Welcome back once again to my Digital Technologies reflection blog. I hope you are enjoying my weekly updates and are learning something new every week with me.

This week we were learning about multimodality and multimodal texts. This concept was not new to us as we have done work on this subject within another module, but this time looking at it from a different perspective. The program we used this week was Activinspires Activprimary, found in most classrooms in both primary and secondary schools.

So, what does multimodal texts mean? What do they do? How can they be used in the classroom? And what makes Activprimary a valuable platform for teaching using multimodal texts? As always all shall be answered very soon, so sit back and enjoy the read.

Multimodality and multimodal texts in my understanding are different digital formats in which information can be presented. This can be done in the format of a PowerPoint presentation, short film or audio clip etc.

Today’s task was to practice using the Activprimary software to create a small interactive lesson which could potentially be used in a classroom. This activity was done by using 2011 apple MacBook’s, I was not very sure about this as I struggle to use the desktop macs let alone the laptop macs. I feel that Apple has tried to make their devices as opposite to Windows devices as much as physically possible. This is frustrating as I have only ever used Windows devices and I have to go against all of my computing instincts; however, I managed to persevere and make a success of the task. The short lesson I created took inspiration from last week’s Beebot activity, with the learning centred around shape, position and movement, specifically movement and directional language.

My first few slides discussed positional language, whether this be a recap on prior learning or an introduction to the topic would be at the discretion of the teacher. There are questions throughout which display an arrow, under this arrow there are option boxes with different directions in them. The participant then has to select the correct direction which matches which way the arrow is pointing. Upon selecting the correct answer a chime sounds.

After this section, the slides or flipchart goes on to discuss co-ordinates. Unfortunately, I did not have time to complete this section as I had to spend most of my time figuring out how to work the MacBook. Although, I do still have a vision for the next section of the learning. There will be a grid on the screen with letters and numbers marked on the relevant axis and the user is asked to place different objects in specific places given in the form of co-ordinates. Again, this task would be suitable for the introduction to co-ordinates or to reinforce new learning.

Activprimary allows for lessons to be more interactive in the classroom. Instead of sitting in front of a PowerPoint being projected onto a screen, the children can use the smart board to complete activities that are directly related to the current learning, enhancing the learning through an activity that will be remembered more easily by learners.

However, we discovered that in developing a flipchart presentation for use in the classroom it takes a lot of work and a long time to develop something substantial. We found that it took us almost 3 hours to develop tasks that were completed by our peers in under 5 minutes, which calls into question, is all the time and effort that goes into making these interactive resources worth it for only 5 minutes classroom time?

I think Activprimary will be a very useful tool in the classroom as it has many fantastic functions that can make learning interesting and more interactive for children. However, there is a lot of work that has to go into creating interactive resources on this program which can take sometimes hours. These many hours of effort going into creating resources and engaging tasks just for them to be through in a matter of minutes, it doesn’t deem worth the volume of effort.

By using multimodal texts learners will have their digital learning enhanced. According to the Scottish Government Digital Learning is:

“learning which is supported and enhanced by a range of digital technologies and approaches. It can focus on one or more particular technologies. It may focus on classroom use or anywhere-anytime access. It may include features and approaches that are used to develop independent learners”.

Throughout this input I questioned why we had to use the MacBook laptops? I was unsure if the big desktop macs do not have Activprimary on them or whether they are incapable of running the application, I felt that I should find this out. After emailing to ask this very question, I have learned that the Activprimary application used to be available on the desktop macs but is no longer installed. I believe discussions are now going to take place in order to find a way to move forward with this issue as I believe that it would be much easier to not have to wheel through the trolley with the old MacBook’s in it when there are perfectly capable machines already there.

*Please note the flipchart was not able to be uploaded, the file type is not permitted for upload by this platform*

Signing off.

References:

Scottish Government (2016) Enhancing Teaching and Learning through the use of Digital Technology: A Digital Learning and Teaching Strategy for Scotland. [Online] Available: https://www.gov.scot/publications/enhancing-learning-teaching-through-use-digital-technology/ [Accessed 9th April 2019]