Erin McIntosh UWS

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

Today was my first day attending the digital technology module. I opted for this module because I lack confidence in digital literacy and with the Scottish Government implementing digital technology in schools (Scottish Government, 2016), I aim to improve my knowledge in digital literacy more.

My initial understanding of what digital literacy is, is learning, through using computers and search engines. After one day participating in the module, it is clear that digital literacy has many aspects that I am not aware of. Reflecting on my years of learning in school, digital technology was very limited and not used often. When it was used, however, it had a very big impact on myself and my fellow classmates learning. Today, digital technology is much more advanced, however as I will be teaching in a few years and educating pupils, I feel that it is very important to enhance my learning in digital literacy.

In 2016, the Scottish Government interviewed 92 children across Scotland aged between 8 and 11. All of them admitted to strongly being exposed to digital technology in the form that the majority of them owned a mobile phone or a tablet or laptop or gaming consoles etc, (Scottish Government, 2016). Much like myself, the popular opinion of digital technology being used in classrooms was that it makes learning more enjoyable. The children all agreed that they would like to use it more in lessons. 250 11-25 year old adolescents were also questioned and the overall outcome was that digital technology is a strong aid for revision and resources. What both sets of young people voiced, was that schools lack digital resources and their teacher’s lack the skills to use and teach through these resources (Scottish Government, 2016). I can only agree with the views of these young people, from my own experience in school and as a student teacher in how much skill I lack in digital technology.

During the module seminar, we were given some time to read documents relating to teaching ICT in the classroom. I paid particular attention to reading “Enhancing learning and teaching through the use of digital technology”, published by the Scottish Government. I was drawn closely to the section about the role of the Scottish Government and National Bodies and how they are going to work nationally and locally to help achieve the objective to enhance learning and teaching through digital technology, (Scottish Government, 2016). This had an immense impact on myself because it boosts my confidence knowing that the Scottish Government themselves are on board to enhance future and current educator’s learning and skills. They aim to develop the skills of educator’s, improve the access that they have to technology, as well as enhancing curriculum and incorporating aspects of digital literacy in learning and importantly, they want to encourage leader’s to support their change and approach, (Scottish Government, 2016).

With digital technology becoming ever more popular in our everyday lives, I feel hopeful that with the power of the Scottish Government and local bodies, they will encourage teaching and learning through digital technology in classrooms, as well as communication and aids, for example Glow.

Having never used Glow before my time at UWS, I was completely unaware of the materials and learning resources that it provides. As a student teacher, I am constantly seeking out new ideas and resources that I can use on placement visits and more so when I become a qualified teacher. I am relieved that there is such a tool as Glow. My launchpad is currently filled with 25 tiles, all related to teaching. Some tiles have learning and activity materials and others have support specifically for teacher’s, for example, ‘Addressing Dyslexia Toolkit’ designed for teacher’s and early years workers who could potentially be involved with literacy and dyslexia difficulties throughout school years.

My favourite tile that I have so far came across and feel it will benefit me greatly is ‘Primary Resources’ which has thousands of free lesson plans, activity ideas and resources for primary teachers.

As well as having my own personal launchpad, Glow has a UWS launchpad and a national one that shows what they recommend and what duties are being used most frequently.

Overall, my first day in the digital technology module was a great success and I am thoroughly looking forward to the next few months learning and adapting my digital technology skills. I aim to use Glow frequently and discover the different teaching tools that there are locally at UWS and nationally. Every placement visit I have, I am excited to see the different ways that local authorities and the government, along with head teachers and teachers themselves have implemented digital technology into the classroom, taking away from it ideas and skills that I can one day use in my very own classroom.

Reference

The Scottish Government (2016) Enhancing Learning and Teaching through the use of Digital Technology.

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