January 2017 – Rebecca's Reflective Journal

Using Bee-Bot

On Monday the 23rd of January, during the digital technologies lesson we made grids related to themes and made links to the Curriculum for Excellence experiences and outcomes across all levels within primary schools. We chose the theme of beaches as we thought it was a good idea because it’s a happy theme and everybody loves going on holiday. Our success criteria during this lesson were to use Bee-Bot to teach skills across many curriculum areas, such as literacy and numeracy. From this task we were successful using Bee-Bot as an example of a programmable toy to come up with various learning approaches that could be adapted into a lesson when we become primary teachers.

beet-bot

Use of programmable toys such as Bee-Bot within the classroom is extremely important as it gives the children the chance to be in charge of the Bee-Bot. There are also many benefits in including the use of programmable toys within classroom lessons because this can result in the expansion of children’s problem-solving skills and it would provide children with an insight into important cross-curricular links. Pekarova Janka emphasises the importance of programmable toys in the classroom by stating “The curriculum introduces programmable toys as a good example for developing knowledge and understanding of the contemporary world.”

Our beach theme was very fun to work with and we enjoyed being creative and imaginative to adapt the use of programmable toys into possible numeracy lessons. We were successful in this by completing a grid which could provide many different learning approaches for children. Here is a picture of our beach themed grid below –

beet-bot

Importance of the Interactive Whiteboard within learning

Aside from learning more about Glow on the 10th of January 2017, we also had the chance to learn more about why the use of interactive whiteboards are useful within learning and why there is such a strong emphasis on it today in schools.

The main benefit of using interactive white boards it that it caters for all learners, such as Visual learners as these type of learners will benefit from a straight forward view of what is presented on the board and they learn better by watching videos and looking at pictures. The interactive white board is also very beneficial for kinaesthetic and tactile learners as they benefit from getting the opportunity to touch and move things around the board and like to highlight various elements. Lastly, they also provide benefits in the learning of audio learners as they can be included in class discussions.

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Within the classroom, importance of the interactive whiteboard within learning is emphasised as it is a powerful tool, as it contributes to interactivity and collaboration throughout children’s learning. It is also essential throughout various lessons within schools as it is memorable, informed and captivating and so more children will be enjoying learning and getting more involved.

Using Glow

In the first input for Digital Technologies on the 10th of January 2017, we learned more about Glow and why it is so useful for children, teachers and parents today as it provides a safe online environment. This is because Glow is a fantastic tool for us to access resources anytime and anywhere in the world. Glow provides the opportunity to create blogs and allows for teachers to have a space to create personalised programmes of work for pupils.

glow

We explored different apps within Glow such as ‘tigtag’ and ‘Glow Tv’ and we had to decide on what age group these would be best suited for and what type of lesson they would be integrated into. Within the first app I looked at ‘tigtag’ I thought it would have been suitable for children aged from 4 to 7 as there were various videos which were quite basic but enjoyable. There were also options of science lessons to do with physics, biology and chemistry to suit children’s interest. I think using ‘tigtag’ in the classroom during a lesson would be beneficial as it gives options of first and second level and will give children the opportunity to experience a more interactive learning approach. The second app I looked at which was ‘Glow tv’ provided many different subjects such as history, drama, and drawing. It allows you watch things live, record content to allow you to watch at a later stage, you can refine the search suited to you and there are links to classroom topic work and real life experiences.

tigtag

glow-tv

Lastly, I learned that within a class room one of the main focuses is about ‘closing the gap’ between the variation of attainment levels. Therefore, Glow could really contribute to closing this gap as use of Glow has the ability to engage learners and could contribute to raising attainment and achievement levels across many schools in Scotland. Education Scotland emphasises the importance of digital technologies within learning as it is stated “place digital technologies at the heart of learning.” (Armstrong, 2015).