Working with Year 1: Looking Back Over an Academic Year

It only seems like yesterday that I was working with our year 1 students in small groups, logging them on, opening software for them. teaching mouse control and developing that most essential skill which many of us forget, the acquisition of hand to screen coordination.

It is likely that unless you work or have worked in the early years or lower key stage one setting that you will encounter this, the strange phenomena of linking the moving of a mouse and something happening on screen. It is quite an abstract idea really. Using physical objects such as a pencil, pair of scissors or paintbrush their is something tangeable about something happening as a result. I drag a pencil about a piece of paper and I make a mark, but their is something abstract and magical, a bridge to be crossed in linking the remoteness of a mouse or a keyboard with an onscreen event. I mention it here because so many assumptions are made about understanding with regard to peripheral tools, and the making of this link, despite being aware I have been facinated by the many encounters I have observed as children develop the skills neccesary to control an onscreen pointer, and the tasks required of these young learners before they have fully come to terms with this.

As I have mentioned in previous posts the excellent resources in the iBoard suites have offered support for this while linking and engaging the students with theme based activities. They have proven a real winner, alongside CD Roms such as Barnaby Bear, Fizzy's Frst numbers (check out the Woolly Washer) and the flash based web sites we have used to support learning about ideas while enabling the drill and practice of mouse and keyboard skills so essential in these emegent stages of ICT development.

Promoting the need for an ICT area, where the children can access and use the computer throughout the day, every day, to engage with set activities has also added to the skill development of the students. At our school all classrooms have at least 2 networked PCs and an Interactive Whiteboard. My less confident colleagues have found it beneficial to use software tools in the main part of lessons on the IWB, and then to run instances of the programs in the ICT area for students to follow up shared tasks in a semi structured activity, before setting up the software for particular tasks later. The ICT area although being available for children to choose activities in free time, is not a freeplay zone, and it has taken a great deal of time for me to unpick even with older students that in the online classroom we are not there to play on the computer but to work in a different way. Using tools the students have worked on with me in the suite, or in this fashion has not only improve the students' independence and confidence, but has also enabled them to see ICTs as tools to help us with our work and our learning.

Tizzy's Tools has become the standard classroom suite for the children. They are beginning to identify which tools to use for certain things and to choose to use these independently for certain tasks. The interface in the suite's tools is simple, with large icon representations of common tasks, it is uncluttered and standard across the suite. It could be seen as an office suite for the newbie. Thinking about the progression of generic tool use across the school, I am looking to use a set of software suites, Tizzy's for the emergent learner, through the object based softease suite to the global use of MS Office in the developing and independent learner. Being able to choose the correct tool for the job I feel is an essential skill to be promoted, and will best be served by taking a generic tool based aproach across the network and redevelopment of our scheme of work. With Tizzy's we have data handling tools in the form of a very simple spreadsheet type package and a branching data base, a presentation package (like powerpoint), a writing tool/desk top publisher, a drawing package, and an onscreen turtle package called Move. The latter is a bonus, but essentially familiarity with the interface and cross package linking means the children are unhindered by needing to learn to read new symbols. They can instead focus on the skills of keyboard and mouse control, and the learning content of the session.

The current topic of Multimodality linked with the new literacy framework, has enormous implications for learning to use ICTs, and what the ICT curriculum means for the emergent learner. We have in the past bandied the phrase computer literacy about freely, when we talk about adults particularly, but what does this mean? Working in the onscreen environment is without doubt multimodality in practice, to engage in a WIMP world (a place filled with windows, Icons, Menus and pointers), we need to make links between the changing of a pointer and the effects it will bring about on screen. as we are immersed in a world of metaphor and symbolism. Iconic recycle bins represent places where files are temporarily stored for deletion, and folders as places where we store and group work more permanantly. We open windows in which to view our ongoing work. We have tools on a desktop, each with a specific purpose originating in a world of work up to 12 years away from these youngsters. In supporting our learners we have to somehow translate and transform this additional complex place into a tangeable and understandable environment drawing unfamiliar paralels to their existing day to day experiences.

Looking back on the achievements of these youngsters this year I cannot help but be impressed by the progress they have made. They can log on to a network, locate folders on screen and open applications independently. They can relate the symbolic representations of events, engage with icons and travel along hyperlinks to virtual places, understanding the relationship between cursor shape and the event which they hope to unfold.

Structuring Web Use With Students

Our year 1 students are currently working with me in our Online Classroom to explore the internet. I may appear a bit of a party pooper in saying this, but there are key skills and concepts to learn even for these younger students, and a host of potential e safety issues surrounding suitability of websites, and how we manage access to those sites we want them to work with. My experience tells me how children click off a site when they are bored and wander off. In my early days within my current role, students would ask if they were going to play on the internet today. When given access to the web during freetime at the end of a unit of work, they would gravitate towards a handful of very limited sites, such as cbeebies, paperdolls or in the case of the older students they would try to access or search for gaming sites, frequently blocked by the LA firewall. There are some questions around the wisdom of generically blocking websites, but for the time being , perhaps this is an essential prerequisite step, in the protection of all, though as anyone with any web surfing experience can tell you you cannot bolt down the system completely, and often the most unlikely keywords within search requests can return some dodgy (a very technical word) search outcomes, some of these which may not be readily evident on the surface or until pages are reviewed, or regardless of the relevance to the subject you set out to find.

With very young children it can be difficult to limit and provide "Safe Opportunities" to explore, and at times a chore to set up the Network room or Computer so that they all have the same web sites in front of them as starting points for the session. We do however need to emphasise the role of the internet as a learning resource, as well as a place to have fun and play. And I particularly want to emphasise the role of the teacher, as with all ICT based activities, in planning and preparing these experiences.

It was interesting in my student interviews recently when asked about the ICT experiences they enjoy, how students openly said they had enjoyed using the internet with me, but were disappointed that they didn't "play" their anymore. I took this as a backhanded compliment, when they went on to say that the sites they had visited with me were fun, and had helped them to learn about what they could use the internet for, and helped them find out things. The older students loved for example using think.com, because they had made their own web pages, it was a bit like MSN because they could sticky their friends and send email and the other social webspaces they had used at home, because they had used stuff they had found out or collected on their pages. They also mentioned how they had enjoyed making PowerPoints that were like the CDs they had played with. The Three Bees had helped them to think about what they were doing. So even though not free play or free searching, structured learning and fun were not exclusive, just different to prior experiences. It is possible by selecting the sites we wish our students to use carefully we can enable a balance between what is considered play and what is the purpose of the internet in school to support cross curricular "work"and the specific teaching of ICT skills. How do we manage this process however requires time and careful consideration of the resources we select and use. My strategy for this has been to use web technology itself to support me.

There are a number of possible strategies, some more difficult to manage than others, and dependent on the age and experience of the students, but all involve careful preparation for the sessions by teachers or other adults and the collection of bookmarks. For this post I offer 2 ways of doing this one, an individual teacher solution through the making of simple web pages to provide direct links to the pages you want the students to use, and the second a whole school approach through the inclusion of bookmark collections to your school web site.

Making a Simple Web Page Book Mark Collection with MS Word

For many years I have used Microsoft Word as a platform, to set up simple computer based web pages to support web based work with students. This is not dependent on the abiltity to code pages, and requires only a change in the way you save your pages, the rest draws on your ability to wordprocess an type. It is not as difficult as you may think.... HONESTLY!

You may have noticed how when you type a web site address into a Word document, the software automatically inserts a hyperlink. Some of my colleagues find this an annoyance, but I have learned to see this as a benefit, as this also happens if you copy hyperlinks from the web browser's address box and paste them into Word inputting a space or return afterwatds. You can then insert a picture next to the link or a text description to remind yourself or point older children to what is available on the site when they follow the link, or what you expect them to do when they get there.

Copying further useful links and repeating the process builds up a bookmark collection, around the theme you are working on or as in the case of the year 1 students I am currently working with it would provide links to a range of sites I had chosen for them to explore around the objectives and outcomes I have identified.

Once the list is complete you can use all your wordprocessing skills to bullet the lists if in plain text, add and resize images as reminders, organise and group your links into categorised lists by copy and paste or drag and drop, add headings to the catgories, change the font etc. If you feel adventurous you might even explore using a table on your page to act as a place holding device.

When finished your list you should save the file not as a word document (.doc) but as a web page ('htm, or .html), and in Word this is quite straight forward. You click save as, locate the place you want to save the file, give your file a name, and then in the file type box, where it usually says word document, select web page from the drop down menu, before pressing the save button. You can come back to the file and edit, make additions or remove links by opening it in word later too, and then resave to update the file.

To use the file you have made, find it on your computer, it will have a web page icon, with blue e, if you saved it as a Web Page, it will open in Internet Explorer or your default browser, and clicking links should take you to the pages or sites on the web you have linked to.

Managing use of this file is possible by copying and pasting it to the computer desktop, I have tended in the past to keep a copy of the original safe, and to copy and paste this for students to use, on the desktop of classroom computers. On the network, I place one copy of the file in a shared folder, and then show the students or support staff where to find it, and how to open it.

Using The School WebSite or Learning Platform

On our school website, each year group has a "learning Community Area," and within these community pages a collection of web links which we are building to support theme based work. Our school website has been set as the home page for all browsers within school, so when we log onto the internet, the first page we see is our school home page. My aim is that all students and staff see this as a starting point for school based internet work, and something they can contribute to. As we educate our students about the internet as a virtual place, I hope we can enable a progressively more open approach to the web as a learning tool. Our site does not prevent web searching, and indeed in the lower corner of the page a Google search tool is embedded, however this has been set to safe search, and as I know this may not always return "suitable sites," we have recently installed Hector The Protector, and I have actively encouraged students to either hide or turn off monitors and then point out pages they are uncertain about. I have also set up an account for staff with del.icio.us the social bookmarking site, and intend this as a central place where teachers can add web sites they find useful and reviewed, or want to use with their students. From here as the webmaster for our school site, I will eventually be able to use these bookmarks to make additions to the school's resource bank and year group community pages, on a regular basis.

Returning To Year 1

Our Internet work with year 1 has been linked to classroom based activities, but centred around the principles of what the internet is, what we can see there, how we get around and the things we can do. We have also focussed on the multimodality of web pages and observation of what happens to the mouse pointer or cursor when we move it around the page, how do we know when we can do things on a web page? How to make our windows bigger, and how we move pages up or down. Where can we find windows that seem to have vanished? The interactive and dynamic elements of pages have been central to the activities we have presented on line, focussing in and using pages which exhibit sound, movement and pictures to have fun with the ideas we are learning about, mixed with the serious stuff of navigating, interacting with and getting things to happen or done. This has also been linked to exploring CD Roms, laying foundations for understanding that information can be stored, saved and used in different formats.

Using the school website as a teaching resource (maybe even a learning platform), to support this learning has been a key feature of the sessions. Children have been taught how to find the places we want them to go, by learning how to find their way around this place. They open up Internet Explorer, and our home page appears. Where is their community Section? Where Is our class Blog? What have we been doing in class? Where can we find the weblinks section? Using these as places to explore the web concepts we wish to develop, in a guided yet exploratory way. I am not just saying this but the children have had a lot of fun exploring the sites we have provided for them, and this evidenced by them beginning to visit sites from their community pages in independent classroom work.

Notes To Self

One of the things I have learned form this experience is that perhaps the early years communities I have set up do need some editing and review, and we may need to include some pictorial/iconic buttons to support emergent web and oral text literacy. I will however not remove the text based links, as the expectation to use these has challenged the student's use of phonic cues to find them, or to seek help from adults to enable this, and this in turn is a valuable experience for them in their desire to engage with the material and understanding that words carry meanings. Perhaps the use of picture buttons, in the early years alongside Text based hyperlinks, might support pace in the use of the community pages when locating specific areas we want them to use, nonetheless once there they will still need to locate resources. Perhaps the use of Theme based images would help support identifying what each section of the links page was about, and make narrowing down the search zone easier for them. Will have to look into this with the children during the assess and review week for this unit.

BOT d'abeille

Year 2 finished their BeeBot Games today, before wending their weary way off for a well earned half term break. Having missed the last session, due to a Briefing last week, I spent time this morning reviewing how the students had progressed without me. We carried out a group check in, where the children explained how far they had got with the process, shared the back story to their games and how the games they were making would be played. Some of the ideas they had developed were amazing, and I was surprised at how they had stuck to the task in my absence. A couple of the games had evolved to a recognition by the students that they might need to make shopping lists for the beebot, and one or two had begun to suggest that they might be improved by using dice. The session evolved into a 15 minute challenge to complete the games they had made, ready for a trial activity with their friends. I decided to carry this out through a "jigsawing" process. The children were brought together and divided into groups so that one person from each game making group was in each game playing group. The games were then played as a carousel, where the person from the game making group explained and demonstrated to the others how to play their game, giving the opprtunity for each game to be played, as the groups were rotated around the games. The children loved it, there were one or two problems with taking turns, but the social purpose of such activities with young children as we know, is to enable them to learn and practice these skills. Interventions today were not solely about ICT skills which the children had already aquired and were consolidating, it was more about sharng success, cooperating, and beginning to establish ideas about evaluation of the products outcomes, and the process elements of their projects. Being able to talk about our activities, and make decisions about how we might improve our use of ICT are key elements in the assessment process regarding children's engagement with ICT activity in the primary National Curriculum. This activity proved to be one way to begin engaging these young ICT users with this process.

In review, the children had enjoyed teaching their friend to follow paths, they liked the bit when they showed them how to dance, inventing a game to play with their friends had been good fun too. But they were also critical of their presentation, how sometimes the footprints they had drawn were not in the right place, or how they kept forgetting to clear the bots memory, before putting in new instructions, they could have made their game cards a bit bigger, and they needed to concentrate more to colour in and stay in the lines, and practice cutting out.

Both classes also asked today if they could have a beebot for their classroom and if they would be able to play their games with their friends and teacher in golden time this afternoon. This is great, as I have recently ordered a site licence for the BeeBot software which I hope they will enjoy using with their teachers next term. But now I also may have to find money from my new budget in April, to consider their request for a classroom pet of the programmable and motorised kind. This has special significance as they are now in competition with other colleagues and students who have been caught up in Beebot Fever. One example of this being a couple of Key Stage 2 colleagues, who borrowed Les BOT d'abeille (I hope this is an adequate translation) to suport small group consolidation of directional language use in french lessons this week. I hope the planned purchase of Pro Bots, for Key Stage Two, and a borrowed set of Roamers next term will spur us on to greater things within cross curricular control activity.

Countown Conundrum

This weekend I was sent on a quest, to find that timer thing from the Countdown TV series, for an event we are holding in a couple of weeks time. As always, you rarely find exactly what you are looking for on the web. It took a while but I found a real gem in the end.

CSF Software products, run by Chris Farmer, a Mathematics teacher, has created a Countdown Numbers Game generator, a standalone program, which runs in full screen mode, for use with IWBs. You can go through the "I'll have one from the top, 2 from the bottom and 3 from the middle" routine if you like, before setting the tool to generate the target number, which sets the timer in motion, with background music from the show that makes for that touch of realism. The number range to be used and time scale for activities, can be changed by the user, though the music will only kick in for the last 30 seconds. This however could act as a reminder of task deadlines, and support pace within the session.

You will need to play with this tool before using it with your students, and change the number ranges used to match the needs of the class. The outcomes generated by the students, will no doubt provide fantastic and relevant contexts for mathematical discussion, which I feel is one of the keys to successful Interactive whiteboard use in any lesson. I think the ideal way to organise use of this resource initially with a whole class, might be through "pair and share." Using small dry wipe whiteboards I would encourage students to work together, to solve the problems, before bringing them back together as a class to share solutions, and maybe include an intermediate task, where students take turns within the pair to work on problems, and then check the accuracy of each other's workings before sharing. As in the TV quiz, I would look for the nearest solution to the target number, and not necesarily focus on reaching it exactly, though this would provide opportunities to differentiate the task and extend the more able students. Alternatively use of individual whiteboards, would engage all children in the activity during Oral Mental Sessions.

Use with a laptop in small groups situations, could be a fun way to provide context for formative assessment, and open a window into how students engage with calculation and the strategies they use. Within my classroom I have been concerned that numeracy hours should enable students to develop and extend their understanding of mathematical language through thinking together, inorder to develop shared understanding of terms in context, this tool as a frame for this has enormous potential.

Also on Chris's site are other tools, such as the "Who Wants To Be a Millionaire?" game which I am flagging here as a reminder to pop back and have a look at later. I mention it here though as it reminded me of a strategy I regularly use with my students when they get stuck. Using the IWB children are sometimes so keen and excited to have a go, they either forget or have not thought through their response to a task. Rather than send the children back to their place and ask another child to do the task, which could deflate their enthusiasm, I often ask the child if they would like to "phone a friend" to come and help. This way the child who has come to engage with the board, still carries out the task, but with the support of someone they feel can help them, and both can have their engagement with the task celebrated.

Seating Plans and Logging On: Classroom Management Strategies for the Online Classroom (Part 1)

When you enter the ICT suite with your students, do you get bombarded with the question Can I work with so and so today? Or find yourself faced with the aftermath of mass login, where children have forgotten what to do next. As a classroom teacher I know that establishing routines and consolidating these is essential, and so have a set of Network Room routines to help me organise and manage teaching and learning within this oft times seemingly chaotic environment.

Routine Number One:
I have a seating plan for the suite. Children are organised into pairs, and since literacy is still an essential part of many ICT activities, each pair has a more able reader. All our workstations are numbered, little laminated cards are attached to the tops of the monitors. In addition each numbered card also has a clipart image inserted. This way younger children can identify their machine with the train, aeroplane or elephant on it as well as by workstation number. The addition of the clipart image is something I borrowed from foundation colleagues, who usually label coat hooks and lockers with a child's first name and a picture, to enable their emergent readers to identify which hook or locker is theirs.

Sometimes a partner is away from school, and children ask if they can work with someone else. My answer to this question is always no, as the children have the rare opportunity to have access to fly a machine solo. This also means I can monitor or evaluate what they know and that they are doing, and not sitting back. I offer this reason to the students, though organisationally there is also a good reason for this, as it reduces confusion when their partners return, about who they are working with and this also reduces confusion about files and work that is ongoing. Allocating machines, also means that if there are network problems, we can always save files locally to be copied back to network folders later, and there are fewer problems in finding a student's file.

Routine Two.
On entry to the suite, we have a two minute log in challenge. Children go to their machine and log on straight away before coming together for the lesson proper so to speak. Once their workstation has begun to load, we come together as a class in the shared space at the front of the online classroom, network room or ICT suite however you refer to this space, ready to begin the lesson. I have also begun to encourage children who get back to the shared space first, to log on the teacher machine attached to the IWB in our classroom's shared space using their class log in, this has encouraged children to increase the pace of the challenge activity, and means we have access to everyones files for sharing, either at the end of the session or during the introduction. The activities for the day are introduced through a shared session, and then children go in pairs to their allocated workstations. I have found this really beneficial, as the time lapse between going to stations and then logging on, particularly in the case of some of my younger students means they have forgotten what they must do next, and which software tool they are going to use. In the early stages of a unit of work and sometimes with younger students I also, go through the log in routine and then an additional load software stage as two separate activities within the shared session, before the teaching activity is introduced. In this way the students are developing independence in locating tools, and the idea of getting set up, before we begin using the software environment as a learning environment.

Routine Three: Ending the Session
To some it may be considered a bit of a waste of time to tidy up between every session, but I strongly disagree with this viewpoint, and believe that one of the key elements in developing independence as a learner, is the ability to organise your own learning space. Tidying up is not about leaving a lovely looking room, to me, it is about organising yourself and time spent teaching and consolidating this as part of classroom routines early on in a year has enormous benefits later. In the ICT suite or Online Classroom this is perhaps even more important because we share the expensive tools to be found here with other students and colleagues in the school. It is about establishing respect for the resources available to us. There is nothing more annoying, frustrating or disheartening for colleagues and students alike to have to clear space, and tidy up before they can begin work. It is also diruptive to established routines with your class. If we consider Online classrooms as different to our own, we are in danger of seeing ICT as a time to play on the computer and not a time to learn new skills to help us in our own classroom learning. So Endeth the sermon, and climbing down from my soap box!... at the end of every session, All Users in our Suite are required to

1. Close down all programs
2. Log off their machine
3. Clear away any tools they have been using in addition to the computer, eg paper and pencils, text books, or small dry wipe boards and pens.
4. Recycle scrap paper
5. Tuck in chairs or stools
6. Turn off monitors
7. Return to the suite's shared space for review and discussion

It is time consuming in the early stages, but many of my students now remind and go through my routines with me at the end of a session. They are repetitions of their own, with the addition of putting the digital projector on standby. We are role models for our students, but as learners we too can forget sometimes (usually on purpose I hope), it helps the students develop a shared sense of responsibility for ours and their learning, and the tools available if we encourage this type of intervention and support from them.

Projector bulbs are very expensive consumable items, and their lifetime can be extended by turning them off when not in use. Schools are preparations for life beyond, and many of the routines above are essential prerequisites of using ICT in the workplace. Logging off, is in the real world a network security and data protection issue, as well as good network practice.

Navigating and Saving Files To A Network

Like most schools our ICT Infrastructure includes use of a network , using log ins and passwords to enable students to access their particular drive spaces.

This was a problematic process for some of my students, for a number of reasons. As a school we had established a system of class log ins, rather than individual students drive spaces. This means that children share a drive space per class, and in addition I inherited a system, where drive spaces were allocated to year groups, rather than classes, and so as classes changed every year so did their log ins. The first thing I did was to change this protocol, enabling the log ins and therefore drive spaces to move with each class, as they progress through the school. Recycling drive spaces used by Year 6 students in their final year, for use by the new year 1 students in the new academic year. This has had immediate benefits, in developing use of the network for children this year since they were already able to log in.

In addition to this however experience told me that students once logged in frequently had difficulty in finding their personal folders, and in organising their work. As a staff we also had difficulties due to the previous network protocol in managing assessment, since students work would be distributed about the network according to which class they had been in in previous years. My solution to this has been to create a common home drive structure fo each class. This may seem complex, and potentially long drawn out but was actually easier than it sounds ... Honestly. The benifits far out weigh the work that went into this anyway. Using the pictorial representation of a folder most children from year 2, and all from year 3 to year 6 are now able to find their home drive and personal folder, and to save and open files from these. We also now have a potential individual portfolio of evidence for each child from their current year to the end of the primary stage, through the introduction of "cascade Saving" to these. where children have been taught to save drafts with original file names and numbers to represent the save time, and draft version of the file. This hopefully will enable review of progression through tasks and units of work.

Creating the Folder Structure
Step One:

Create a new folder called class home drive structure. Inside this Create one new folder called student_1. Inside this create one year group folder called year_one, and inside this create 6 new folders named for each term or half term. Return to student folder, and copy and paste this 6 times renaming each for the year groups who use your network, ie yr_1, Yr_2 etc.
Return to the drive structure folder and copy and paste each folder, renaming as student_2, student_3 etc. I made 36 folders in all.

Step Two:
Carry out a google search for "icons," choose images you like or that you think will appeal to the students you work with. Mine were Sesame Street, Disney and other cartoon characters. I created an "icons" folder in the shared documents folder on my computer, and then copied the icons I had chosen to this folder.

Step Three:
Open the Class home drive structure folder, and with each student folder you made, left click and then click properties. Now click on the customize tab and then the change icon button. Next browse for the icon folder you made, and choose the picture you would like to be shown for the folder, and click ok until you return to the folder view. Repeat this process for each folder, using a different icon for each.

Step Four:
Copy your Icons Folder and Class home Drive Structure to a portable storage device, eg a floppy disc or a flash drive, for transportation to school. In school log on as each class individually, use select all to copy the folders inside the home drive folder, to the class shared space. Copy the icon folder to the shared documents folder on the computer's c:\ drive. Copying the icons folder is a laborious task, and the longest part of this solution, as this has to be done on each individual machine.

Alternative to the above, would be to ask your technician or managed service provider to do this. They should not have any difficulties, in achieveing this on your behalf.

Once the drive structures and Icons were in place, during an ICT session each child was asked to choose their image, and the folder was renamed for them. There is something about this process which has enabled and supported the learning of how to save and open files. So far this term it has been perhaps the most successful implementation I have made, since it cuts down on the support needed even for some of my special needs students to work with network drive spaces. My research work seems to reflect that repetitive action is one of the means by which we learn and aquire new ICT skills, perhaps the repetition of a standardised saving and opening process has been key to the success of this implimentation.