Tag: Uncategorized

This week in Digital Technologies we continued to look at Games-Based Learning, and in particular we looked at the video game Minecraft. I was apprehensive at playing the game, as it was something I had never played before. Thankfully, we had a group of Digital Leaders from a local primary school to show us how to use Minecraft.

Before the pupils arrived, we watched a few YouTube videos to show us what Minecraft was, the aim of the game, and the basic tools on how to create a Minecraft World. At first, it looked very complicated and confusing, as the graphics did not seem to be very good. However, there are many children in today’s society that play Minecraft frequently so I tried to have an open mind whilst exploring the game. According to Magbook (2014) “Minecraft is a worldwide phenomenon. Since it was first released back in 2011, it’s been taken to the hearts of thousands and thousands of gamers.” The Digital Leaders from a local primary school arrived and they showed us how to use it and what creations they had made. The pupils created various objects such as scenes from Harry Potter, shops, and houses. If they are in the same room, they can share their worlds with each other to see what they have created. There are so many possibilities and I found it was great for their imagination. The pupils explained that Minecraft can be used for literacy, technology, health and wellbeing, and many topic areas such as the Romans, or the Titanic. The task for the day was to design a World by creating objects using Minecraft.

Video games are extremely popular in today’s society. Ofcom Report (2011) states that “gaming is hugely popular in the UK with almost 86% of 5-7 year old children and 90% of 8-11 year old children using gaming devices regularly.” As a student teacher, I think it is important to integrate Games-Based Learning into the classroom. As Ofcom suggests, 90% of 8-11 year old children use gaming devices regularly, therefore teachers should embed it within their learning. It will keep pupils interested in the task at hand, it is something they relate to from out of school and it can stimulate creativity.  Beauchamp (2012, p.9)suggests that “Children spend most of their time on games not found in schools.” However, if schools introduced games to children during a lesson, they may start to use it outside of school and this can have an great educational impact on them. Bray (2012) suggests that “in a classroom setting, games  should not just be used as rewards or for entertainment  but as a whole new approach to learning.” The game part is only a small part of the task, but if the game is introduced as a stimulus and is then followed by a task, the children are more likely to be engaged and enthusiastic. In addition to this, Beauchamp (2012, p10) states that there are many skills that could be enhanced by playing ICT games such as strategic thinking, planning, communication, application of numbers, negotiating skills, group decision-making and data handling skills. All of these skills are very important and can benefit the child’s learning.

Links to Experiences and Outcomes:

“I can communicate clearly when engaging with others within and beyond my place of learning, using selected resources as required. “LIT 1-10a

“As I play and learn, I enjoy exploring interesting materials for writing and different ways of recording my experiences and feelings, ideas and information.” LIT 0-21b

“In everyday activity and play, I explore and make choices to develop my learning and interests. I am encouraged to use and share my experiences.” HWB 0-19

“I can explore and experiment with sketching, manually or digitally, to represent ideas in different learning contexts.” TCH 1-11a

After exploring Minecraft, I have found that it is a great game for stimulating the imagination. It enhances so many valuable skills in pupils that can be applied to many curricular subjects. Video games are played by children outside of school so by using them in class it would keep them engaged and interested in the topic. Games-Based Learning is something I would use in my classroom because it is important to keep subjects interesting and make the learning enjoyable.

References

Beauchamp, G. (2012) ICT in the Primary Classroom: From Pedagogy top Practice. Pearson.

Bray, O. (2012) Playful Learning: Computer Games in Education. [Online] https://www.slideshare.net/Microsofteduk/playful-learning-computer-games-in-education [Accessed: 19th March 2018]

Education Scotland (2009) Curriculum for Excellence. Experiences and Outcomes. [Online] https://education.gov.scot/Documents/All-experiencesoutcomes.pdf [Accessed: 19th March 2018]

Ofcom (2001) Children and Parents: Media Use and Attitudes [Online] https://www.slideshare.net/Microsofteduk/playful-learning-computer-games-in-education [Accessed: 19th March 2018]

MagBook (2014) How to Do Everything in Minecraft.

Pixabay. [Online] https://pixabay.com/en/photos/?q=minecraft&hp=&image_type=all&order=popular&cat=&min_width=&min_height= [Accessed: 19th March 2018]

20/03/18

Outdoor Learning

“Outdoor learning experiences are often remembered for a lifetime” (Learning and Teaching Scotland, 2010).

Through mixing outdoor experiences and learning, it gives children more of an opportunity to explore and discover through play and achieve things that hard more difficult to achieve in the classroom.

Outdoor learning has many benefits:

• Develops critical thinking and problem solving
• Personal development
• Promotes healthy lifystyles
• Personal safety
• Inclusion for all

“…It’s clear that the outdoor environment offers motivating, exciting, different, relevant and easily accessible activities from pre-school through to college” (Learning and Teaching Scotland, 2010).

To help ensure that children gain these benefits, using Getting It Right For Every Child (GIRFEC) and the SHANARRI Well-being Wheel can allow teachers and practitioners to support them and make sure the children are:

• Safe
• Healthy
• Active
• Nurtured
• Achieving
• Responsible
• Respected
• Included

To ensure that GIRFEC is being used effectively the method of planning, implementation and evaluation can be used. To be more effective at fulfilling a child’s needs GIRFEC uses its wellbeing wheel of indicators to help make sure these needs are met. Each section of the SHANARRI wheel sets out how to ensure each aspect of the child’s learning and holistic development are being encouraged and cared for. By doing this teachers can assess the children’s learning and development in a safe and secure way whether the child is playing indoors or outdoors, the children should have access to both and should be given the freedom to play and explore.  Outdoor Learning can also be beneficial for teachers as they get “to see each other in a different light, building positive relationships and improving self -awareness and understanding of others” (Education Scotland,  2010).

During this session we got a chance to have our own experience at just how fun and beneficial outdoor learning can be. Before we went outside and tried out the QR Reader app while doing a treasure hunt for clues, we experimented with a different app, Pic College. This was a chance to get to grips with the app before using it to help make a summarised college of what we encountered on our treasure hunt. 

As a practice we got to go around the university and choose a topic we wanted to create a college about, I chose to create one showing the different types of architecture and textures around the university.

During the treasure hunt one member of the group scanned the codes, one member took pictures to create a college afterwards and another member marked down the answers to the questions when the code was scanned. This would be a great task to have the children do because not only would they get to experience the apps they get to build on their social and team work skills.

The apps were easy to use and made working together fun and the fact that is was a treasure hunt to see which group could crack the code first created a competitive yet friendly atmosphere. This is the sort of atmosphere that gets kids excited to participate and create memories that they will remember “for a lifetime” (Learning and Teaching Scotland, 2010).

Reference List:

Learning and Teaching Scotland (2010) Curriculum for Excellence Through Outdoor Learning.

Education Scotland (2010) Curriculum for Excellence Through Outdoor Learning.

13/03/18

Games based Learning – Part 2

“In recent years, interest has grown considerably in the potential for play to form the basis for learning” (Beauchamp, 2012, p.9).

During this week in Digital Technologies a group of primary six students came in from a nearby school to show us how to use the computer game Minecraft and to help give us a better understanding of how to use it. During their time at school they had been working and creating their own worlds within the universe of Minecraft, this gave us a chance to see how the game works and how children interact with the game. Bray (2012) states that Games based learning has the most transformational impact when it is combined with good learning and teaching and it also states that in a classroom setting, games should not just be used as rewards or for entertainment but as a whole new approach to learning.

Beauchamp (2012) states that the type of skills that could be developed by ICT games are:

• Strategic thinking
• Planning
• Communication
• Application of numbers
• Negotiating skills
• Group decision-making
• Data handling skills

Before this session I had little to no knowledge in how to play or use Minecraft apart from being showed by my little brothers. So getting a chance to explore Minecraft without being told off doing it wrong gave me a chance to figure out how to create and explore the world within Minecraft. Sharing knowledge is a very important part of digital technologies as sometimes it might not be the teachers or staff teaching the children new skills but the children can teach us new ways to do and create things in different areas of technology and computer games. Collaborative working is an effective way to make sure that all members of staff and children are working towards a common goal in the setting through supporting each other. While also developing the organisation as whole due to a harmonised workforce, the improved quality of practice and enhanced communication between the staff and the child, (Benefits and Risks of Collaborative Working, 2016).

By allowing children to play in a way that gives them an education but also have fun, as teachers then the resources they need to feel safe, secure and comfortable in their classroom setting helping their self-esteem, something they require in order to fulfil their potential (McLeod, 2016).

Reference List:

Benefits and Risk of Collaborative Working,(2016), Available at: https://knowhownonprofit.org/organisation/collaboration/what_is_collaboration/benefits_and_risks_of_collaboration (Accessed 15th March 2018).

Beauchamp, G. (2012) ICT in the Primary Classroom: From Pedagogy top Practice. Pearson

Bray, O. (2012) Playful Learning: Computer Games in Education. [Online] https://www.slideshare.net/Microsofteduk/playful-learning-computer-games-in-education [Accessed 15th March 2018]

McLeod, S. (2016) Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs, Available at: https://www.simplypsychology.org/maslow.html (Accessed: 15th March 2018).

06/03/18

Games Based Learning

“Digital Games-based Learning is the integration of gaming into learning experiences to increase engagement and motivation” (Higher Education Academy, 2017).

Games Based Learning is another way that digital technologies can help transfer skills and knowledge from home to the classroom and vice versa. By allowing children the chance to use and play the games they use at home in the classroom setting is allows them to progress in their holistic development. especially in the areas of their cognitive and social development as they get to share and gain knowledge about the activities from their classmates which encourages them to communicate and be social.

Using games to improve learning has many benefits for children:

• Increased motivation
• Grab attention
• Recall of information
• Reinforce knowledge
• Stress free and enjoyable

Using a games- based learning approach in the classroom it gives children the opportunity to work individually as well as encourage teamwork and collaboration. ” The link between learning and playing is longstanding and predates the digital ear by thousands of years” (Higher Education Academy, 2017). To help give teachers the knowledge support they require in the classroom when using the games based learning approach, Education Scotland started the initiative “The Consolarium”. This initiative is being used to share how to use computer games appropriately and how they can have a “positive impact on teaching and learning” (The National Archives, 2013).  The role of the teacher is to ensure that games – based learning is encouraged with positivity so that it therefore has a positive impact on those who engage with it. As role models we need to make sure that games – based learning:

• has a positive impact on social skills
• supports leanring
• enhances learning
• develops skills
• provides opportunities to apply skills

Although there are many benefits to this type of learning there are also many things that teachers or users of the approach have to consider, such as identifying a game suitable for the correct age and stage of the children they will be working with as well as what part of the game is going to link to the curriculum or activity they are using it for. One of the most common potential challenges in using games based learning is ensuring that the children are given the chance to achieve their full potential when using games in the classroom, this is done by making sure the teacher has confidence not just in the games but more importantly themselves. This is so important due to the fact they are the ones introducing the children to the games and showing them what to do and how to use it and therefore to do this effectively and successfully they must be confident in what they’re doing so that the children have confidence in themselves.

During the session we got the chance to create an Interdisciplinary Plan (IDL) to show just how many areas of the curriculum that games based learning can link to:

We chose to look at the areas of Art, Technology, Mathematics and Literacy, coming up with many different activities that help show the number of curricular areas that games based learning can achieve. This helped us realised just how many beneficial and effective lessons can come from not just games based learning but what’s within this type of learning, play.

Reference List:

23/01/2018

Multimodality

During our third session we got the chance to experiment and create multimodal presentations using the programme ActivInspire. A text may be described as multimodal when it combines two or more semiotic systems. There are five semiotic systems in total:

• Linguistic
• Visual
• Audio
• Gestural
• Spatial

“The multimodality of technology is another reason to use it, as it allows teachers to present an idea in a variety of different ways to help pupils understand it” (Beauchamp, 2012, p.8). This is a clear way to summarise how using programmes that involve more than one semiotic system are effective as children learn, react and engage with subjects and materials differently. Children who struggle to take in written information may find it easier to understand when pictures, sounds or videos are included, helping them grasp the information that is in front of them.

ActivInspire creates the opportunity for teachers to feel empowered while teaching and using technology to bring lessons to life. Using programmes like this not only allows students and children to develop their own individual learning but also develop communication, team work and collaboration skills within the classroom which they can then use outside the classroom. Teachers can create presentations that are not only interesting and engaging for children but also memorable and personalised to the children they are teaching to allowing them and their students to reach their potential.

“…We must challenge the implicit assumption that speech and writing are always central and sufficient for learning” (Beauchamp, 2012, p.81).

Our task in this session was to create a presentation covering either a literacy outcome or mathematics outcome, using the programme ActivInspire. Choosing a simple layout and design to get across the outcome of simple addition and subtracting, I managed to navigate my way around the programme which I had never used from a student teacher point of view.

These pictures represent slides from the presentation to help children understand simple addition and subtraction using everyday objects and environments they see in real life. During the activity the children would be required to volunteer for a question and approach the board. They would then use the interactive pen to circle the apples they could see to help them count while doing the addition and subtraction and then they would write their total at the end of the sum.

This is an effective way of teaching as it gets the children engaged with the material and allows them translate and breakdown the instruction of the sum into a simpler and easier instruction to understand. Putting what they are being told into action, theory into practice.

Reference List:

Beauchamp, G. (2012) ICT in the primary School: From Pedagogy to Practice. Pearson.

Today in digital technologies we were exploring the use of animation in the classroom and how it may enhance a child’s learning. I was sceptical about using this application as I had never previously heard of it, so I had no knowledge about how it worked or even how it could be beneficial to a lesson in class.

According to Jarvis (2015) the term animation means “the stringing together a sequence of static images, generally so that they appear to move”. Bertrancourt (2005) suggests three ways in which animation can be used to enhance learning: to enhance learners’ visual representations, to illustrate processes and also to provide an interactive element. Today we were given the opportunity to explore this concept and see for ourselves just how beneficial the use of animation within the class could be.

However as indicated by Moving Image Education there are in fact 5 different types of animation. These include; cutout, stop motion, pixilation, drawn and also computer. For our task, my group selected the stop-motion technique which involved a series of plasticine models being sculpted and moved very slightly with a picture being taken after each movement. I found this task very fun and imaginative as we were given a free choice to demonstrate whatever scene we wanted using this application. Below is the animation that we created within the specified time set out by our lecturer.

This lesson idea could also be given to children, possibly with more of a focused learning outcome. They could create an animation of a story they have written themselves in class, or they could use it as a stimulus for imagination to then base a story upon later.

Various experiences and outcomes could also be covered using this application such as “I explore and experiment with the features and functions of computer technology and I can use what I learn to support and enhance my learning in different contexts (TCH 1-04a/TCH 2-04a)” and also “I can create, capture and manipulate sounds, text and images to communicate experiences, ideas and information in creative and engaging ways (TCH 1-04b/TCH 2-04b)”.

Overall, I believe this application is very beneficial to children in the classroom as it can be widely adapted to a variety of lessons and also curricular areas. It is a very inclusive software, which is simple to use by both the student and teacher to spark imagination and create stories that some children may initially have trouble writing about.

References

Jarvis, M. (2015) Brilliant Ideas for Using ICT in the Classroom: A Very Practical Guide for Teachers and Lecturers. Routledge.

Beauchamp, G. (2012) ICT in the Primary Classroom: From Pedagogy to Practice. Pearson.

Moving Image Education website: [Online] https://movingimageeducation.org/create-films/animation [Accessed: 27th February 2018]

Curriculum for Excellence

IMG_3194

Today in digital technologies we were exploring multimodality and interactivity, particularly the use of ActivInspire within the classroom environment. I had previously observed this software being used in practice however I had never investigated the application myself or had experience of creating anything with it. I was less apprehensive about using this software in comparison to others as I had already been shown the basics of how it works.

A text may be described as multimodal when it combines two or more semiotic systems.
There are five semiotic systems in total; Linguistic, Visual, Audio, Gestural and Spatial. This is a very important concept within the classroom as it covers a wide range of learning styles for children and can often enhance understanding by using a variety of these features. According to Beauchamp (2012), “the ability of ICT to present ideas in a variety of ways can help to structure new experiences but only if you as the teacher have sufficient understanding on the area yourself”. This shows that for these various softwares, a fair knowledge of how it works must be had by the teacher to ensure the highest level of understanding can be had by the children within schools.

The use of these multimodal texts allows for a number of benefits within the class such as it is interactive, engaging, dynamic, and motivating for children etc.

Throughout this session we were given the opportunity to use this software on the iPads to create our very own lesson with whatever aspect of the curriculum we decided. Our group agreed to adapt our lesson to a literacy setting, in which we decided to base it upon a spelling game. The children would be given a picture of an animal and a word with letters missing from each. They would then have to select the correct letter from the bank of letters on the screen and drag it up to the appropriate space in the word.

For our lesson, the literacy outcome that may have been reached include “I explore sounds, letters and words, discovering how they work together, and I can use what I learn to help me as I read or write (ENG 0-12a/LIT 0-13a/LIT 0-21a)”. However this software has a huge scope to adapt it to almost any lesson, and cover almost any experience and outcome from the curriculum.

Overall, I believe this software for use within the classroom is one which many more teachers could hugely benefit from in lessons as it is so widely adaptable for a variety of different purposes. It is also a very basic application that many people could use effectively due to its easy layout and navigation around different features. Even with minimal knowledge of technology, I believe it can be very helpful throughout teaching others and conveying ideas.

References

Curriculum for Excellence

Beauchamp, G. (2012) ICT in the Primary School: From Pedagogy to Practice. Pearson.

Today in digital technologies we investigated and studied the use of mobile devices, in particular e-books, within the classroom and how they could be used to their full potential. At the beginning of the session I was particularly apprehensive surrounding the use of this application within the classroom as I was very unsure as to how and why this may enhance a lesson for children as I had never explored this software before.

According to the Oxford English Dictionary the term e-Books can be identified as “An electronic version of a printed book which can be read on a computer or a specifically designed handheld device”. This involves a variety of different handheld devices such as iPads, mobile phones, tablets etc. We were given the opportunity to investigate the application called book creator, which I had never heard of before this session. Book creator is a simple way to make a variety of books on the iPad such as children’s picture books, comic books, photo books, journals, textbooks and more.

According to the Scottish Governments’ Children’s Parliament (2016), the use of digital technology in the classroom is beneficial as it saves the waste of lots of paper therefore saving the environment, it gives them the ability to listen to music if it helps them with concentration and also it allows them to download the latest texts and audio books to use within the classroom.

Using this software would cover a variety of CfE experiences and outcomes within the classroom, for example, “I can show my understanding of what I listen to or watch by responding to and asking different kinds of questions (LIT 1-07a)”, “I can show my understanding of what I listen to or watch by responding to literal, inferential, evaluative and other types of questions, and by asking different kinds of questions of my own (LIT 2-07a)” and “I can create, capture and manipulate sounds, text and images to communicate experiences, ideas and information in creative and engaging ways (TCH 1-04b / TCH 2-04b)”.

We were given time to investigate the application book creator with the initial task of designing a booklet on the iPads that would prove why students should apply to UWS in Ayr. This was a very fun task which enabled us to explore the campus on our own, whilst using the time effectively to therefore practice creating our own e-Books. The application was very simple and straightforward to work, which was beneficial as I am not particularly confident with using new technological software. The pictures below indicate what our group created in around half an hour, including time to explore the campus.

Our second task throughout the session was to create come up with a summarised version of a previously well-known text and create tasks for children to complete on their own. As I was apprehensive about this, I chose Charlie and the Glass Elevator by Roald Dahl as I was already very familiar with this text beforehand. I found it fairly difficult to begin this task as I was still unsure how to adapt it for use within the classroom, however once I had a look at previous examples for ideas I became more confident when creating this booklet. Below indicates the work I had produced including tasks for the children to answer the questions on their own using the iPads in class.

Overall, I found this experience very beneficial to see how this application can be adapted for use within the classroom. Some of the benefits of using it would include the range of resources and devices used by children in their daily lives at home, which could therefore build on these skills. It is also easy to share and access lots of resources from various online platforms, and finally it is helping to meet the needs of children and preparing them for the digital era in the 21st century.

References

Children’s Parliament Consultation (2016) A Digital Learning and Teaching Strategy for Scotland: The Views of Children.

Webwise Team. (2012) What is an e-Book? [Online] Available: http://www.bbc.co.uk/webwise/guides/about-e-books [Accessed 20th February 2018].

Curriculum for Excellence

Today in digital technologies we were investigating the use of mobile devices within the classroom environment. I was unsure what this session would entail as this covers a very wide range of different technology. According to the Governments’ Children’s Parliament (2016) devices such as kindles, iPads, computers, cameras, Leappads, Nintendos, playstations etc were all used within the classroom for a variety of lessons.

British Educational Suppliers Association (BESA), researched the benefits of mobile devices and consoles within the classroom and evaluated that the use of games consoles and smartphones played a huge role in the education and learning of young people in primary education. 406 responses were analysed by BESA surrounding the use of technology in school and at home. Around three quarters indicated that accessing devices such as Nintendo DS at home were in fact hugely beneficial to the childs’ development throughout school.

Overall, most teachers claimed that they preferred children having access to a computer games console in comparison to a mobile device. With reference to mobile devices specifically, opinions from teachers were hugely varied as Ray Barker, director of BETA claims “On the one hand, 39 per cent stated that children should not have access out of school to mobile phones, while another 29 per cent of teachers said the ideal situation would be if all pupils had access to a mobile”.

The use of mobile devices could be used in a variety of ways to help enhance lessons and a child’s overall understanding of a range of topics and subjects. However, on the other hand I believe they would not enhance every lesson and may become a distraction for children and others around them as they can access anything if they are not under supervision.

Within this session we were given the opportunity to create an “I am” poem which followed a specific structure given to us by our lecturer. The image attached below indicates the theme we chose, and what our creation consisted of. We were then asked to use the easi-speak microphones to record the audio to match the corresponding line in the poem. This audio was then inserted into a powerpoint document in which we were to add visuals based upon the line in the poem and share our creation with others. I found this very interesting and fun as the task was very lighthearted and also enabled our imagination to run wild with the different possibilities this poem could lead us to. It was also informative however, as it was easily identified how this lesson could be given to children in the same format.

Various experiences and outcomes could also be covered with this activity such as literacy and digital technologies. These include “I can create, capture and manipulate sounds, text and images to communicate experiences, ideas and information in creative and engaging ways (TCH 1-04b/TCH 2-04b)” and “I can spell most of the words I need to communicate, using spelling rules, specialist vocabulary, self-correction techniques and a range of resources (LIT 2-21a)”.

In conclusion, using these devices would include a larger variety of adaptability for many more pupils. It would also allow them to develop skills within the classroom, which could be further enhanced within the home environment as well. Within the 21st century, a good knowledge on how to use this technology would be very helpful for the children as we are moving further into the Digital Age in society.

References

Curriculum for Excellence

Children’s Parliament (2016) A Digital Learning and Teaching Strategy for Scotland: The View’s of Children. [Online] Available: http://www.childrensparliament.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/REPORT_digital-learning-consultation_Childrens-Parliament-1.pdf [Accessed: 7th March 2018].

Games consoles benefit children’s education. (n.d.) [Online] Available: http://moodle.uws.ac.uk/pluginfile.php/245937/mod_resource/content/5/CoRE/page_96.htm [Accessed: 7th March 2018].

Today in digital technologies we were investigating the term coding and the sort of programmes that would cover this topic. We were mainly focussing our time on the software Scratch Junior, which I had previous experience of from computing science at secondary school. I was not confident at all using this software, as I had a very bad experience of this subject at school through a lack of explanation from the teacher. This made me very apprehensive surrounding the progress I would make within this session and how much I would struggle in understanding how it truly worked. I was also unsure as to how it could be used within classes, as I was unaware how to incorporate this into lesson plans for children.

The use of coding and Scratch Junior within the classroom has a variety of benefits to children such as when people learn to code, they learn important strategies for solving problems, designing projects, and communicating ideas. Teaching through the use of coding is also very beneficial to children as the ability to code computer programs is an important part of literacy in today’s society and some people believe that coding is the new literacy.

Throughout his session we were given time to watch tutorial videos on how Scratch Junior worked, and the sort of work that could be produced from it. Scratch Junior is a programme used to introduce children over the age of five years old to programming language and allows them to create stories and games on the iPad. This software works by the children being able to make characters move, jump and sing by clicking different blocks of programming instructions together.

According to The Lead Project (2014) Scratch Junior was designed for “exploration and experimentation, so it supports any different learning style”. This shows that this software is very adaptable an can be used across a wide range of the Curriculum for areas such as mathematics, English, music, art etc. Various experiences and outcomes can also be achieved from this software surrounding computing science such as “I am developing problem-solving strategies, navigation and co-ordination skills as I play and learn with electronic games, remote control or programmable. I can work individually r collaboratively to design and implement a game toys. (TCH 0-09a/TCH 1-09a)” and also “Using appropriate software, I can work collaboratively to design an interesting and entertaining game which incorporates a form of control technology or interactive media. (TCH 2-09a)”.

Within class we were given the opportunity to investigate this software and how it works, starting at the very beginning with the basics. After watching the tutorial videos given to us I began to understand how each element of the application worked and what the various possibilities could have been for using it in the classroom. We were given the task of creating a scene from a story and putting it into action. This same task could be given to children where they would have the opportunity to create their own snap shot from a story, sparking imagination and allowing them to illustrate it digitally. I came up with the idea of describing a day at the zoo, which was ideal as I was able to use a variety of different characters and make them interact with each other with both speech and movement.

Overall, I believe the use of scratch junior within the classroom would be very beneficial for children as it allows them to create stories, which many of them may have difficulty writing about however this can be used as a stimulus for creativity. It is also hugely beneficial to children as they can expand their vocabulary, introducing programmable language and understanding how this can then be put into practice using this software both in school and at home within the digital age of the 21st century.

References

The Lead Project (2014) Super Scratch Programming Adventure: Learn to Program by Making Cool Games! No Starch Press.

Curriculum for Excellence