Session Six - 4th December 2012: Games and mLearning

Six weeks have flown by and it is almost the end of the ICT module part of our PGCE Primary course. It has been a steep learning curve for me but an exciting and rewarding journey into lots of new areas of learning. Not least, creating a weekly blog which I hope you will have enjoyed reading (especially Lorraine!) and which will be good enough to meet the criteria to help me pass the ICT module.  As with most new learning, the first couple of blogs took me hours and hours to produce and left me with a negative impression of blogging as I felt that I could have achieved the same result in powerpoint in half an hour. 

However, as the course has progressed and I have stuck with it, I have learned more about how to compile a blog much more quickly, including adding pictures, links and video clips.  So now I can see the benefits of such a method of communication. There are loads of ways in which I can incorporate blogging into my teaching practice across all areas of the National Curriculum.  It will help to make the learning experience for children in my classrooms really engaging, memorable and relevant to them.  It might also help me with the task of assessing children.

This week's final teaching session focused on games based learning, including playful learning (using dance mats) in the primary classroom.  It also looked at mLearning (mobile learning).  We considered the developments in mobile technologies and the implications for teaching and learning. My blog will cover my learning from the session and the implications for my teaching practice.  As this is the last of my weekly blogs, I will also reflect on my learning across the whole module and briefly discuss my thoughts on the use of ICT to support children's learning in primary schools.

 
Research has suggested that UK children are amongst the most unhappy and least engaged in their learning in the world.  A report in 2007 by Unicef provided a comprehensive assessment of the lives and well-being of children and young people in 21 nations of the industrialized world.  They created a Report Card, ranking each nation by looking at six factors affecting children and young people: material well-being; health and safety; educational well-being; family and peer relationships; behaviours and risks and subjective-well-being.  The UK was bottom or close to bottom of the league table in five of the six dimensions, including educational well-being.

The full Unicef report (An overview of child well-being in rich countires) is available at:

http://www.unicef.org/media/files/ChildPovertyReport.pdf

My Key Learning from today's session included:

- A greater understanding of how games based learning (e.g. KODU, Myst Exile, Machinarium and Dance to Advance) can support primary education

- The value of simulations in teaching about things like Citizenship and Environmental issues

- How computer games can develop children's imagination, problem solving, resiliance and communication skills

- The increasing use of mobile technology such as iPads in primary school classrooms

KODU is a computer package that enables children to create games via a simple visual programming language.  It can be used to teach creativity and storytelling as well as programming.  It can help children with critical thinking, breaking a complex goal into manageable steps by introducing the logic and problem solving of programming.  It introduces conditions, which teaches cause and effect.

In the session we also got to use the Dance to Advance software, which links programmable questions to a dance mat.  You answer each question by stepping on the appropriate part of the dance mat.  This has lots of opportunities for testing understanding of learning right across the National Curriculum in the core subjects of Maths, English and Science but also in Foundation subjects like History, Geography and Modern Foreign Languages.  This could also be a fun and involving way for children with disabilities to learn e.g. if children do not have use of their hands and arms.

It is easy to get hooked on computer games as you try to reach the next level etc.  Even in our short session, adventure games like Myst Exile and Machinarium had that effect on some people (our tutor included!).

There have been lots of books and articles written about how computer games can support learning and development.  An example can be found at this link:
http://henryjenkins.org/2007/01/an_interview_with_david_schaff.html

Here is a youtube clip which talks about how research has shown that playing computer games can support learning and development, from an early age:

Towards the end of the last session there was just enough time for us to learn about two other very useful applications for the primary school setting.  The first is WORDLE (www.wordle.net) which allows the user to create their own wordcloud and the second is VOKI (www.voki.com) which allows the user to create their own speaking Avatar.

Well, not quite.  As it's the end of the module, here are my reflections from my learning over the last six weeks on how ICT can support children's learning and development....

The course has strengthened my thinking that ICT can have a profound impact on learning and teaching.  It was largely non-existent in primary schools before 1983 and since then advances have been relatively rapid, especially following the Stevenson Report (1997) which informed the new Labour Government's education policy at that time.  Schools need to keep up with the technological world in which today's children live.  ICT can motivate and engage children by providing a tool for investigative and collaborative learning.  It supports a dynamic, creative and interactive teaching style.

In order for ICT to be used most effectively, children need to be using it in an interactive and dynamic way.  Automation without a teacher cannot and will not do this.  A computer cannot ask open questions, not can it respond to children's questions safely and securely in a way that moves the children's learning forward in a planned and structured way. The key pedagogical reasons for using ICT seem to me to be:

1. Interactivity - it encourages children to make decisons, see the consequences and act on the feedback.  It encourages children to explore, learn from dead ends and frustrations and develop perseverance in trying out ideas and learning from things that work and things that don't work.

2. Provisionality - it enables children to keep track of development ideas as they try out alternatives and make changes.  Work can be edited, redrafted and developed at any point and can be worked on by many different children.

3. Capacity and range - computers can handle a vast amount of data and informaion very quickly.  Information can be in many forms e.g. text, visual images, sound etc. 

4. Speed and automation - as the tasks of storing, changing and displaying information are carried out by technology, users are able to read, observe, interrogate and analyse information and higher levels.  ICT gives children time to think and ask questions about the meaning of the information.  Pupils can access higher levels of learning and understanding because the technology is doing the often time consuming manual and menial tasks for them.

ICT can be a significant time saver for both children and teachers.  Time saved by ICT can then be spent more effectively on the other aspects of learning,  For example, children might collect data from a traffic survey and then put it into a data-handling application so that they can interpret and use the results rather than spending hours drawing bar charts.  For teachers, it is a time saver not only in the provision of material for lessons but also for assessment for learning.

It is important to select ICT packages carefully as many can be fun and engaging but have little educational content.  It is also important that children are in control of the computer and not the other way around.  ICT can be of great benefit in supporting differentiation in lessons and helping SEN and EAL pupils.  It can also be used very effectively to stretch Gifted and Talented pupils.

Some schools are also making good use of ICT to develop stronger home-school links through virtual learning environments.  A school I have worked in made good use of this facility for its Year 6 class by setting all homework via the virtual learning environment.  They used the commercially available 'I am learning' software (www.iamlearning.co.uk) which is a really good, but expensive, tool that uses games to motivate learners.  It facilitates effective homework, revision and exam practice whilst promoting independent learning.  Children can submit homework on line and parents/carers are encouraged to take part in on-line chat sessions.  Teachers can get meaningful reports with detailed gap analysis to identify weaknesses, monitor progress and help improve learning outcomes.

In December 2011, Ofsted produced their report 'ICT in schools : 2008-11'.  It is an interesting read. Key recommendations for primary schools included: 
- To  improve the use of assessment of pupils’ progress in ICT, ensuring that pupils know how well they are doing and what they should do to move on to the next level

- To  ensure that pupils receive their complete entitlement to all areas of the ICT curriculum and that the ICT curriculum is engaging and relevant to pupils’ needs within and beyond the classroom

- To  provide subject-specific support and professional development to improve teachers’ confidence and expertise, enabling them to teach ICT more effectively

- To  evaluate the costs and benefits of establishing collaborative specialist services for ICT commissioning and procurement

- To  continue to make e-safety a priority in the curriculum, in staff training and in support for parents.

The full report can be accessed at:

http://www.ofsted.gov.uk/resources/ict-schools-2008-11

The place of ICT in the primary school curriculum will continue to change as does the technological world in which we live.  It will be interesting to see what the new 2014 Primary National Curriculum has to say about this important aspect of children's learning and development and teaching pedagaogy.

Now I'm afraid it really is...

                                                                                                              ....Thanks for reading my blogs!