presented a continuing professional development course to staff from a wide range of primary schools in Falkirk on “Using a Smart Board to Support Active Learning in Primary Mathematics.” This was organised and supported by Malcolm Wilson, ICT Curriculum Development Officer in Falkirk Council Education Services Curriculum Support Team.

This provided hands-on guidance to making use of many of the interactive features of Smart Notebook software to support staff to make learning and teaching in mathematics more engaging for pupils.

Reference was made to resources available to download for free at Smart Exchange. Smart Notebook Express provides a means to access some of the tools in Smart Notebook online.

The presentation by Anne Forrest, along with a host of other resources colleated by Malcolm Wilson to support Falkirk teachers to be able to download the software for use at home, can be found by clicking on the Falkirk Glow Group for ICT in Learning and Teaching.

Comments from participants included:

“Lots of interactive ways to engage learners – opportunities to try these out were useful.”

“Excellent ideas to take away.”

“Very good tips on using the Smart Board in class.”

“Excellent mix of information and practical activity.”

“Extremely helpful course which has provided a vast amount of knowledge and resources to help deliver engaging lessons.”

ICT Resources to Support Physical Education in the Primary School

Malcolm Wilson, ICT Curriculum Development Officer in the Curriculum Support Team of Falkirk Council Education Services, presented a session with class teachers and visiting specialist teachers of physical education on ICT resources to support teaching physical education in the primary school.

Dance

The session started by everyone having go at the dance steps provided with the dance mat to all Falkirk primary schools (along with the free software installed on all PCs). More information about that can be found here: http://glo.li/L7znnN

Glow Groups for teachers of PE 

The session included time to browse the planning and support materials for teachers of PE which can be found in various Glow groups which included the following:

Falkirk Glow group for teachers of PE http://glo.li/e2ZeBf

Curriculum for Excellence Expanded Experiences & Outcomes (Falkirk Planners) PE http://glo.li/WKnowe

Falkirk PE resources in Glow group for Health & Wellbeing http://glo.li/gov97Y

National Glow group for teaching PE http://glo.li/Y93cGJ

Online Resource Sites

Online resources which were highlighted included the following:

www.kidnetic.com ideas for classroom, hall, outdoors or in the home – includes on-screen dance robot simulator

http://cybraryman.com/physicaled.html Cybraryman resources by category

www.pescholar.com PE Scholar

www.physedsource.com PhysEdSource – categories include gymnastics, sport/games, individual, outdoor, dance, health, research

www.thephysicaleducator.com/resources/ includes games skills cards/infographics posters, apps, blog, podcast, pupil recognition cards

www.teachingideas.co.uk/pe/contents.htm crowd-sources ideas shared by teachers, warm-up and cool-down ideas, games, sports.

Smartboard Smart Notebook Resources

SMART Board SMART Notebook PE resources can be found in Notebook by clicking on “Gallery” – enter “sport” in search box http://glo.li/rQ3eRl

Blog about class PE

Creating a class PE blog can help raise profile of PE, promote positive pupil esteem, share learning of PE activities Resources to get staretd blogging can be found here: http://glo.li/qMeQl3

Activity Timers and Random Name Selectors

A host of online or downloadable countdown timers & stopwatches, and random name, group or activity selectors, can be found here: http://glo.li/jU9ja0 

Teachers of PE on Twitter

Twitter provides access to a Professional Learning Network of colleagues sharing PE teaching ideas. Resources and a guide to setting up a Twitter account and how to use can be found here: http://glo.li/qpaM79. A short video guide “Twitter for PE Teachers” including how to get started, how to find others, use of Hashtags and more can be found here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AMjGcrBJK-c

QR codes and PE

QR codes provide quick access via smartphone QR code scanner to videos or explanatory onlien resources without any need to type in long website addresses. For examples of use of printed Step-by-step guides linked by QR codes to associated PE skills demonstration videos follow this link:

http://www.thephysicaleducator.com/resources/skill-posters/

This Video shows a report of one teachers use at a school fitness trail http://glo.li/YU4beZ

For resources to find out how to make you own QR codes follow this link here: http://glo.li/z1JVmB

Making Videos to show PE skills

Use digital video cameras for pupils to see their performance after they have finished and to compare it against their peers or against videos of professional athletes. Resources here for video cameras: http://glo.li/gTmdzS. Resources for editing video: https://blogs.glowscotland.org.uk/fa/ICTFalkirkPrimaries/2010/09/16/video-editing-with-windows-live-movie-maker/Resources here for making videos from still image photographs: https://blogs.glowscotland.org.uk/fa/ICTFalkirkPrimaries/2011/03/09/photostory-3/ 

Comments from participants included:

“I intend to use Photostory 3 especially for gymnastics.”

“Excellent course!”

Sharing the learning in a blog for primary 1 classes at Denny Primary School

Malcolm Wilson, ICT Curriculum Development Officer in the Curriculum Support Team of Falkirk Council Education Services, supported staff at Denny Primary School to set up a joint blog for pupils in the primay 1 classes to share their learning journey.

This was set up at the request of staff so they can post about what’s happening in their classes so that the posts can easily be seen by the school, parents and wider community.

Posts have included photographs, videos, slideshows and descriptions of the activities in which the pupils are involved. The blog is set up so that staff create and publish the posts while others are also able to add comments.

Click here to see what’s happening at the primary 1 classes at Denny Primary School