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Latest news from the CLC

Blended Learning with Nook Lane School

June 16th, 2010

Year 4 pupils from Nook Lane came to the CLC for two days of work with their class teacher looking at inventions. John Chadbourne, the teacher worked with the CLC’s Dave Gibbs to prepare a sequence of activities where e-learning was blended with more traditional approaches. The e-learning activities were all accessed via the schools VLE, Studywiz. The project was an excellent demonstration of the utility of a VLE in a classroom situation.

Method

The collaboratively planned project involved several phases of learning that had been based on Bybee’s 5 E’s learning cycle.

After engaging the pupils with discussion and some film from 1969 tomorrow’s world, they were asked to use the voting tool and a Wallwisher post-it note application to share their initial thoughts about the importance of specific inventions.  The initial questions were:

‘What difference have inventions made to our lives?’ and ‘which is the most important invention?’ from aeroplanes, electricity, cars, telephones and computers.

One (less able) class, when asked to do this, all followed the initial feedback given by a classmate who’d stated that electricity was the most important invention – electricity was unanimously voted most important invention.  It seemed that this comment closed down further thought / argument by the rest of the class. The other group who had been part of a more varied discussion and had heard a wider variety of ideas voted more evenly.

The class had been split into five groups or 6, each composed of three sets of ‘learning partners’. The learning partners were then, in pairs, spread around the room so that face-to-face discussion could be limited. They were each presented with a ‘topic room’ – a folder prepared in StudyWiz packed with video, sound, text and hypertext-based resources. They were asked to use these resources to contribute to a discussion board, also placed in the topic room.

The first group, with little guidance on the use of the board, used it as a place to make statements – there was limited interaction. They did, however, make relevant statements relating to their findings through the topic room resources. The second group had much more direction in the discussion boards – they were asked to formulate questions and to respond to other questions. While the quality of these was variable, many responses were detailed and used evidence and arguments for agreeing or disagreeing. There was also progress in the language used to frame these messages. The pairs discussed their findings before typing them for discussion with the other four pupils in the group.

The day proceeded with a blend of small group and whole-class discussion away from the computers (teacher led, but incorporating a lot of pupil-direction) and further online research and discussion.

The outcome of the day was a plan for a podcast recording on their chosen invention. This used a set of prompt questions focussing on different strands of the primary history curriculum: economics, culture, technology etc. This was phrased in a more pupil-friendly way, and resulted in a spread of ideas for the podcast.

Finally, the first group was asked to once again use Wallwisher to state what they knew about the changes to our lives resulting from inventions. The second group was asked to make evaluative comments.

Observations:

The teachers and CLC staff member observed the high-level of engagement with the task – every pupil worked independently in research using earphones to listen to video. They then worked effectively in pairs and small groups, and many were prepared to contribute to class discussion. All pupils completed independent creative scripting of the podcast, drawing on knowledge from discussion and online sources.

The class teacher observed that several pupils who are usually less engaged in their learning had made excellent progress and shown a lot of interest. Behaviour was excellent throughout the day, despite a lack of break times caused by building work on the site.

Recommendations:

  • Alignment of the learning design with a cycle more commonly used in primary schools (such as the TASC wheel) would make the project design more accessible to teachers and students.
  • Further work should be done to embed the use of discussion boards for collaborative research, along with investigation of other tools such as wikis.
  • A source of more accessible text information (such as a CD ROM) should be used – web pages are unreliable as sources of accurate, relevant or age-appropriate information.
  • The resources and corresponding tasks should be broken down into shorter, clearer sections (possibly aligning specifically with a familiar learning cycle).
  • The use of topic rooms made for clear navigation and easy group management. Some wandering between topic rooms might be useful for wider collaboration.

Local History – Loxley Valley Sheffield – New Resource

March 10th, 2010

We have been lucky enough to run a work placement for an MA history researcher. We tasked her with researching the locations studied during a local school’s Loxley Valley project, so that we could produce an electronic resource. She trawled through archives and did a thorough job, resulting in some excellent maps dating from mid-19th to early-21st century; some images of the works and mines from the same period; and some text describing the companies and people that operated there. It’s interesting stuff, and has been thoroughly checked for copyright permissions.

CLC staff then worked with her to put the resources into a Google Earth file (called a KML); this is available here (right click on this link and download the file – just opening it will show you a load of gobbledygook). If you have Google Earth installed, then simply opening this attachment should create a set of place-markers on the screen containing the images and text. The OS maps that have been overlaid are currently turned off – you will see some tick-boxes in the ‘places’ panel on the side. By selectively ticking one or two of these boxes you will be able to overlay the semi-transparent maps on the ground beneath.

As well as using it as an information resource, there are  some other possible teaching applications:

By switching different maps on and off it is possible to see how changes have occurred to the area over time, such as buildings appearing and disappearing. This could be used to date buildings or even for some sort of time-travel ‘dr who’ style creative writing.

  • Information can be extracted from the text including the archaic language used to describe jobs etc. this would make an interesting English language study.
  • In physical geography terms, the resource and maps can be used to locate and identify various physical features such as the river, valleys, ponds and paths – this could help orient pupils before a field trip.
  • They can use the ruler tool for measuring the scale of the buildings or for working out the distance the clay must have to travel to get from the mine to the refractory.
  • They could create a narrated fly-by tour that could be used in putting forward the case for regeneration of the site.
  • The different layers of Google Earth (such as the Wikipedia or weather layers) can be used for additional local research.
  • Create digital stories that move between tagged landmarks.
  • Google Sketchup could be used to construct models of the objects they intend to put on the site – these can then be placed directly onto the ground, and viewed from any angle.
  • Use the materials as a problem solving activity for a group of students – what can you find out about this location and how it has changed over time?

Because our MA student created this resource as part of her course, some feedback from any reader (and / or their students) on the resource would be highly valuable.

Vital Online ICT Training for Teachers

March 9th, 2010

The OU and e-Skills UK have joined together to create an exciting new resource for teachers wanting to develop their use of ICT in learning and teaching. The new courses are available here http://www.vital.ac.uk/offer, and are offered at a special low rate for the first few enrollments.

We at the CLC have had a look at the materials and they are interesting and useful to practitioners. The online nature of the training should mean that more teachers will be able to access training in this way than in traditional face-to-face. You can complete activities when you feel able and will be able to discuss outcomes with other teachers on the course.

Sheffield ICT Best Practice Awards – coming to you soon!

February 4th, 2010

There’s a lot of great practice going on around the city – wouldn’t it be wonderful if it could be shared and celebrated?

Well, that’s the aim of the Best Practice Awards, organised by Sheffield Inclusion & Learning Service and supported by the 5 Sheffield CLCs. Leading towards an awards ceremony here at the centre in October, entries are invited in any of 6 categories:

  1. Leadership and Vision: Demonstrating leadership by creatively implementing the school’s vision for the use of technology across the curriculum, school and school community
  2. Creativity: Working creatively, taking the initiative and seizing opportunities to look beyond established thinking. Identifying new possibilities and opportunities to integrate the use of technology across the school community
  3. Teaching and Learning in Practice: Creating a climate for teaching and learning in the classroom supported by the integrated use of technology which is characterised by enthusiasm for learning, high expectations, and outstanding learner outcomes
  4. Peer Support: Engaging other colleagues, parents and teaching assistants in developing their understanding of and skills in technology to support learning and development
  5. Personal CPD: Showing a continuing commitment to his or her own professional learning and personal development
  6. Beyond the Classroom: As a champion of technology how does this teacher take the role of technology beyond the classroom to the life of the school and school community.

To help you (and encourage you) to enter, SWCLC staff will guide you through the process. The nomination process is designed to be straight-forward and not time consuming.

Promising entries will also be supported to try for the  Becta Award for Next Generation Learning at the Teaching Awards.

If you wish to nominate someone in your school, or wish to nominate a project you are working on yourself, please contact Dave at the CLC (dave@nwsclc.net) or Helen Smith, Senior ICT Consultant at Sheffield L&IS (Helen.smith@sheffield.gov.uk).

Good luck!

Success for online learning resources in STEM

January 29th, 2010

A pan-European report has found significant successes for online learning resources on several fronts in STEM subjects.

  • 85% of the teachers involved stated that use of the learning resources had an impact on the autonomous learning of the pupils.
  • 77% said that the resources made the concepts easier to understand.
  • Interestingly, nearly three quarters of the teachers said the resources stimulated their own interest and motivation for the teaching.
  • A majority said that the resources made it easier for their pupils to understand experimental results, or developed scientific methodology.

The learning resources were collected from a range of sources and published in several languages. Some pupils experienced problems with resources that weren’t in local languages, or had difficulties with access to ICT rooms and resources. Some were used to better resources, and so didn’t receive maximum benefit. 

So, to summarise: well chosen resources delivered with time and space for their use, in language appropriate for the targeted learners DO have a positive effect on learning what are sometimes called ‘hard to teach’ topics.