A couple of weeks ago I found myself indebted to the Twitter community of teachers and other interested people, who helped me out with my Maths observation. I needed some real life, interesting and challenging questions on the theme of percentages. I genuinely needed help as Testbase Online was locked for me / in use by someone else and besides when I did finally gain access the questions around percentages were not that great anyway. So, I asked on Twitter for some questions and this is what I got.
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Thank you so much for everyone who offered up a tweet it really helped me to prepare and it helped the children see Maths as a real life experience.
This is not a long post or a detailed how to about Kodu. I merely want to flag up how great this software is for upper Key Stage 2. Essentially Kodu is about giving children a meaningful and quite exciting context to learn some aspects of programming. They have to compile strips of instructions based on when (a condition occurs for example see a red apple) and do (an action , for example eat the apple).
I have worked with two Year Six classes this week and the cries of “woah” and “sick” were many as they saw the games that others had built. In terms of this forming part of a coding/programming/computer science curriculum, Kodu is an easier and perhaps sexier way in for many teachers. Though do not expect to just leave the children to get on with it, as it is so much more satisfying if you get to grips with it yourself first. This week the task was to instruct the “Kodu” character to move with the arrow keys (though you can use Xbox controllers) and locate apples. They then needed to score a point for eating a red and have a point deducted for eating a blue. I gave some input but also added some challenges, which the children relished.
Their next task was to design an island, though we will move on to a Martian landscape, in order to help them get to grips with the design tools. This was perhaps down to the trial and error, the editing, improving and experimenting which the children were involved in. Working with Kodu does not feel like a million miles away from sitting at my desk in 2Simple Software. That feeling of creating something, of problem solving, of innovating on a piece of code, of breaking something and putting it back together, of looking online for answers… And then the satisfaction of looking back or sharing what you have made with others. That is what Kodu offers and that is what I would like to see more of this sort of challenging, mind taxing and yet creative ICT. As much as I love my iPad apps and my free online tools, there is still nothing quite so challenging and coding based on an iPad. If all we ever do is wheel round trolleys of iPads and present children with apps, then i think we present an image of ICT which is one of watered down simplicity. We also fail to equip them with the belief that they could build an app or a game.
Today I went into my classroom to begin to “dress” it and organise things for my new class. I get really excited about this and love transforming the freshly cleaned walls and furniture into an environment fit for learning.
At this time of the year the class walls are a blank canvas, crisp with new backing paper but devoid of any work, bright but lacking any excitement. I like to fill the spaces between the dull display boards with a mix of learning centric resources and exciting posters, some of these are inspirational and some are just images of Doctor Who. The Doctor and his foes are still very inspirational of course and I am sure pictures of his more recent selves fighting Daleks must surely raise standards in classes across the UK.
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Aside from science fiction images, I like to create more localised posters to inspire and provoke the class. Previously I might have used tools like Bighugelabs.com and the motivator poster maker. These are great browser based tools, but I have since discovered an app for making contemporary posters. Phoster is an IOS app for combining photographs and text on a selection of very funky poster backgrounds. Once you are happy with the design you can then apply a range of filters to your work, for example make it look folded or stained with a coffee ring.
To make my Phosters I used Autocollage from Microsoft on my PC to make a composite image of my new pupils and then emailed this to myself in order to use it in my phosters. I was a bit stuck for ideas on what to actually use as the provocative and profound text . I turned to Twitter for some inspiration, as my only thought was that Heather Small Line
These are great words, but a bit tired by now. Thankfully a quick tweet brought in some new ideas and a good deal of people who favoured Stephen Hawking‘s comments at the opening of the Paralympic games.
I am pleased with how the finished posters look, clearly the one above if Felix and not a mash-up of my class, but you get the idea.
Now that I have used this app I am looking forward to letting my pupils use it too, projects like the Cup Cake company that we cover in Year 5 would be greatly enhanced by its use for stylish and contemporary advertising campaigns. My only criticism of this app is the limited number of backgrounds it contains, i hope more will be released. I’d also like the ability to insert more than one photograph into my poster. Lets hope these features are coming in the near future from Bucketlabs who make this app and the other unique photo app Grid Lense
For more on Phoster, see the video below, where the narrator is justifiably excited by the app.
As the school year rapidly runs out, teachers and pupils reflect back on the last three terms. After the marking and report writing we move into a time of end of year festivities. For Year Six there will inevitably be a tearful nostalgic slide show at leavers’ assembly, this being a masterpiece put together by a harassed coordinator or technician of course.
In the run up to this pupils at the top of the school may also be working on their own digital reflections. My pupils are working on the Switched On ICT, ‘We Are Publishers Unit’. A project which means they must mine the folders of images on the network. Locating poignant photographs of their time in the school, in order to combine these with suitable text.
One idea to enhance this project is to use photo collages. I have recently rediscovered the brilliant Autocollage tool from Microsoft which does this job brilliantly. I used it yesterday to create header images for my class blog. It can arrange up to 50 images into a montage of blended photographs, which look amazing! You can choose to have the finished product in a portrait or landscape format and pick either standard photo sizes or use advanced options to customise the output to your dimensions.
This image is an example of 7 images from a recent visit to the Sea life Centre given the Auto Collage Treatment. You can get this software for your school along with lots of other free tools and resources by becoming a Microsoft Partner in Learning, click here for more details.
