2015 Targets-Self statutory

#nurture1415 has inspired me to think about my aims for the New Year. As someone who sees the summer holidays as the year marker, I already have some targets 'I made earlier' so it's good to think about those and realise not much has changed.

1. Publishing

More blogging from myself and more importantly my class. I also need to find regular 'guest' commenters to empower my writers.

2. Video 

I need to get my You Tube channel up and running with some quality content. To work on using video and You Tube more frequently in class and give the children the chance to publish their excellent video work online.

3. Lead

To gain more experience leading and managing across my year group and in whole school projects. My current data project is requiring a new data package that I'm building and a complete rethink as we move away from levels. This growth will be under the excellent guidance of @fullonlearning who continues to challenge my thinking.

4. 3As

My efforts to gain promotion have come close in 2014. The work of Alan McLean and his 3As of leadership will be a driving force in my development in 2015 http://www.journeytoexcellence.org.uk/index.asp

Affiliation, agency and autonomy will be my mantra as I try to guide teachers towards the new assessment practices. The 3A approach will also develop the growth of TMWSM which I co-founded with @wookie666 and has had two successful events so far.

5. Run

Mainly as a result of a barren Christmas in terms of tailoring and the well travelled shirts getting a bit snug. I need to make time to run three times a week at least and get back to a half marathon or two. 

Hopefully, by writing this I may be more inclined to actually follow them through, it's also easier to work out percentages.

A big thank you to @ictevangelist for inspiring the hashtag. Happy New Year!

Super Hero AFL

With changes in Ofsted lesson gradings, my school has now ditched formal lesson grading during observations. This has led to gradings through work scrutiny based on marking and feedback and quality of teaching over time. As a result, I am changing my AFL approach to allow for greater self assessment and questioning from my class. This is the first resource to tackle that. 

http://bit.ly/1CbDGsP

The children have enjoyed using the Super Work form and have begun linking their good work with their own personal target in literacy. The Riddler form has caused some great thinking with less able children asking me questions while the more able have tried to catch me out.

Feel free to use these as you wish. More to follow soon.

WW2 Takeaway Homework

The idea of Takeaway Homework from the excellent @teachertoolkit has been around for a while. This post is just to share the half term WW2 Homework.  

The tasks: 

Apparently, being able to do homework using Minecraft makes the world better. Within seconds children were planning which ones they would do, discussing online collaboration and some had already finished a few tasks by the end of wet play!

 Poppy acrostic poem

 Plane fact files

 

Trenches made from wood, wire and soil.

 Minecraft Anderson Shelter

Not only some of the best homework my class have produced but the increase in effort and presentation was an even bigger plus. 

Power to the People

I am a great believer that children should be given opportunities to take responsibility for their learning. We have been talking a lot about making sensible choices and challenging yourself.
Our first venture was to choose their own learning partners for the week with the aid of my trusty lolly sticks. This went well, good choices and importantly no tears. On a roll, I then let the children rearrange the room and sit where they wanted. My only proviso being I could move freely around and that no child was sat facing away from the board. My room is blessed with a mixture of large tables, small single tables, low tables (that don't make friends) and some semi-circular tables which can be flipped!
The results of my MFI room makeover were fantastic. Great use of space and odd tables, a good mix of children. The biggest impact I noticed was that my class seemed more willing to contribute. Class discussion involved the whole class and levels of effort improved. Of course, it is day one of a new term but my class taught me a lot today. Maybe, I should leave how they learn to them and I'll focus on what.
Thinking of ideas for options to record their work....

Learning without Limits

Learning without limits - Dame Alison Peacock - 23.10.14

Lifting the lid on learning- keeping the door open for children to learn

The conflict between professional principles which drive you and the accountability and pressure from external forces.

Raising aspirations of low attaining children and parents 

Escaping from the bottom set:

Labelling leads to, " destruction of dignity so massive and pervasive that few subsequently recover from it." Hargreaves 

Trivial things like where you put your bag etc. can dominate a child's experience of school depending on the atmosphere and priority of the school- FEAR

The same can be said for children labelled in academic terms

Negative feedback can hinder learning and aspirations- emotional impact

Teachers following lesson plans rather than using professional judgement just to meet curriculum needs.

Teachers and pupils disengaged- poor behaviour/ low aspirations 

Making an irresistible curriculum- excite children and empower staff

Currently, we have freedom but it doesn't feel as if we have direction 

Academic Studies

http://learningwithoutlimits.educ.cam.ac.uk/downloads/creatinglwl_forumarticle.pdf

http://learningwithoutlimits.educ.cam.ac.uk/downloads/creatinglwl_forumarticle.pdf

Learning without Limits Books

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Learning-without-Limits-Susan-Hart/dp/033521259X

The Research School

http://thewroxham.org.uk

Classroom Based Study

http://www.cambridgeassessment.org.uk/Images/challenge-and-success-alternative-approaches-to-assessment-in-the-primary-classroom-alison-peacock-presentation.pdf

Teachers arrive at school defeated- under pressure to cover all areas of the curriculum, all the 'we have to' things, marking and evidence to show the feedback that is happening.

Building on excitement in the classroom rather than suppressing it.

Wroxham School 

Children at Wroxham love their school: children learn by choosing their own challenges, independent learning not forced, lots of fun elements around the school-bus, jeep, someone dressed as a rabbit.

Children collaborate and know how to work well with others- trusted to make sensible choices

Circle Groups- Y6 work with younger children

Pupil Voice - has a powerful role in the school and children are empowered and taking ownership

A Team Approach 

School improvement didn't come from monitoring, work scrutiny or any other 'traditional' methods

Developing a team amongst the staff

Living a vision of trust, co agency and inclusion 

A listening school

Mutual respect

Enabling and supporting

Monitoring quality of learning NOT quality of teaching 

Encourage risk taking

Staff self- regulate, manage, improve, motivate

Children do the same

Whole School Democracy 

Everyone is valued

A participative culture

Weekly mixed age circle meetings- instead of assembly- shared agenda: game, news bulletin, shared discussion. Democratic Engagement 

Older children act as role models- they value younger children, raises responsibility, model teaching practice, culture of respect

Shared decisions

Challenging yourself is valued BY ALL

making sure the curriculum has a little bit more to stimulate and engage children

Sparking interest and keeping it going- with staff and children 

Professional Learning:  Trust

Listening not telling

Freedom for staff to make own judgements 

Put in place contexts that create rich contexts for learning 

Open-ended curriculum experiences

Connecting books and Brains

Evidence in books etc. surface evidence doesn't provide a full picture of the thinking and process behind learning

Giving children a quality assessment process NOT just in books- evidencing process

Writing is to convey meaning- needs an audience- motivates- who will read my ideas?

Children want to boast about their learning

Making school unmissable 

Lesson studies rather than lesson observations 

Teachers and children NOT graded

Once graded- feedback is irrelevant 

Co Agency

Thinking in partnership

Making suggestions

Shared involvement

Help bring ideas to fruition

Feeding in ideas and materials 

ASKING QUESTIONS 

Challenging

Everybody

Maximise opportunities for all staff to learn from each other

Value different ways of working 

Capitalise on differences to inspire teaching

Create structures to encourage mutual support 

Dispositions

Openness

Questioning

Inventiveness

Persistence

Stability

Generosity

Empathy

New Curriculum 

Dialogic pedagogy

Authentic first hand experiences

Open ended challenging tasks

Language for learning- talk is important 

Creating First Hand Experiences

Historical features to support understanding- Celtic roundhouse, trenches etc.

Assessment 

No 'ability' groups

Children choose levels of challenge- mainly in maths, literacy children make their own list of personal challenges and tick them off when they think they have achieved them

http://vimeo.com/69709930

Feedback is positive, high quality discussions

Secretarial skills- enabling children to keep up with their ideas- eg. Handwriting practise

Learning partners- choose partners for a week etc. 

High expectations 

Lesson study

Background metric for triangulation- levels recorded but not shared with children or parents

Discussion with staff- who are exceeding your expectations, who is in line, who is below expectations 

Based on Y2 performance but viewed of in terms of expectation and challenge

Whole school accountability NOT just teacher in the class

Teachers need to model challenge, openness and reflection

Working with Families

Trust

Openness

Learning Reviews

Reports written in a dialogue with children

Family Learning

Keeping learning interview records/ notes

Children produce a learning review video/PowerPoint and evidence from work, discuss successes and challenges with child, parents and teacher- How can I improve? 

Children identify issues and think of a way to resolve them

Y6 children choose if they feel confident to do level 6 paper

Children choose whether or not to work in a fast paced level 6 target group

Whole family approach- child, head, teacher, parents

100% attendance 

Use a whole day and evening

Reports

Children write comments about their learning throughout the year

Comments passed to next class teacher or used throughout the year

Language of school talks about challenges and next steps NOT levels

Booster groups are supplemented by a Maths Club which children sign up to depending on their challenges- squash and biscuits provided!

Developing a culture of togetherness 

Shared responsibility

Powers shared amongst all not a select few

Child behaviour 

http://www.alfiekohn.org/index.php

In Summary:

Children are not labelled

Children are given responsibility for their learning

Children feel empowered (co agency)

Children's learning is celebrated and shared

Staff put children at the heart of planning

Feedback is positive but not graded

Learning experiences are exciting

Self assessment is key

Families engage in all aspects of learning and evaluation 

Learning Loops

Our Year 5 topic has traditionally been World War 2, however, in light of curriculum changes, we have updated with a selection of BIG questions to inspire curiosity. 

Our BIG question was, How does the past affect our future?

<img style="max-width:100%" src="//cdn.thinglink.me/api/image/571046082818080769/1024/10/scaletowidth#tl-571046082818080769;1043138249'" class="alwaysThinglink"/><script async charset="utf-8" src="//cdn.thinglink.me/jse/embed.js"></script>

First of all, we shared ideas and questions using padlet and from there we took aspects the children wanted to look at more detail-the smaller loops which answer the bigger questions.

As we go through the term and more learning is achieved, work is added to reflect this. Also, as more learning occurs more questions and more loops are added too.

Hole in the Head Presentations

This year, my Year 6 class have looked at Edward Jenner, Charles Darwin and Dr Barnardo all usually following some kind of poster or biography idea for the children to show their learning. However, for Gandhi, I wanted something different.
I stumbled upon this blog post http://jivespin.wordpress.com/2013/12/03/head-in-a-hole-a-different-way-of-reviewing-learning-and-progress/ which talked about Hole in the Head presentations.

The children enjoyed this activity and it allowed for those that were less confident at speaking in front of others to feel more comfortable as the could 'hide' behind the poster.

Key Features of the Poster:

• Picture/drawing of the person's body
• Thought bubbles (could have good and bad viewpoints)
• Speech bubbles
• Name of person
• Mini-profile - age etc.

The simple structure allowed lots of creativity, especially with the speech bubbles as the children talked about Gandhi's Salt Protest. The children were able to present their information in the 3rd person or as Gandhi which really added to their work.


Using technology:

• You could use Morfo to recreate the character speaking
• Use Explain Everything to annotate around a picture or drawing and record the presentation
• Use Thinglink to bring the picture to life with lots of video and captions

Using technology in Maths Investigations

Recently, I delved into the archives to find some of the classic maths investigations which have been done many times around the world. I decided to revisit the 5 multilink cube problem, known by some as Pentominoes or Zids and Zods by others. Either way, children need to make as many different shapes as possible using the 5 cubes.
Previously, children haven't recorded their findings, have drawn them on squared paper or  my TA has taken photographs. This time, I used the app Pic Collage for the children to record and photograph this themselves. The beauty of using this app was that the children could rotate pictures on the app or physically move the shape and photograph it and compare them with their previous shapes. This was great for getting rid of duplicate shapes and also supported children visualising a rotated shape ( a classic KS2 SAT question)

Whilst this worked well for this investigation, I feel there is a lot more potential to record all the work and thinking that goes into a maths investigation. Having the 'whole picture' would really support AT1 assessment. For more problem solving resources try:


nrich.maths.org


inquirymaths.co.uk






























Possible Next Steps:

1. Export the Pic Collage to Thinglink app and add video of the children working or presenting their findings. Children could also add further pictures of any tables or graphs they have produced.
2. Export the Pic Collage to Explain Everything, children could then annotate around the picture, record a soundtrack taking somebody through their method of investigation. Graphs and tables could then be produced using the Explain Everything app.

The Power of Skype

This year, I decided to sign up to Skype in the classroom just to see what could be achieved by technology. As Twitter will testify, technology wins!

#skypeclassroom

Brazil

International Week came around early in October. Year 6, were assigned Brazil and within a few days I had linked up with a school in Brasilia. The children were shocked, intrigued and wanted to ask as many questions as possible. They particularly like the basketball style vest uniform. This half an hour, made International Week.

Mystery Skype 

I had the bug now,so we looked at Mystery Skype. A game where you answer yes or no questions to pinpoint the other school's location. There are several good blogs on mystery Skype etiquette and class planning, 

 

http://theglobalconnection.wikispaces.com/Mystery+Skype+-+What+is+it%3F

being one of the best.
We connected with @mstoalsclass in Dublin and a school in Vancouver. The latter taking 90 minutes to crack! This tested geography skills, collaboration, questioning and distilling of information- great for the More Able.
Follow #mysteryskype

Authors

I then explored the Skype in the classroom site further. There are a huge amount of lessons for you to sign up to. Keen to inspire a range of writers i my class, I found National Geographic writer @jodi_kendall
She gave the children a great insight into her career and how she combined it with photography. Her tales of manta rays and orangutans had us all hooked.
The children then wrote stories of journeys they'd taken and were really keen to post on her blog to say thank you.

http://www.jodikendall.com

Next, I found another author @mattwardwords who wrote the excellent Fantastic Family Whipple

http://fantasticfamilywhipple.com

The children loved learning about California, his writing journey and his ideas. The book itself was about a family of record breakers, the next day the classroom was awash with Guinness World Record books. All children wanted to write about obscure records, some had even written a story at home! Unheard of behaviour. 

Story Tellers

World Book Day arrived, a great group of people based in Florida known as the Sunshine Storytellers offered to read us a story. We had a 3-way Skype call with another school in New Jersey, amazing. How they all laughed when they heard how cold the UK was.

Topic Work

Using Skype this term, we have connected with two schools in North-eastern India and have learnt lots about their areas, language and how their school operates. The Indian national anthem sung in Hindi was a highlight. Importantly, my children could learn about expectations, attitudes and tolerance, things that are difficult to teach in the classroom.

               My class

The view in India


Skype Thoughts

For some Skype calls it can take a few days or weeks, so allow enough time.

A lot of the other schools we Skyped had small groups ranging from 10 to 20, for fairness, most of my calls were with all 60 year 6 children. It works much better with a small group, more jobs and greater involvement.

Practise getting the children to present and speak clearly.

Get a microphone!

Check the broadband connection, some of our calls have been a tad slow which can quickly frustrate 10 year olds.

Make sure you it is clear what your call focus is, it can become slightly one way at times.

The Skype safeguarding is excellent.

Time difference can lead to some early or late calls but they're worth it.

Skype Ideas

We need more British schools online so connections can be more regular without interfering with the school day.

Authors, poets; where are you? 30 minutes during a poetry week would really add another dimension to a schools work without costing a fortune.

Museums and galleries would be another excellent addition, particularly for schools who are unable to visit some of our national collections in London.

Guided Reading/Book clubs with other classes

Sharing writing on a similar topic

Performances- poetry, dance, class presentations on a topic 

Maths challenges-particularly open ended problems

Olympic style sports challenges

Mystery Number - similar to mystery Skype but with guess the number type questions. Eg. Is it an odd number?

Interviews with each other

Hotseating of a character

Sharing learning

Tour of your school

 

I'd love to hear any more ideas and it would be even better to connect with you.

@mistercollard

Coding the Taj Mahal

Coding; I thought we ought to get this ball rolling. I knew some of my boys had attended Code Club, some couldn't spell coding and some were handy on an ipad so @Hopscotch was the obvious answer. Our topic was India so our goal was a Taj Mahal in code. Here's how it went:

1) Human Coding - In pairs the children had to guide their 'robot' partner around the playground with some chalk. This got them into the idea of an algorithm and also showed how comfortable they were with the mathematical language needed.

2) Hopscotch - I introduced the children to hopscotch and showed them a few basic functions and have them the target to create a square. Those that were quick were then challenged to create more complex 2D shapes or experiment with colour, size etc.

3) Circles - The next challenge was to draw a circle. The children experimented with many different ways of programming a circle and using the repeat functions.

4) Taj Mahal - We looked at some outline drawings of the Taj Mahal and discussed the shapes that were used in the construction of building. The children, now armed with programmer skills, began to code, some drew a basic shape, some created backgrounds and some added a title.

The most encouraging part of the whole experience was the speed in which some children went home and downloaded Hopscotch. On Monday, I was greeted by a host of iPads brought in just to show me how much better their work was. 

Coding; everyone is talking about it!

Thinglink for Non Chronological Reports

This week is Creative Arts Week at school. My Year 6 class are going to look at poet Benjamin Zephaniah. Before we delve into his poems and perform some ourselves, we are going to learn about his background, beliefs and what makes him passionate about writing.

We are going to create a non-chronological report about him but I want it to reflect his passion for creativity and multimedia, so we are going to use the app Thinglink.

http://www.thinglink.com/scene/495336546740731905

http://www.thinglink.com/scene/502225511313833985

I used Pic Collage to create the picture using words as subheadings related to the pictures. I then used this in Thinglink to add other text about him, video of his poems and other pictures which show his work in more detail.

Super Reading

It seems that this year's KS2 Reading SAT will be a whistle stop tour through various texts in an hour. No savouring a piece of excellent prose or reflecting upon the delights of a well executed simile, it's skim reading time!

To prepare my children for this, I decided to use a range of text excerpts which they read in class, I gave them a time limit of 5 minutes and they then had to summarise the text in 3 sentences. This helped them to find the main points of the text, explain themselves succinctly and experience a range of texts over a short space of time.

The next step, would be to use the excellent classtools.net http://www.classtools.net/twister/

Fake Tweet application to write a summary of the text in the 140 characters permitted. My children enjoyed it and it was far more bearable than yet another practice test.

BETT 2014: My Notes

While my head is still whirring with ideas after a great BETT show, I though I would post my notes of my Friday and Saturday there. The nuggets that I found, great ideas and some interesting products. Everything I have heard has been passed through my primary filter and is peppered with issues which face my school. There may well be misinformation as I don't always listen properly, according to Mrs Collard anyway!

BETT 2014: 

Digital Storytelling:

jamedo.com royalty free music

incompetech.com search music by genre

compfight.com royalty free photos 

Type pwn to download video - pwnyoutube

Create soundtracks to compliment a written text, fast, slow parts.

Idea sketch- use for brainstorming,planning

100WC - iPads need to be able to view school blog and 100WC

Use in SPAG to provide comments to others around the world-create networks of schools globally to share comments.

Woodlands primary school-great example of using digital leaders and using technology across the curriculum.

Maths Apps

Glow bug

Super 7-number bonds

Sum dog

Number run

Operation math

Daydream education-times tables

Motion math fractions 

Lit apps

Story starters

Chicktionary 

Shake n tell

Opposites 

teachingappz.co.uk

Install wordpress at school to aid blogging

Praise blogs- to showcase best work ie head teachers awards on a blog

Use apps for hw- combine home and school learning

Create your own apps-app shed - create own web app

Think about design and target audience

Work on evaluating existing apps and then create own- new curriculum

New ICT curriculum

Can be split into 3 parts:

Computer science-coding, making, creating and collaborating, how hardware etc works

Digital literacy-responsible for own browsing, critical of other apps,websites etc. can discern content.

IT: communicating, being safe and also responsible, understanding the role of web traffic, how search engines work.

 

Join computing at school (CAS) website- lots of resources esp. For coding and a discussion forum

Technology- makes the teacher invisible, but the learning visible.

Understanding computers:

Makey-Makey: use to create hardware using everyday objects- eg. A grape becomes a mouse.

Raspberry Pi- use to understand the basic components of a computer

Raspberry Pi computers can be used to control cars etc. similar to Lego or run as a computer. We need USB monitors and keyboards to do this. You can use various languages to program them or add on other simple electronic devices so that it can become a weather centre or data logger. Minecraft can also be used very effectively on this. Raspberry Pi computers really show the minimum you need for a computer and will allow children to understand the electronic features of a computer.

Lego NXT to build and program robots- use to draw shapes, solve problems, write instructions, describe the movements, write a narrative for the robot-what happens if... However, software is a bit confusing. A k'nex version is also available as well as Engino. Raspberry Pi could be used for something similar.

Designing computer games- develops how you learn-BLP-children are able to express how they have learnt.

Allows for reflective thinking, modifying ideas and design, evaluating, testing, exploring

Coding:

Jam sandwich algorithm-program a person to make a jam sandwich-limit amount of commands

code-it.co.uk

Start with real life coding tasks- using children as robots eg. Drawing a square with chalk outside, making a jam sandwich, brushing teeth, making a cup of tea, battling robots- learn to debug their own algorithms

Focus on computer language:

Input, move, turn etc. numeracy vocabulary 

Then move to hopscotch or daisy the Dino, move on to scratch

Coding products available: Espresso coding-a good start point but very limited in terms of creativity and real excitement for children. Purple Mash-from 2simple is similar. 

Lots of software is based around designing games-very little for website design.

hackasaurus.com is a good start for this. 

Children can use notepad to begin designing images and websites. (More training needed)

Binary number system could be introduced around Y5/6 - Excel could be used to change the colour of cells that have a 1 or 0 in to introduce the idea that a picture can be made using numbers. Binary number system can be used in maths.

Angles, rotations and measurements are all important as well as precise language.

Scratch- widely used and discussed can create games, images, quizzes with lots more scope. Ideas and lesson plans from CAS and Code Club.

8 IPads

Website that explains how to use 8 iPads in each class at all times-8 @digitalroadtrip

Products of Note:

Clicker 6: very useful for supporting all levels of writing. Features included the ability to select word lists for topic vocabulary, synonyms to increase that level of vocabulary and a reader function which could correct sentence demarcation errors. New word lists could be created by copying text from a website and filtering out low frequency words.

Brainpop-a great learning support with lots of videos.

Yes Programme-a site with videos created by adults in all forms of employment. It explains what they have to do in their jobs and then link it to an aspect of the curriculum, thus putting the learning into a context for later life.

5aday fitness-selection of videos for exercises and brain breaks, also in MFL forms.

Fiction Express-online stories created by published authors, with a chapter a week. Classes vote on what should happen next and the authors write it. Also has accompanying guided reading type questions.

3D printers- coding and DT together, still pricey but coming down.

Websites:

Snappy words-creates a word web of synonyms to support writing-more visually interesting than right click in word.

Hyperlapse- plays a sped up version if street view from one place to another-writing stimulus, exploring different areas of the country.

Google Tour- create a world tour use historical information and add commentary etc. May need to be run on a PC only?

Google Cultural institute-tour world heritage sites and galleries-children could curate their own gallery around a topic. May be PC only?

Cool text-has a bank of fonts to use in class eg. Harry potter font.

Classroom tools.net- lots of tools to aid interactivity and engagement. Create your own spinner to pick children rather than lolly sticks.

 Fakebook -create a mock facebook page to talk about a character in a story-who does Frodo like? Or is friends with? Use for e-safety. Use to talk about numbers, friends could be factors? Shapes etc. 

text message generator- write messages between characters in a story or historical figures. Eg. Romulus texting Remus.

Class dojo-behaviour management website that gives children points and virtual prizes for good behaviour.

Blockly- a program to teach coding, moving blocks and creating mazes as well as navigating mazes. Available on the hour of code website as an Angry Birds version with instructions. Code.org

Echo genesis-a music/sound generator could be used to create a score for a narrative or sounds to inspire writing.

My pop studio- a tool for writing, singing and performing

Record tripping-practice mouse control by scratching records like a DJ!

Apps

Touch develop - app creator for iPads

Use twitter to show and share work quickly with people. Eg. Tweet an author a piece of work inspired by their writing. Do the same with art.

Thing link-

Link all work together from a topic with various apps etc. embed into a picture

Pic collage- digital storybook using pictures, video and audio.

Using QR codes to create a choose your own adventure or any kind of hunt. You could also  send home codes  for parents to scan on their phones etc. and share their work.

Aurasma- use it as a feedback tool when you scan a child's face it can give audio or video feedback about their work. Can also be used for book reviews in a library.

Wordeo-an app that takes words and adds video and sound to them. Good for remembering key vocabulary or as a story starter.

Tim Rylands:

Using technology to enhance the outside, senses and bring together all ideas in one piece.

Moving Forward: 

Creating an online sharing system. Work can be shared quickly and easily with home, providing instant feedback, praise and the chance for further work at home. By sharing virtually, it also allows for lots of peer assessment, possibly in conjunction with social media.

Possible solutions: Google drive -work can be shared across the platform

Dropbox-as above with work stored Ina cloud.

Edmodo- is a Virtual Learning Environment- it provides a platform to share work and for teachers to mark online and give feedback. Tests can be given through this and scores collated. It also provides a communication platform for children, parents and teachers-ideal for setting homework. Good examples of work can be shared easily and children who do will be rewarded via the site.

Children will become more digitally literate and will need to express themselves in a modern format as well as traditional paper methods. We need a way of storing this information and being able to record teacher feedback  and progress. Each child could have a digital folder, to accompany or replace their workbooks. Written pieces could be photographed or copied into a digital format or form part of a larger body of work or the scaffolding to get to the finished piece. Videos etc. could be shared via a You Tube Channel or other video sharing site. This digital work could include mini interviews with head teachers award winners about their work and then played in assembly or shared online.

In class, Apple TV can be used to share individual work. In an app like Explain Everything children can explain an idea or method in a plenary using images or text, these can be shared.

Pedagogy-should have a digital idea at the heart of it, this will enable digital literacy, create an audience and hopefully engage more students in a skills based curriculum. IT can be used to supplement each stage of our essential learning by supporting it rather than replacing it. 

iPads used more regularly can allow children to view or listen to teaching content and then carry out an activity or investigation-this allows the teacher to mentor each child providing a personalised learning journey and cementing teacher/pupil relationships.

Teacher to pupil sharing needs to be easy using the iPads. The air drop and air printing features need to be working well so that teachers who create videos or examples of work can quickly distribute it to the whole class so they can begin to work. Again, this would allow teachers to close gaps in learning or understanding. The next progression of this idea, is to share the videos which are to be used as the starting point the night before via the schools's digital platform. Tis would allow children to arrive prepared for the lesson and given time to think about the ideas as they go about their day. Flipped classroom?

Have a device setup to for those that don't watch at home.