I am thoroughly enjoying my experience in digital technologies! I can’t believe how quick time is disappearing. Our main outcome this week was to design a task that involved multimodal features on the interactive whiteboard using the software ‘Active inspire.’ I am familiar with this as teachers used it as their main teaching tool all throughout my primary and secondary school journey. This tool is used in almost all classrooms to enhance a childs learning with an array of interactive tools.

What makes a text multimodal? A text is multimodal when it contains two or more semiotic systems. (Depperman, 2013) There are five semiotic systems in total:

• Visual (moving images, colour, layout)
• Audio (volume, tone, pitch, rhythm and sound effects)
• Gestural (movement, facial expressions and body language)
• Spatial (proximity, directions and objects in a specific space)
• Linguistic (it encompasses vocabulary, sentence structure and the grammar of oral and written language (Haul, L.))

In today’s society, the most popular multimodal text is the Interactive Whiteboard (IWB) During my time on placement I noticed how much the teacher relied on this form of technology to deliver lessons. The pupils actively engaged and participated in lessons. From time to time, they were given permission to play games when all the work was completed. For example, they used the IWB to practice their multiplication tables from moving the numbers and symbols into the correct box to create the correct calculation. This specific hands-on approach is very relevant to the technology incorporated classrooms we have. (Beauchamp, 2012) However, I also observed the sheer look of panic on the teachers face when active inspire was down for the day! We can’t always rely on technology, it is crucial to have a back-up plan.

Overall, recent studies convey that the use of the IWB can greatly enhance teaching by supporting classroom management, pace and variety. It was also noted that the use of the IWB was also beneficial for childrens memorisation skills and writing development. On the other hand, using the IWB can create the danger of being loured into a “show and tell” form of teaching. The need for a balance of activities is paramount. (Deubel, P) To be concise, there needs to be a balance of pupil to teacher talk. Pupils need the opportunity for kinaesthetic and tactile learning for example 1 to 1 engagement to identify a child’s strengths and weaknesses. Overall, although the use of the IWB is a positive attribute within the classroom further long-term research is needed to test the accuracy of these institutions. (gray, C) “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.” (Beauchamp, 2012) This effectively means the quantity of teaching is more important than the technology being used to portray it.

Multimodal forms of technology allow us to present the same idea in multiple formats. Multimodal presentations can capture our leaners imagination and they can have freedom with it. However, ‘active inspire’ is not easily accessed on all devices which can cause disruption and frustration for learners. For example, one of my peers was not able to participate as they only have access to their macbook which disenabled them to work on this at home as well as on campus. This further supports my previous point about always being prepared for upcoming challenges in the classroom as not everything can be fullproof. I found active inspire to be very time consuming as I was not aware of all aspects of this function which made it difficult to work at times. Surely, as teacher we should be focusing on since our time is limited anyway.

Once I had finalised my experience and outcome:

• I have investigated how whole numbers are constructed, can understand the importance of zero within the system and can use my knowledge to explain the link between a digit, its place and its value. (MNU 1-02a)

I was able to focus on my decided topic- numeracy. We specifically targeted our activity at first level mathematics. The concept of our activity was to drag away the box to reveal the magic number. The pupil would then have to create the number using the concrete materials (base 10 materials) provided at the side. For instance, if the number was ‘48’ the child would move 4 tens into the tens column and 8 units into the units’ column. The child would need to have prior knowledge of base 10 materials to complete this task. To make this text multimodal we had hand clapping sound effects as children will then feel a sense of confidence when getting it correct.

This was our final flipchart:

I fully understand how important this tool is as a teacher. However, I don’t feel I had enough time to explore this in full detail which left me at a disadvantage for this specific task. I spent so much time creating this task for it to be completed in less than five minutes. Next time I will focus on an extension task for my class – ensuring there is plenty of work to get through, no time for slacking! – I sometimes find the best resource in the classroom is the ‘old fashioned’ form of the blackboard with no technical errors able to go wrong.

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

Deubel, P. (2010) Interactive whiteboards: truths and consequences The Journal [online] Available: https://thejournal.com/Articles/2010/08/04/Interactive-Whiteboards-Truths-and-Consequences.aspx?Page=4#

Gray, C. (2005) The pros and cons of interactive whiteboards in relation to the key stage 3 stategy and framework  [online] available: https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/09571730585200171

Haul, L. (2010) The five semiotic systems- Prezi [online] available: https://prezi.com/m6eovk3fvhyi/5-semiotic-systems/