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In our fourth week of Digital Technologies, we looked at the concept of coding using the Scratch Jr application. Scratch Jr is an introductory programming language that allows children aged 5 and up to be creative and interactive by creating their own stories and games. Children can add programming blocks together to make characters move, sing and talk (ScratchJr, 2017).

When children create programs, it allows them to develop their creative thinking skills, logical reasoning skills, problem solving skills and their collaboration skills (Scratch Jr, 2017). “Scratch was developed for young people to help them develop creative learning skills for the 21st century” (Scratch, 2017). According to The Lead Project (2014), “Scratch is designed for exploration and experimentation, so it supports any different learning style.” It can help support teachers in many different subjects such as maths, literacy, art, music and information technology (The Lead Project, 2014). The ability to code computer programs is a vital part of literacy in society today. Some people believe that coding is the new literacy. Coding can aid people in learning important strategies for problem solving, the communicating  ideas and designing projects (The Lead Project, 2014).

The aim of today was to complete an assessment by creating our own adventure story using Scratch Jr on the iPads. Initially I thought it would be a challenging task. However, after following the activity card instructions on how to move characters, change the backgrounds and add speech, it became easier to do. My activity started off with an under the sea theme with animals that live under the sea. I started off the story with a fish looking for his friend and the task for the children would be to write about what they think will happen next. As a teacher, I would also ask them about the animals that are in the story and what other animals could live under the sea. In addition to this, I would also ask questions about how the characters are feeling throughout the story and how that made them feel. This would give children ideas for writing their part of the story and open up their imagination, whilst also learning about animals that live under water.

The technology experiences and outcomes that are covered within this activity are:  TCH 1-04b/2-04b,  “I can create, capture and manipulate sounds, text and images to communicate experiences, ideas and information in creative and engaging ways.” The literacy experiences and outcomes that are being covered are: LIT 0-09b/LIT 0-31a, “I enjoy  exploring events and characters I stories and other texts and I use what I learn to invent my own, sharing these with others in imaginative ways.” (Education Scotland, 2017)

Codeacademy is another website that provides various coding languages. It can be easily accessed at school and at home. This means that children can log into the browser at school, log their progress and pick up where they left off. They would also be able to use this resource to set homework, do quizzes and play games.  In addition to this, teachers can use lesson plans for all levels throughout school and is an effective way of checking homework (Telegraph,2014). The ability to code computer programs is a vital part of literacy in society today. Some people believe that coding is the new literacy. Coding can aid in learning important strategies for problem solving, communication of ideas and designing projects (TESL-EJ, 2017).

Today was my first experience of coding, and I thought it would be really complex and difficult to understand. However, it turned out to be simple and straight forward as I followed the instruction cards. As a student teacher, I would use Scratch Jr in my classroom as it has many benefits for the children, and also for me as an educator.  It  would increase and improve the children’s imagination skills,  literacy and numeracy skills, problem solving skills, and logical skills In In addition to this, Scratch Jr can be tailored to any subject which is very useful and effective as a teacher.  As individuals we must keep up with the digital technology that is readily available to us. In education, we should use this to our advantage to ensure that children grow up understanding how to use technology surrounding them and not be afraid to use it. Overall, Scratch Jr is easy to use, is readily available on the internet browser and is free to use. It is an effective resource for the classroom.

References

Education Scotland (2017) Benchmarks : Literacy and English. [Online] Available:  https://education.gov.scot [Accessed : 30th January]

Education Scotland (2017) Benchmarks : Technologies. [Online] Available: https://education.gov.scot [Accessed : 30th January]

Scratch (2017). [Online] Available: https://scratch.mit.edu/ [Accessed:30th January]

Scratch Jr (2017). [Online] Available:  https://www.scratchjr.org/teach/activities  [Accessed:30th January]

Telegraph (2014) Teaching our children to code: a quiet revolution [Online] Available:  http://www.telegraph.co.uk/technology/news/10410036/Teac…[Accessed: 30th January 2018]

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

TESL-EJ (2017) [Online] Available:  http://www.tesl-ej.org/wordpress/issues/volume21/ej82/ej82int/ [Accessed : 30th January]

During today’s lesson we discussed multimodal presentations, how they can be used in the classroom and the benefits which come alongside this. In order to be described as multimodal a text must combine two or more semiotic systems. The semiotic systems are as follows;

• Linguistic
• Visual
• Audio
• Gestural
• Spatial

During the lesson we discussed the many positives to using multi modal texts effectively within classrooms including engagement, personalisation, captivating, interactive and the depth of learning which can be not only taught but discovered; “The multimodality of technology…allows teachers to present an idea in a variety of different ways to help pupils understand it” Beauchamp (2012, p.8).

There are many different ways in which multimodal technology is used within classrooms today however during our lesson this week we focused upon the ActivInspire programme. At first I viewed the ActivInspire programme as similar to Powerpoint however by the end of the lesson I realised that it was so much more. There are almost endless interactive options within the programme as it can be used alongside the interactive whiteboards found in many schools in Scotland and so as I mentioned previously children can not only learn but discover for themselves with hands-on learning opportunities Janice Prandstatter a teaching and learning consultant also discusses the use of touch displays with children, “Touch displays can become a social learning tool encouraging hands-on experiences, thereby helping children to learn by doing.” (Prandstatter, J, 2014).

After watching some tutorial videos we began creating our own ActivInspire presentation for a chosen lesson using some of the new skills we had gained from watching the videos but also giving us a chance to work the programme out for ourselves. It took me a while to get to grips with the programme as it was so new and different to any programme I had used before and I would unconsciously revert back to built in habits from other programmes. Once I began to feel more confident with it I began discovering some of the countless opportunities available for creating unique and personalised learning materials. I love the interactivity which is available for children to be able to interact with the presentation you have created for them in order to enhance their lesson. Below are some pictures of the presentation I created.

Interactive lessons and multimodality can and should, where appropriate, be used across the curriculum and as teacher’s and educators become more familiar and confident with multimodality it is becoming increasingly relevant within Literacy and English. “The Literacy and English framework reflects the increased  use of multimodal texts, digital communication, social networking and the other forms of electronic communication encountered by children and young people in their every day lives” (Scottish Executive, 2004). Children currently in schools have grown up with technology and multimodality this therfore must be acknowledged and the way we teach must adhere to this new, highly stimulated, way of life as well as acknowledging the different text types children are both used to seeing and are comfortable with, many of which are multimodal.  However as I have discussed in previous blogs, as always, as Beauchamp (2012, P100) discusses;  “The ability 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 is one of the many reasons why digital technology modules are so important to students studying to become teachers, ensuring the next generation of teachers can effectively use various digital technologies one the classroom. Including incorporating multimodality know how, where and when is best to use it.

References

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

Prandstatter, J (2014) Interactive displays in early year classes [Online] Available: http://connectlearningtoday.com/interactive-displays-early-years-classes/ [Accessed: 29/01/2018]

Scottish Executive (2004) Curriculum for Excellence. Edinburgh: Scottish Executive

I was unfortunately unable to attend the lesson on multimodality this week due to being unwell but have since read up on the subject and looked over notes that my peer made during class.

Multimodal presentations are great ways for teachers to present an idea in many different forms to help pupils grasp the concept and engage in the topic (Beauchamp, 2012, p.8). The Curriculum for Excellence believe that today literacy and the English language are developed more through multimodal texts, digital communication, social networking and other forms of communication that children encounter (Curriculum for Excellence – Literacy and English Principles and Practice paper). A multimodal text is combined with two or more semiotic systems which are:

1. Linguistic
2. Visual
3. Audio
4. Gestural
5. Spatial

Children are more engaged in learning when they understand exactly what it is they are being taught. The ability that ICT has in allowing children to understand something is phenomenal, of course, as long as their teacher has a strong understanding (Beauchamp, 2012, p.100). Such use of ICT through multimodal presentations bring captivation, motivation, interactivity, personalisation, dynamics, memorisation and engagement.

“ActiveInspire” is a tool that I became familiar with during my time on placement in November. The tool helps teacher’s make lessons more fun by allowing interaction and for children to use their imagination on interactive whiteboards. During placement, my class were set the task of creating a scary story and each group used their imagination to come up with a scene, eventually joining everyone’s ideas together as a whole class.

I loved using “ActiveInspire” during placement and feel confident working with multimodal to engage children’s learning and understanding.

References

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

Education Scotland https://education.gov.scot

Across the curriculum today, programmable toys are being more and more introduce as they are said to help young develop their knowledge and understanding of the world (Janka, 2008). Research shows that programmable toys allow for interactive responsive learning, developed problem solving skills and engage pupils in cross-curricular links such as literacy, numeracy and so on. Having only mentioned some of the benefits of programmable toys, it is these enjoyments that help our children become confident individuals, successful learners, effective contributors and responsible citizens (Lydon, 2008).

In 2006, the programmable toy “Bee-Bot” was awarded as the most remarkable hardware for lower level primary school (Janka, 2008). A simple design that is a yellow bee is anything but boring. It is a controlling floor robot that enables a child to instruct it to make a journey on a square Friday (Janka, 2008). With a few taps on four colourful buttons, the child enters a sequence of instructions for the Bee to move and rotate across the grid (Janka, 2008).

So how does this toy develop a child’s knowledge and understanding? To develop a child’s numeracy skills, “Bee-Bot” can be used to recognise coins where we could for example, set a task for children to move across a grid, collecting specific coins as they go. The same could be done with sorting and describing shapes where again, by asking the children to move “Bee-Bot” around the grid and landing on specific shapes, asking them to describe the shape and its properties. Directional language can be used by designing the grid to be a street map or shopping market, for example, and getting the pupil’s to instruct the robot to move around the map, using terms such as ‘forward’, ‘backward’, ‘reverse’, ‘left’, and ‘right’. With literacy, each square on the grid could be given to each child and their task could be to create a story, eventually joining the grid and forming a very fun and imaginative story. As well as forming stories, the “Bee-Bot” encourages children to give instructions, which benefit their literacy skills. Their artistic side is developed when asked to create and draw out the grid using their imagination to draw their stories for the “Bee-Bot” to go across.

The “Bee-Bot” is a very good digital activity to engage in children’s learning and develop their knowledge and understanding as well as their digital literacy skills. Of course, for the children to be able to fully engage and understand the concept, it is important to that their teacher is educated in the use of the programmable toy.

After today’s class on the programmable toy, I fully am aware of the abilities that “Bee-Bot” has, as well as the many ways that it can help in children’s learning and developing skills. Our learning criteria for the lesson was to be able to programme “Bee-Bot” to follow instructions and to use it to teach skills of literacy and maths, making links to the Curriculum for Excellence. Upon refection, I can confidently carry out all of the above criteria, having done further researched and participated in an assessment activity.

The assessment activity was to programme “Bee-Bot” to move around a map which we had to design, ensuring we made links to numeracy and the Curriculum for Excellence outcomes. We worked in groups and my group drew a map of a “The Bee-Bot Supermarket”, with three aisles, each consisting of three items of fruit, three dairy products and three confectionary items.Each product had a price tag and the object of the activity for our lesson was for the children to follow a shopping list and programme “Bee-Bot” to move around the supermarket to collect each item on the list. The final square on our grip was the check-out desk, where the pupil would have to present the correct amount of money required to purchase the items (Appendix 1).

The learning outcomes for our lesson were:

• TCH 0-09a: I am developing problem-solving strategies, navigation and co-ordination skills, as I play and learn with electronic games, remote control or programmable toys.
• MNU 0-09a: I am developing my awareness of how many is used and can recognise and use a range of coins.
• MTH 0-17a: In movement, games and using technology, I can use simple directions and describe directions (Appendix 2).

After further discussion, our group came up with further lesson plans, linking to the Curriculum for Excellence, for example, writing the shopping list’s items in French or Spanish.

Overall, my confidence is strengthening every week I come to digital technology. Being do unaware of the learning outcomes that programmable toys have, I would not have been interested in using them in lessons but now having read further research, being taught about them and physically using them, I am confident that I can incorporate them into my lesson plans and ensure my pupil’s will be one step closer to becoming confident individuals, responsible citizens, effective contributors and successful learners.

References 

Janka, P. (2008) Using a Programmable Toy at Preschool Age: Why and How? [Online] http://www.terecop.eu/downloads/simbar2008/pekarova.pdf [Access: 16th January 2018]

Lydon, A. ( 2007) Let’s Go With Bee-Bot: Using your Bee-Bot across the curriculum. TTS Group Ltd.

Appendix

A Multimodal presentation is one which incorporates more than one medium to present information from a variety including words, sound and moving images. Educators who use multimodal presentations are finding ways to increase pupil engagement with the subject matter. “The multimodality of technology is another reason to use it to present an idea… to help pupils understand it” according to Beauchamp (2012, p.8).

There are many ways of introducing multimodality into the learning environment one of which is ActivInspire. This programme is particularly useful for Primary Teachers as not only does it work well with Smart Board technology it also encourages children to interact with the learning by using the technology themselves. The benefit of this being that the child can have a greater interest in the learning. Meaningful teaching “at all ages should aim to move beyond surface to deep interactivity. One way of doing this is to combine effective talk with the use of ICT” states Beauchamp (2011, p.40). The ActivInspire programme is an ideal way of encouraging this move to deep interactivity as children want to get involved. I have observed this during my time in a classroom, the children were eager to get their hands on the smart board pen and take a turn at the activity.

The level of multimodality offered by the programme varies. One can choose to have a simple level of information combining simple text and pictures to a more interactive presentation for example one that involves movement. The programme offers an ActivStudio and an ActivPrimary option and the latter is particularly user friendly especially in the classroom environment. Multimodal presentations can be more topological (Jones and Hafner, 2012). In other words, it can make more sense. It is difficult to explain a colour, but write it in its shade and observers can see it themselves. This is something that the ActivPrimary programme makes easy.

I have had the opportunity to see the Interactive Whiteboards (IWB) in use throughout my placement experience. ActivPrimary did, in my opinion, add value to the lesson and made the learning experience altogether more positive. For example; it is easy to add a hyperlink to another website or display pictures. Furthermore, I observed that its use promoted confidence as children spoke out to ensure they had a turn using the technology. However, in a journalistic piece in the Washington Post there have been contrary opinions to mine. Stanford University Professor Larry Cuban suggests that there is very little research that will show that IWB technology will improve academic achievement (Cuban, 2010 cited in McCrummen, 2010). In the same article the chief executive of SMART Technologies said, “strictly gathered research data, shows her products work” (Knowlton, 2010 cited in McCrummen, 2010). The article may raise some interesting points of view however, it is 7 years old and published at a time when less than one in four classes (in America) had the technology installed. According to the article general a little there had been some research which suggested teachers noted higher results without the use of IWB technology in a lesson (McCrummen, 2010) however this may also link back to the comments I made in a previous blog where some teachers see the use of technology in the classroom as something else they must master. The article does not comment on the age, experience and interests of the educators.

During the workshop, I had the opportunity to try the ActivInspire programme and I found the experience to be generally positive. With further practice and experience I think I would find value in using it as a complimentary addition to other methods of teaching. On a practical level, it was problematic in some areas, for example when making a mistake, it seemed a bit cumbersome to tap in and out of the pen and eraser.  Another difficulty was that to build the lesson seemed to be awkward.  It seemed to be very slow and repetitive to add money to our coin piles (the lesson was based around numeracy outcome MNU 1-09a &MNU 1-09b) however as I reflect on that I believe it may have been because of my unfamiliarity with the programme.  Also,, the benefit of being able to save the work would mean it can be used again at a later date (one can build up a stock of presentations).

Given the nature of the software is multimodal, it is unlikely that it would be used as a stand-alone platform. One does not envisage using it without making use of the features such as inserting a hyperlink or a picture therefore it can be considered another tool in a Teachers arsenal.

The ActivPrimary toolkit (the pen tool is highlighted).

Selected images from the lesson plan created in the workshop by myself and my work partner.

References
Beauchamp, G. (2011) Computing and IC in the Primary School from Pedagogy to Practice. 2nd ed. Abingdon: Routledge.
Jones R.H. and Hafner C.A. (2012) Understanding Digital Literacies a Practical Introduction Routledge: London.
McCrummen, S (2010) Some educators question if whiteboards, other high tech tools raise achievement Washington Post USA [online] Available: http://washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/06/10/AR2010061005522.html [Accessed 28 January 2017].