Today we have been learning about tablets and the effectiveness of these devices in education. These devices enhance many of the core elements within the curriculum for excellence (Burden et.al, 2012). I believe these devices will increase a student’s level of interest, engagement and motivation. The use of Digital devices allows learning to be personalised for an individual’s needs, this is further backed up by Jarvis, M (2015, P129) “The use of digital technologies appreciates the diversity of the learners needs and the potential for personalising their experience using technology. The learning intention for today was to use the app “Book Creator” to create a book. The success criteria was to explore the book creator app, create a summary of a well-known story using book creator and create my own eBook. I felt really enthusiastic about this task as the more I have been achieving the tasks each week the more confident I have been becoming. I have noticed over the last few weeks the importance of children learning ICT skills in order to have the best possible chances for a prosperous successful future. Beauchamp, G (2012) states “Children need to learn ICT skills as necessity for economic competitiveness in a knowledge society and as preparation for the world of work”.
Pre-class we were asked by our tutor to pick a children’s book that we could use to base our ebook design on. I decided to choose “The Gruffalo by Julia Donaldson” I picked this book as I think it’s a wonderful book and I decided I wanted to direct my task for early year level children, and I thought this book was perfect for that. Please see attached below pictures of my ebook pages. I wanted to make the ebook as interactive as possible, so I have various tasks for the kids to do throughout. The first task for the children was they had to write down descriptive words for the Gruffalo and they have a picture of the Gruffalo to help them identify some good words. The second task was three photos with missing key words which identify to the pictures. I feel these were good tasks to allow the children to interact and to be creative with what they see. This task allows the kids to work in pairs or groups and this will improve their communication and listening skills amongst their peers. The third task was a voice recording of myself reading out a passage in the play and asking the children what they thought about a certain aspect of that. This I feel is important as it allows the children to freely express what they think and again to work in pairs or groups and listen to other kids views. To finish the ebook off I asked the children to use their imaginations and to decide on a different ending and to write and discuss this in pairs or groups.
This task covered Literacy as a curricular area for the curriculum for excellence and the outcomes and experiences achieved were LIT 0-09a “I enjoy exploring events and characters in stories and other texts and I use what I learn to invent my own, sharing these with others in imaginative ways.” LIT 0-09b/LIT “I enjoy exploring events and characters in stories and other texts and I use what I learn to invent my own, sharing these with others in imaginative ways.” LIT 0-04a “I listen or watch for useful or interesting information and I use this to make choices or learn new things.” On reflection of this task I can see how useful tablets are to enhance, the curriculum for excellence. At no point did I find thus task difficult or boring and I thoroughly enjoyed it. I would say this has been my favourite task so far and I look forward to using tablets to teach in the future. This is a great resource which could be used in future lessons to achieve many experiences and outcomes for the curriculum for excellence and through all learning stages.
In conclusion, I believe that tablets are a fantastic tool to use to enhance teaching within the classroom. It’s a great way to get the children to interact and it can be used across the curriculum. Having had the opportunity to use ‘ebook’ to design my own book, I can see that it has massive benefits in the educational setting. Over the last few weeks I have learnt so much and I am thoroughly enjoying this module. I would go as far to say this has been my overall favourite class since joining University. I can see the importance and relevance of this subject within education.
References
Beauchamp, M (2012) ICT in the Primary School From Pedagogy to Practice. Pearson
Burden, Hopkins et al (2012) Ipad Scotland Evaluation. University of Hull
Jarvis, M (2015) Brilliant ideas for using ICT in the classroom.Routledge
