Simon Haughton's Blog

PowerPoint Activities using Triggers

As well allowing objects to animate on the click of the mouse and after a particular length of time in a PowerPoint slideshow, objects can also be made to animate when another object on a slide is clicked on. This can be achieved by using triggers, where the start of an effect is triggered by the click of a specified object:

This can be useful if you want things to change the colour of an object in an activity since you simply need to make an object change its fill colour several times using the emphasis animation effect, with each colour change being placed in sequence and starting on the click of a particular object:

 

To demonstrate this principle, I've created a quick set of addition activities for Year 1 children to complete. They are all basically variations on the theme of making two matching objects the same colour (e.g. number bonds, calculation/answer). Click the picture below to download and play this activity.

Multimedia PowerPoint Adventures

Whilst looking for an inspiring way to teach the old Year 6 QCA unit 'Multimedia Presentation' a couple of years ago, I came across Ashley Down Junior School's website where they were showcasing some non-linear adventure stories that their children had made in PowerPoint. Unfortunately, the gallery page doesn't seem to be online anymore, but a copule of the actual PowerPoint files themselves still are and can be seen here and here.

Obviously, I felt like this would be a super project to do as it would be something that the children could really work with and focus on over a number of lessons. The idea was simple - create a number of slides with a story on and then link them together with action buttons/hyperlinks to make an interactive story for younger readers.

The first year I attempted the project I gave the children a very lot of independence in their work and they seemed really keen to finsih their stories. Unfortunately, however, since they all veered off on their own paths it made it quite a challenge to support them - nearly everyone required lots of different themed ClipArt which they struggled to find (e.g. for a space setting or underwater setting) and I found it hard to keep tabs on how much ICT work was actually being done (as they all just seemed to add effects/links/sounds etc when they felt they wanted to).

In the second year, therefore, I then decided to give the children less freedom with the content of their stories. Using the setting of an adventure island, I asked the children to make up a story where their main character visited a number different places (e.g. swamp, beach, cliffs etc.) in the search for some treasure. This made it much easier for me to keep track of what everyone was doing and also encouraged the children to think more carefully about their story's structure and the presentation techniques being used to tell it, as opposed to wasting lots of time trying to think up a dozen different planets, castles or caves to write about. Limiting them to just using Microsoft ClipArt gallery (accessible from within PowerPoint) also meant that they wouldn't end up using TV/film/book people and so instead had to be a little more imaginative when thinking up who their characters would be.

This year, I then built on the success of this idea by again forcing them to set their story on the island, but this time taking a little more care in the development of their presentation. As such, I created this planning sheet for them to use:

Having roughly planned each slide in the first lesson, they then found this sheet to be a very valuable resource over the coming weeks since it explained to them how each part of the story needed to be linked (including reference to the crucial slide numbers which PowerPoint seems to like) and the order in which the different multimedia elements should be created in to achieve the best possible final effects.

I also gave them a copy of this double-sided sheet below explaining exactly how to use the various tools to create the different parts of their story - whilst I'd orginally done this to make my life easier during the lessons, it actually turned out be a useful strategy for encouraging the children to become more independent at working out what needed doing next and how to sole their own problems more by themselves:

I've published some of the finished stories on my school's website and hope you like reading them.

The children certainly enjoy making their multimedia stories to share with others and it's lovely watching them develop during the five lessons or so it takes to make them. I'll hopefully be repeating the project again next year and my target for then is to try and come up with a way to encourage them to create more consistency between the slides (perhaps using a master slide to create a template layout would do?), but in the mean time I hope that by writing this post I can inspire somebody else to have a go at creating their own PowerPoint adventure story and see how amazing they are!

Zip it, Block it, Flag it

At the end of last year, the government announced that it was going to start a new e-safey awarenss campaign using this slogan:

 

I thought I'd share with you some of the methods I have been using in the last couple of weeks with Year 5 children to help them understand this campaign:

• Using this interactive slideshow I created, pupils first recorded what digital communication tools they use themselves (e.g. email, social networking sites, MMS/SMS, Instant Messaging etc.) before completing a Venn diagram to sort out a variety of statements I'd prepared which describe the differences between real (face-to-face) and online (virtual) conversations using such communication tools (to help them realise how people can lie more convincingly when you can't see them and pretend to be someone their not).

• Next, I showed them the Jigsaw video by the CEOP and we talked about what mistakes the girl (Becky) made in the film that had helped a stranger to find and follow her. This led nicely into a discussion about what is meant by the term 'personal information' (information that can uniquely identify an individual) and how revealing too much of it can be unwise as a stranger can piece together lots of small facts (rather like a jigsaw puzzle) to find out exactly who you are. The children then had a go at writing up some rules Becky should follow to help her stay safe online in future:
• Zip it – Don’t share your personal information with strangers. Keep your profile settings private.
• Block it – Block friend requests from strangers on social networking sites.
• Flag it – Always tell a trusted adult if something online scares/upsets you. Report any meeting requests from strangers to a trusted adult. Remember to be as careful online as you are offline.

• After that we then used this matching activity I'd made to clarify our understanding of what other hazards associated with digital communication devices mean - viruses, spam messages and cyber-bullying. The children then had a go at completing a quiz I'd made up in GDocs that required them to select the safest and most responsible course of action to take in four different scenarios, with justification.
• Finally, I let them have an explore of the super CyberCafe website. This is split up into various sections, with each one containing an activity where they must make the right decisions about how to deal with potentially risky/dangerous/upsetting situations - such as when: text messaging, emailing and using social networking sites. As in previous years, they all really enjoyed this since it gave them the freedom to explore the consequences of their decisions by themselves.

E-safety education is extremely important in today's society where digital communication is becoming ever more popular, however I always stress that it's emphasis should be on teaching children how they can take steps to act safely and responsibly. Equipping them with a sensible surfing attitude is likely to be much more useful in helping them become digital citizens than scaremongering them of the dangers they might encounter.

(My e-safety bookmarks can be found at http://delicious.com/parkfield/e-safety)

TeachMeet Blackpool - Shape Collage

ShapeCollage is free program that automatically creates collages of your pictures. There is both an online (requires you to give URLs of images) and an offline version (allows you to fully customise the appearance and size of your collage). Click on these pictures to see examples of collages on my school's website:

           

TeachMeet Blackpool - Dabbleboard

Dabbleboard is an online program for drawing diagrams on a whiteboard:

 

 

• Click anywhere to start typing - an on-screen keyboard pop-ups for you to use on an IWB.
• Just draw - it automatically detects basic shapes and makes them look neat.
• Insert images either from URLs or uploaded from your computer.

 

 

Alphabet Cards

These small little cards are such a simple idea but are something which makes a huge amount of difference to the children I work with who are still developing their typing skills (espescially those in KS1).

All they contain are the letters of the alphabet printed twice on two rows - the top row in the popular Comic Sans font which is one they can all relate to since it is a cursive script with lots of similarities to their own handwriting and the bottom row as is displayed on a computer keyboard (in Arial font).

I honestly can't describe how brilliant they are (see the comments on the TES Connect site to back this up). I have a collection of them laminated in the ICT suite available for children to access whenever they need to and the amount of times I've observed them being used with great effect is untrue - no more do I see children getting confused between the letters 'I' 'J' and 'L'!

Now I'm obviously not going to suggest that these should be used all the time - as children practice and grow their typing skills will obviously get better - but as a tool available to them which can be used as an independent support aid, they are simply fantastic!

Countdown Timer Code

I thought I'd share some useful code that I found on this website for creating a web page which displays a countdown timer:

<html> <head> <title>Countdown</title> <script type="text/javascript" defer="defer"> function CD_T(id,e){var n=new Date();CD_D(+n,id,e);setTimeout("if(typeof CD_T=='function'){CD_T('"+id+"',"+e+")}",1100-n.getMilliseconds())};function CD_D(n,id,e){var ms=e-n;if(ms<=0) ms*=-1;var d=Math.floor(ms/864E5);ms-=d*864E5;var h=Math.floor(ms/36E5);ms-=h*36E5;var m=Math.floor(ms/6E4);ms-=m*6E4;var s=Math.floor(ms/1E3);if(CD_OBJS[id]){CD_OBJS[id].innerHTML=d+" day"+(d==1?" ":"s ")+CD_ZP(h)+"h "+CD_ZP(m)+"m "+CD_ZP(s)+"s"}};function CD_ZP(i){return(i<10?"0"+i:i)};function CD_Init(){var pref="countdown";var objH=1;if(document.getElementById||document.all){for(var i=1;objH;++i){var id=pref+i;objH=document.getElementById?document.getElementById(id):document.all[id];if(objH&&(typeof objH.innerHTML)!='undefined'){var s=objH.innerHTML;var dt=CD_Parse(s);if(!isNaN(dt)){CD_OBJS[id]=objH;CD_T(id,dt.valueOf());if(objH.style){objH.style.visibility="visible"}}else {objH.innerHTML=s+" "}}}}};function CD_Parse(strDate){var objReDte=/(\d{4})\-(\d{1,2})\-(\d{1,2})\s+(\d{1,2}):(\d{1,2}):(\d{0,2})\s+GMT([+\-])(\d{1}):?(\d{1,2})?/;if(strDate.match(objReDte)){var d=new Date(0);d.setUTCFullYear(+RegExp.$1,+RegExp.$2-1,+RegExp.$3);d.setUTCHours(+RegExp.$4,+RegExp.$5,+RegExp.$6);var tzs=(RegExp.$7=="-"?-1:1);var tzh=+RegExp.$8;var tzm=+RegExp.$9;if(tzh){d.setUTCHours(d.getUTCHours()-tzh*tzs)}if(tzm){d.setUTCMinutes(d.getUTCMinutes()-tzm*tzs)};return d}else {return NaN}};var CD_OBJS=new Object();if(window.attachEvent){window.attachEvent('onload',CD_Init)}else if(window.addEventListener){window.addEventListener("load",CD_Init,false)}else {window.onload=CD_Init}; </script> </head> <body> <p> <font face="Trebuchet MS" color=black size=6><b> Launching in <span id="countdown1">2010-1-1 01:00:00 GMT+00:00</span> </font> </p> </body> </html>

• Select all the code and copy it into the program you are using to make your website (e.g. paste it into Notepad and save the file as 'countdown.html')
• Change the red date to the time you are counting down to - the correct format is YYYY-MM-DD HH:MM:SS GMT±HH:MM

Obviously a countdown would never be a regular feature on a website, but it might be useful to show ocassionally when you want to help build up sense of anticipation ahead of a particular event which is going to be happening in school - like a special celebration or trip.

On a vaguely related note, here's a link to my collection of websites containing timers for displaying on an IWB in a classroom: http://delicious.com/parkfield/timer

Adventures in LOGO

If I'm being honest with you, I'd have to say that programming is my favourite aspect of ICT. I've always liked a good maths puzzle to solve and so you could probably say that there are certain comparisons which could be made with creating a computer program (trying to debug it, the satisfaction when it works etc.)

Back in October I presented at TeachMeet NW and briefly shared this slide with everyone which outlines how I see progression in this strand of the subject, and where the different devices/applications fit into it:

For this post though, I thought I'd just outline some of the ways that I teach children in Year 4 how to program using MSW LOGO, since I am just starting this topic again with this year's class at the moment.

Last year I spent ages producing this enormous booklet containing dozens of LOGO activities for helping children understand everything that they would ever need to know about the programming language, and as you can see from the download numbers, it was a moderate success and went on to win me a digital camera after coming runner up in a competition judged by the Association of Teachers of Mathematics for the best primary maths lesson plans for primary schools!

When I looked back on it again this year however, I felt that whilst is was certainly comprehensive, it was probably a bit too long and detailed for children. Shortening/condensing it down would make it a lot better and more enjoyable to teach (and also give me some space in the curriculum to teach 2DIY, but that's another story).

Over the Christmas break, I therefore set about getting rid of all the activities which were boring and didn't particularly challenge the children, until I eventually got it down to just 6 main chapters to be delivered over the space of 7 lessons in the unit of work:

Learning Intentions/Objectives	Activities	Resources
Technique: to transfer floor turtle instructions to the screen and understand common language Technique: to type turtle commands in immediate mode	Enter basic commands to guide the screen turtle successfully around several on-screen mazes.	Worksheet 1 - Moving the LOGO Turtle Pictures of Mazes
Technique: to change the appearance of a screen turtle’s trail Technique: to use penup and pendown to move the screen turtle	Several short tasks to introduce the children to changing the pen's colour and thickness, as well as showing them how to lift the pen up and put it back down again.	Worksheet 2 - LOGO Patterns
Key Idea: that the screen turtle can be given commands to produce a specific shape on screen Technique: to enter a list of commands to produce a specific shape on screen	Enter the commands needed to make the screen turtle draw regular polygons on scree, and learn how to fill them in with a colour.	Worksheet 3 - Drawing Shapes in LOGO
Key Idea: that instructions given to a screen turtle can be repeated Technique: to move the turtle using repeat commands	Several tasks to practice using the repeat command, including: seeing if they can draw regular polygons any quicker using it, drawing stars and attempting to predict what will be drawn when certain repeat commands are entered.	Worksheet 4 - Repeating LOGO Commands
Key Idea: that groups of instructions can be named Technique: to create LOGO procedures Technique: to use a parameter to replace the side distance of a shape	How to create procedures to draw regular shapes and then replace their side widths with variable to allow any sized shape to be drawn.	Worksheet 5 - Making Procedures in LOGO
Technique: to write repeating procedures in LOGO to produce a desired outcome	Drawing a flower by creating procedures for the leaf and petals and then combining them together.	Worksheet 6 - Drawing a LOGO Flower

The lesson I'm most proud of (and most looking forward to teaching) is the final one, where the children have a go at combining all their previously learnt skills to produce a flower. My worksheet breaks it down into nice easy-to-follow steps and, since this is the only chapter remaining unchanged from last year, gets children producing some wonderful designs:

If you've not done so already, download my worksheets, have a go at some of the fun activities I do with my children and realise how much potential this programming language can have in the classroom!

As a final word - try loading up MSW LOGO and typing bye into the command line to get a surprise (I always save this for the very last command I teach the children)!

Creative ways to Present Internet Research

The best way of teaching children the benefits of Internet research is by allowing them to present their findings using a wide a range of methods and tools as possible.

Here are some of my favourites:

Of course, it also important to teach children these other two important research techniques as well, however the age at which this should happen is debatable:

• To reinterpret information found into your own words to avoid plagarism and to show understanding of the material.
• To acknowledge websites and images used in your work by referencing their URLs (possibly as hyperlinks back to the original web pages).

Yes or No?

Although the topic of branching databases (or keys, or tree diagrams or whatever you prefer to call them) is one which might seem quite alone in the curriculum, I must admit that the few lessons I spend on it with Year 3 are actually quite interesting and do teach the children some transferrable skills.

To begin with, they spend the first session simply searching a tree diagram (I prefer using that term with them as it's probably the easiest to remember) that I've made to try and identify different animals described on a worksheet. A sort of Guess Who? - but with animals I suppose. This proves to be a useful introduction to the topic and gets them to understand exactly how the diagrams are structured and how yes/no questions are formulated. I let those that finish this task have a go at writing up some of their own descriptions of animals for others to identify - and include some extra irrelevant information to flesh them out and so confuse the reader!

 

  

In the next lesson, I teach the children how to create their own tree diagram on the computer. I've not mentioned it yet, but we use a program called Ask Oscar - there are many more out there on the market but this is my personal favourite due to its ease-of-use. To get the children motivated with the task, I let them make their diagram to classify a collection of confectionary items (originally inspired by this photo on the Display Photos website) - using questions which consider their appearance/wrapping style (e.g. chocolate colour, shape of item etc.)

The following week, we then discuss the importance of creating tree diagrams that are easy to search by only using questions which split the group in half each time. This can be quite a tricky concept to grasp at first, so again I let them create diagrams to organise items based on visual clues - in this case different vehicles and considering characteristics like: number of wheels, size and colour. I often find that there's always a couple that still like to think up questions where all the items answer 'no' to, but with a little assistance they soon realise what they're doing wrong.

Finally, in the last week, I then teach the children about how tree diagrams can be used to organise information that has been collected in questionnaires and challenge them to try creating their own diagrams to organise information presented in questionnaires I've made up about clowns and musical instruments (the latter of which requires them to interpret the question replies when formulating the yes/no questions and not merely just rely on visual clues for ideas). 

Overall, this topic works well to teach children the skills needed to search and create tree diagrams (espescially usefully in science) and also provides them with a good introduction to the the concept of data collection using questionnaires (something which is built upon when I teach them about making databses in Year 4).

Don't be put off by tree diagrams - they can be quite useful and, as I said earlier, are actually quite an interesting topic to teach.

Office 2010 Preview

The next version of Microsoft Office (Office 2010) goes on sale this June.

Whilst Word and Excel only seem to be getting evolutionary tweaks, the program that I'm most excited about is PowerPoint. This promises some really cool new features, including: better slider transitions, more customisable animations and what appears to be quite good video editing capabilities.

I've already been having an explore of the public beta of the software, and just to illustrate to you how much I'm loving it, here's a little picture I took on holiday last year of one of my favourite places in Britain edited using the cropping tool and the new picture editing features:

And I've not even begun to explore the Office Web Applications yet!

Super Snow Day Activities

Following on from my earlier post about how many schools had been using their websites to help provide distance-learning opportunities for their pupils when closed due to the recent heavy snow, I decided to set up a collaborative Google Presentation of some of the wonderfully successful projects that have been going on to share with and hopefully inspire others if they ever find themselves in a similar situation:

Bonne Année

As the deadline for the 2Simple Bett 2010 competition has closed, I can now share with you how my ICT club children created their entries.

The brief was simple – to submit any work made in a 2Simple program around the theme of ‘New Year’.

After toying with the idea of doing New Year’s resolutions and thinking it was a bit too obvious, I eventually opted to get the children researching how to wish people ‘Happy New Year’ in different world languages and to then present this using 2Connect (2Simple’s mind mapping program).

2Connect has a brilliant feature where it automatically suggests Clip Art to match the content of a box. Since one of the Clip Art categories was flags, I jotted down a list of countries that it recognised and then asked the children to pick six of them whose greetings they could try finding out using this website. I encouraged them to change the colours of their boxes and connecting arrows to make their work look neat and easy to understand, and after about 20 minutes each of their maps was completed and ready to be submitted!

Yet again I was amazed at how well children responded to the program and how intuitive they found it to use. It completely brightened up what could have potentially been quite a boring task otherwise, and I’m now just crossing my fingers that one of them wins!

(All the submitted mind maps can be viewed on my school's website here.)

2Create a Superstory Review

I originally posted this review on 2Simple's official blog.

2Create a Superstory (or Superstory for short) is the new innovative and exciting program from 2Simple Software – the company behind previous successful titles such as 2Do it Yourself and 2Connect.

Earlier on this week I was privileged to be allowed to try out an early beta of the program (set to be launched at BETT), and just thought I’d share some of my initial thoughts about it with you.

Building on what had already been established in 2Create a Story a few years back, Superstory now makes it even easier for children and teachers alike to create their own animated and interactive storybooks for uploading online – perhaps onto a school website or class blog page, for instance.

On loading up Superstory for the first time, you a greeted with this colourful menu screen clearly showing the now wide range of layouts that are available for presenting your work in:

 

Each of these thus provides a wide range of writing opportunities for users:

 

• the square book could be used to type up a traditional story;
• the reference book could be used to introduce children to non-linear writing since the pages can be flipped over in any order by clicking on the tabs at the side;
• the aged and scroll books could be used to display writing with a historical setting;
• the activity book could be used to create stories which include a simple drag-and-drop element for readers;
• the full screen book could be used make a virtual lift-the-flap book.

I’m just going to concentrate on the simple book for this review now, but all of the features I’m about to describe can be applied to any of the layouts.

Sticking to the philosophy that if you can use one 2Simple program you can easily learn how to use another, the simple book layout contains three main sections in the template which can be edited using the familiar tools:

As well as using the painting tools to draw a picture, you can also choose to import your own image file too (perhaps a photograph taken with a digital camera or downloaded from the Internet). Once it has been selected, a nice selection of image enhancement tools then appear for you to edit it with – thus encouraging children to think for themselves by making them tweak the original settings.

 

Once a page is finished, you can then add objects on top of you picture to animate. There are a number of exemplar objects available and these are all grouped into categories at the side of the screen (e.g. animals, humans and vehicles). Unlike other 2Simple programs however, non of these objects contain any pre-drawn pictures – the idea now is that users design their own characters or things using the dotted lines provided as boundaries. This puts the emphasis on creativity and again encourages children to think more for themselves when drawing items to insert into their story illustrations.

To make an object animate, all you need to do is drag your desired animation from the list at the side down into the timeline below, conveniently labelled for each of the 10 seconds of available animation time – the more copies of an animation in a box, the faster the object will then animate. You can also drag sounds into this timeline as well – either from the gallery collection or your own recording (e.g. using a microphone).

Having pressed ‘OK’, the object is then placed on top of your picture – it can be repositioned by simply moving it around and resized by moving the unobtrusive small green circle.

Objects can also be instructed to move around the picture by using the magic green pen to draw a motion path for it to travel along. This can help to add that extra sense of realism and action to your stories.

By clicking on the ‘Whole Pic’ icon at the top, you can then finally add a few animations to the whole picture – such as to shake it or to zoom in and then follow/track an object as it moves along a motion path – useful for emphasising particular details in a scene.

To test your story during development, you can simply press the green triangle ‘play’ button at the top to see how the book appears and how all the different elements within it are looking.

You can continue adding however many pages you want by just pressing the green arrow in the corner of the screen to go to the next page (and you’ve no need to worry about waiting ink/paper since it won’t be being printed).

At the moment I’ve only been using a beta version and haven’t had the chance to try out the augmented reality function yet, but I certainly think that from what I have seen 2Create a Superstory looks like it's going to be a super(!) addition to the 2Simple collection. Its intuitive interface will make it easily accessible for younger children yet at the same time its open-ended, flexible nature will make it a powerful tool for older children and adults alike to create their own dazzling interactive books to publish online. I expect to see lots of Superstory projects on school websites across the country in the near future!

Oh, and why is the icon for Superstory a dog? Apparently it’s because Max likes dogs (and it also just happens to be first object in the list which you can choose to animate)!

Here are some example stories I’ve made using 2Create a Superstory:

Download Happy New Year

Download Incy Wincy Spider Book

Download Sea Creatures Lift-the-Flap

Download Homes Tabbed Book

Download Lifecycle of a Frog Animation

Spot the Difference - Assessing ICT Capability

Here's an interesting observation about the National Curriculum level descriptors that I came across a few months back:

Firstly, here's a copy of the current statutory ICT attainment targets for Levels 4 and 5 for children in KS2 working under this National Curriculum:

Next up, here's a copy of those same attainment targets, this time as outlined in the new statutory National Curriculum which is currently being rolled out across KS3 at the moment:

Finally, here's those same level descriptors again, but this time as published and revised by the QCDA ready for introduction in a couple of year's time, following public consultation earlier last year:

Did you manage to spot the differences between the three? Well, I was certainly a bit baffled when I noticed that each set differed (with some statments more than others)!

In response, I created my own set of ICT child-friendly level descriptors to try and make some sense out of the situation. Obviously for levels 1-3 this was quite straightforward since the new levels beginning in 2011 are a natural evolution of the current ones, however for levels 4 and 5 I have had to select what I interpret the key targets to be by looking for comparisons between the three documents:

Already, these posters have been downloaded over 2,000 times from the TES Connect website and judging by the comments underneath them, have been very much appreciated. I just wonder how other people have interpreted the three differeing level descriptors themselves and if other subjects have been similarly affected too.

UPDATE: I originally drafted this post about a week ago. Since then however, the DCSF have released details of amended level descriptors to be introduced in 2010 in response to a consultation on the earlier ones last year. In an attempt to clarify my earlier confusion, they say that:

"When the secondary curriculum was reviewed and subsequently implemented from September 2008, some amendments were proposed to the level descriptions from level 4 to exceptional performance to reflect changes to the secondary curriculum programmes of study. A small but significant minority of pupils at key stage 3, including many who have special educational     needs, will be achieving at levels below level 4. These level descriptions have now been reviewed to provide secondary teachers who may have pupils working at levels 1 to 3 with a full set of revised level descriptions with which to make end of key stage 3 judgements about their performance in national curriculum subjects. As part of the independent review of the primary curriculum the QCDA was asked to consider the previous revisions to level descriptions and to revise the lower levels to make them compatible with the relevant aspects of the proposed new primary curriculum."

From a quick glance at the ICT descriptors, little seems to have changed and overall they seem to acknowledge the now growing capabilities of younger children in the subject particularly well, espescially in levels 1-3. My only gripe is the inclusion of the expectation that children at level 4 should be using sensors in investigations - I believe that this would be more appropriate under the science descriptors and is something that I sense secondary ICT staff will be extremely disgruntled with since I heard much praise come from their corner when it was replaced, along with the control elements, two years ago (and replaced with the more programming-based terminology of 'sequencing instructions').

A 4 week final consultation on these new descriptors is now taking place and I urge you to have you say by completing their online form - last year's consultation only had 28 people comment on the ICT levels!

In the Bleak Midwinter, Web 2.0 did Shine

The terrible snowy weather conditions across the UK meant that many school were forced to close today. 

I read about many school websites which were used initially to communicate closures to parents - at 8 o'clock this morning, my school's site recorded a record high of 20 users online at the same time for instance, and I'm sure that others will have seen similar spikes too.

This didn't mean the end of the day and no learning for children though, as the Internet then became a very valuable lifeline for those stuck at home, with many school staff directing their pupils to snow-themed online activities for them to complete at home and so keep them engaged:

• Heathfield Primary asked children to contribute to a collaborative whole-school piece of writing with the imaginative starting title of "After I Melt". 
• I uploaded some snow-themed web links to my school's site, asking children to design a virtual snowman or have a go at designing their own snowflake.
• @PrimaryPete is going to be asking his children to complete a descriptive piece of writing all about a picture of a snow scene.

Lastly, I also say lots school website also became fantastic spaces for children and their families to share their experiences and adventures in the snow, with comments and photos.

I love the snow.

ICT Planning

I often hear of people asking to look at ICT planning from other schools to see how they've transformed and modernised their curriculums after ditching the increasingly outdated QCA scheme.

Here's a few examples where I draw ideas from regularly myself:

• Greenwich Grid for Learning
• Learn ICT Scheme
• Kent ICT Themes
• Wokingham ICT Scheme of Work
• Abbotswood Junior School ICT Planning
• IT@SS Newham ICT Scheme of Work
• ICT @ Southwark
• Herefordshire Primary ICT Progression
• Tower Hamlets Primary ICT Scheme of Work
• Islington Primary E-Literacy and E-Safety Framework
• Internet Safety at Radstock School

Of course though, ICT planning does regularly need be reviewed to meet the ever changing and emerging needs of the subject - just look at how important e-safety has become in the last decade, for instance. Ok, there will always be official requirements about things that need teaching (e.g. the spellcheck tool), but you've always got to be willing to improve, refine and develop your methods of delivering these objectives so that they best inspire your children to learn. 

This is espescially true considering the forthcoming developments in primary education in England, where the Primary Curriculum Review report outlined how 'literacy, numeracy, ICT and personal development, will be at the heart of the new curriculum.' (pg 39) 

To finish with, here's a copy of a grid I produced at the time the proposed Programmes of Learning were published last year, which selects all the ICT-related objectives so that you can clearly get a good vision of where ICT is heading in the future:

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ICT Club Activities

I really enjoy running my ICT club in school - sometimes we do focused activities (e.g. making a game of Pacman in Scratch) whilst at other times I simply let the children be creative and have a play/explore of any new program or website that I've recently found.

I already share all my ICT lesson resources in school via a password-protected website but to celebrate me starting my blog, I've decided to make the ICT Club section publically available for you to use by clicking on the screenshot below. Enjoy.

 

(A big thanks to those people on Twitter who gave me the links to some of these sites originally, and espescially @bevevans22 for some of the creative ideas she suggested to me on her blog.)

What is ICT?

When I was a pupil myself, the first task every Year 6 class were given at the start of the year was to produce a project all about how Information Technology was used to assist in any particular aspect of life of their choosing. Whilst many took this as an opportunity to research about robots in car manufacturing plants or the growing use of word processors on desktop PCs at home, I ended up doing a piece on the role of IT in an exam board (since a relative worked at one and insisted it would be an interesting topic to do). In the end, I did learn a lot about the use of different software applications in the organisation and got quite a good grade for my work. About a year ago, I discovered that I had kept this project in my loft and on flicking through it, came across this wonderful quote about the emerging use of the Internet at the time:

"Now with the Internet and e-mail, I.T. becomes C.I.T. (Communication and Information Technology). People can send messages all over the world and receive messages from all over the world via the computer instead of via the phone, the fax or letters."

Quite an interesting quote, isn't it? Well, it got me thinking about how exactly the role of ICT (as it eventaully became known) has developed since then and in particular how the communication aspect has become ever more important in society. Have a look at these Wordles I created to illustrate some of the key words that I associate with the acronym: 

               

At first glance, it would seem that these three words are quite mutually exclusive, however, I believe that on closer inspection, that they are actually very much interlinked, with the boundaries between them becoming more blurred as ICT is embedded more and more into everday life. For instance, consider how often multimedia information is now shared over the Internet onto portable devices like mobile phones, or how frequently people now collaboratively research topics over the Internet with others using emerging technologies like cloud computing services.

Once upon a time, IT was seen to be an indpendent subject which mostly involved children sitting infront of a computer using either word processing or spreadsheet software to present information or data, with the ocassional opportunity to program a simple floor turtle. Today, the Internet has transformed those experiences by allowing the communication and sharing of the work with the entire planet. Communication, it would seem, is therefore the key part of ICT nowadays as it facilitates more and more people to access the information and has spawned a huge investment in mobile technologies to make this possible wherever you may be (although not on the Tube network yet I don't think).

Looking back to the exam board I first wrote about in the 90s, it would seem that nowadays videoconferencing and the ability to send scripts online to be marked has completely revolutionised the organisation and that my prediction has indeed come true.

Ask a child of the 90s what IT they did at home and the majority would say 'type stories and paint pictures.' Ask a child of the noughties what ICT they do at home and the majority would say 'chat with friends on the Internet'. 

Information technologies I reckon have reached their peak now and will only adapt and take on minor improvements in future to further take advantage of communication networks like the Internet. Therefore I firmly believe that communication is, and will now continue to be, the driving force behind the subject. 

(Read more about the impact of ICT by looking at this chapter on my Junior ICT Companion website.)

Bah Humbug - Scrooge Tweets!

If you were following @pf_scrooge on Twitter in the run up to Christmas, you will have seen the miserable Ebeneezer Scrooge be transformed from a miserable hater of Christmas into a man who now loves sharing his kindness with others.

I was inspired to set up the account after following the exploits of @LCS_RCatesby (aka Robert Catesby) who had been tweeting about the events leading up to, and the aftermath of, the Gunpowder Plot in 1605. @chrisleach78 has already blogged about how he set up and ran this project with a group of Year 6 children from Little Common Primary School, but I wanted to post about how I ran my project at Parkfield to share my own experiences of it.

Firstly, my tweets weren’t even going to be based on A Christmas Carol at first – originally they were to instead be seemingly written by Mary in the days leading up to the birth of Jesus. Unfortunately in my research I discovered that all the elements of what children would call ‘The Nativity Story’ either didn’t happen according to the Bible (e.g. no donkey) or happened many days or weeks later (e.g. the official naming of Jesus). Having found this out, I therefore concluded that it would perhaps be both easier and more interesting for the children to tweet about Scrooge’s adventures in the classic novel by Dickens.

So, I then set off in search of the original novel (a copy of which can be found here) only to once again be faced with a problem – there was no way in a couple of sessions with my ICT club children that they were going to be able to read the entire story, let alone re-interpret it from the viewpoint of Scrooge! Quite by chance though, I quickly came across this quite good summary of the story online which was much more readable, and which broke it down into 5 short chapters. [Edit Nov 2010 - This link doesn't seem to be working anymore, but here's my amended copy of it instead.]

From this, I then came up with the idea that each child (or pair) could work on the tweets for just one chapter, which could then be combined together in the final Twitter timeline. I opted to use Etherpad to get them to simultaneously draft the 7 tweets which I decided would be appropriate to convey the happenings in each chapter. All the children, as expected, loved using this site and watching everyone’s contribution to the story build up as they typed.

  

In the end it took two sessions to fully complete the story, with me supporting the children in the second one to refine their work. I had originally intended to then spend a third session teaching them how to schedule their Tweets using the HootSuite website, but due to the demands of Christmas this unfortunately didn’t happen. Nevertheless, the children had wrote all the tweets on their own so it was quite a straightforward task for me to copy them into HootSuite by myself – obviously though I would give more time for a project like this to let the children do it themselves if I was to do one again.

The story began being Tweeted on the 21^st December and a chapter (7 tweets) was published each day until Christmas Day. In the end, @pf_scrooge managed to get 32 followers, and when asked for their thoughts on the story, lots of people chose to reply back with positive comments on my school's website about the children's work.

Overall, I was extremely pleased with the success of the project and would be certainly keen to try setting up another tweeting character (either historical or fictional) again with children in the future.