Tuesday 7th February 2017
Internet Safety Day/Coding
As I stated last week, this week would involve finishing off the assessment task for Scratch Jr. We also had an in-depth and detailed discussion about internet safety for children and ourselves. This was very relevant to the day as today was in-fact safer Internet Day.
Firstly, I finished off the presentation on how to create a scratch Jr. and how I made mine relevant to the Hungry Caterpillar. The main challenge for me here was trying to perceiver with the different formatting issues between Apple products and Windows products. Everything was going well, and I was on track until I tried to upload my video of the finished product and my phone would not send it due to it being too large of a file. So, I then thought I had cracked it by using an iPad to film it. Hurray, I thought as I saw the video in my inbox for my emails, for it to say that it did not support the media player that was used to make the video. I had to have a lot of stamina and patience but I got there so I hope you will like it. I will attach the whole presentation with the video included so you can have a look. Hopefully, this task will be a good enough assessment as I put a lot of effort that I did not think I would need into it.
As I had finished my assessment task, I decided that I would do a bit more reading on programming and coding as I found it very interesting and I was really seeing the advantages of using this kind of technology in the class. I read an article that was about the importance of making sure our children were learning to code, similar to the one I read last week. However, there was one part that really stuck out for me that summarised well the importance of teaching children to code. “This is not just an evolutionary change – this is a massive revolution in the study of computing… England is leading the world in this transformation and, bizarrely, no one seems to know about it.” (Curtis, S. P.2.). This quote shows what leaders we are being in technological terms, but it could be questioned as to: are we actually teaching this to our children even if we are the leaders, or are we forgetting to do this?
The article also raised a point that I liked to hear: “staff are even working through the courses themselves to develop their own understanding prior to teaching, because as we know there is not yet a great deal of support/training being offered in schools” (Curtis, S. P.4.) This shows, that the teaching staff clearly too feel that there is a great importance of using coding to teach children. They can see the advantages this has to the children’s learning attitude and how interactive the lessons become. For the staff to do this, with a lack of resources and training is honorable but shows how important they must think coding is to force it through and train themselves.
Once I had finally stopped pulling my hair out and fretting about every little thing about my presentation, we focused on the next part of the module which was: animation. This related well to today as the animation was going to be based on Internet Safety, when today was actually Internet Safety Day. Over the next few weeks I will discuss the importance of children being safe on the internet. We as teachers should encourage and teach children how to use the internet effectively and safely. In today’s 21st century the internet is used now on a daily basis, we should make sure children know who to go to or what to do if anything goes wrong. As Johnathan Allen et al pointed out: “encouraging a culture where children feel able to report things they see which make them feel uncomfortable fosters a responsible attitude and begins to educate learners about how they would deal with these issues in the wider world beyond the classroom” (Allen, J. et Al. P.195). Allowing children to use the internet allows them to access a worldwide web of knowledge and resources. Teachers and pupils can change the way normal tasks such as homework is given out through the use of the internet. However, for the resource of the internet to be used effectively: staff and pupils must be trained in the first instance to make sure both parties stay safe and what to do if there are any dangers!
As we decided as a class to make our animation assessment task relevant to children, we split into groups to discuss the apparent dangers the internet can bring to children and everyone. To introduce us on how we would go about this, we watched a video of the consequences and upset the worst case scenario consequences could be if a child is sucked into not being safe on the internet. We then watched some demonstrations on how to create a movie or trailer on different programs. We then had the opportunity to have a go ourselves and play around with different formats on what each program had to offer.
When we had got a feel for the different programs, we were to decide who to work with and how we were going to go about it. I will not give the game away just yet on what we are planning to do as that will keep the suspense for next week. We are also still in the very early stages yet so we are still not too sure about what angle we are taking. I think we did agree on using iMovie though as it looked like the best program to use for either a trailer or film.
Stay tuned to find out what we are doing for our animation task and how we get on. For sure next week will once again be a fun, busy day.
Remember to check out my Scratch Jr. presentation by clicking on the blue link below the PowerPoint image.
PowerPoint – with my Scratch Jr. made program.
© Mr C Ewing (Scratch Jr. PowerPoint) – 6.2.17
assessment-task-scratch-christopher-ewing-7-2-17-with-video
References:
Curtis, S. (2013) Teaching Our Children To Code: A Quiet Revolution [online]
Available: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/technology/news/10410036/Teaching-our-children-to-code-a-quiet-revolution.html [Accessed: 7 February 2017]
Allen J. Potter J. Sharp J. and Turvey K. (2011) Primary ICT. 4th Edition, Glasgow: Learning Matter ltd.
