Change bLog

‘Bod was sad’.

This is the sentence that was first suggested by our primary class in response to the question ‘how does Bod feel?’ Bod, incidentally, is the name the class has decided to give our electronic hero in the game Samorost 2. After much discussion and refinement the class arrived at this final sentence:

‘Bod felt scared and alone in the dark, damp underground place’.

Now this might not seem like a very impressive result, especially when the class has a mixture of KS2 year groups. In context, however, this is very exciting.

All of the children our primary class have moderate or severe learning difficulties and all but one has emotional and behavioural problems. Two are autistic and there are a multitude of other potential barriers to learning. This means that they often struggle to remain engaged. The first part of our Samorost 2 journey took 45 minutes, and the children remained highly motivated throughout. Even the staff were scribbling down the web address in order to continue the adventure at home.

The language used was excellent, thinking of loads of different ways to say he was scared, such as frightened and anxious. The children also listened well to each other. Add into the mix that the children have limited vocabularies, this way of learning has great potential.

The hope is that each week the children will blog their sentences accompanied by the related screenshot.

In my school we are starting, slowly but surely, to create a buzz around changing the way we work. I can hardly wait until we start blogging and sharing our work, be it written, audio or video.

To do this we need to think about improving access to web based resources. The EeePC has the potential to be a part of the solution. It’s range of hardware and software features seem to be well suited to use in schools. We use open source software on our current fleet of Apple Macs which means integrating the EeePC into our setup should be reasonably painless. More details are available here from the LTS blog or you can watch the embedded video below. The EeePC is currently being distributed in the UK as the MiniBook by RM with prices starting at £169.

Another interesting alternative is the XO from the non-profit “one laptop per child” project. It has some very interesting social networking capabilities, especially the ‘mesh’ network feature, which allows uses to connect and interact with each other in peer networks. The distribution model is to sell to governments in bulk. More information can be found here and the YouTube comments for the video below are also quite interesting. This little computer has definitely divided opinion. The $100 XO is, according to the video below, being manufactured for $140 and is available through selected central governments.

PS. Please watch the videos because it has taken me AGES to work out how to post them on here!

EDIT – The EeePC is also available from non-education suppliers. Click here for more information.

In my school we have a lot of students that are socially able but struggle academically.  This means that, whilst they can operate a computer better than a lot of the staff, they hit a brick wall when they encounter text.  Consequently,  they are alienated from the educationally beneficial (and fun) web 2.0 movement.  Enter Alex.

Alex is the current voice of my computer.  Using the inbuilt text-to-speech functionality on my Apple MacBook I can select almost any text in almost any program and instruct the computer to read it to me.  To do this in Safari (the Apple version on Internet Explorer) I highlight the text I want to hear, click on ‘Safari’ in the top menu bar, then click ’services’, then click ’speech’ and finally ’start speaking’.  With a little bit of know-how I’m sure this could actually become a button at the top of the web browser to save all the menu navigation (Users of older Macs won’t have the option of Alex, but will have a good choice of other voices which, whilst a bit robotic, are quite clear).  The implications of this are that my students go from being left out to ahead of the game, which provides a massive and much needed boost to their self-esteem and helps them access become a part of what’s going on. 

I wish there was a way in which my students could convert speech to text, but a lot of the solutions are more hassle than they are worth.  I was unfortunate enough to be lent some dictation software whilst completing my degree to help combat my dyslexia.  I gave it back.  My hope is that the students will be so motivated to contribute that they will start to use basic tools, such as the spell checker, to enable them write.  They manage to text each other without much problem, why should this be any different?!   

Last night, after an unsuccessful attempt to go to sleep, I decided to write down a few ideas for the direction of ICT in my school.  My chosen vehicle was Google docs, with the plan of telling my Head Teacher that he’d have to sign up in order to view the document, which he duly did.  Well, the few ideas became nearly 1500 words which made me feel like I was back in the first year of my teaching degree, prolonging my insomnia.  I won’t put a full transcript of what became a letter to the senior management team here, but I will reveal the main headings as they are pretty self explanatory.

Don’t catch up, innovate!
Interactive whiteboards? – projectors are more important
ICT across the curriculum – out of ICT and into the subjects
ICT groups are too big
Buying ICT together – video cameras for PE?
Mobile Phones, MP3 players – take them from the darkside

Although there is plenty more I want to achieve, I didn’t want to scare anybody too much.  My Head Teacher’s response was one of full support, lets hope we can achieve something. 

I’ve been using Samorost 2 with my literacy group since hearing about it from Ewan McIntosh at the Derbyshire LA ICT conference.  I have never seen my group so engaged!  The children, with varying types and degrees of special needs, found the problem solving and rich graphics incredibly engaging.  One of my more troublesome pupils was writing sentences about it long after the lesson had finished.  

To prevent going over old ground, you can read more on the subject here and here from Ewan and here from Kim Pericles.  What I will say is that a game like this means all of my class can access it on a number of levels, with specific open questions aimed at individuals.  So far it’s working well…

I’m currently looking at the possibility of changing the way we teach ICT in our school.  I work in a special school, some children with moderate learning difficulties and a growing number with behavioural problems.  I think our children would benefit more from ‘playing’ or experimenting with ICT to produce something relevant to them rather than just ploughing through the curriculum writing letters and making graphs.  Surely these things could be done in English and Maths! However, i’m not sure if I can get away with doing this.  
The first reason for my apprehension is the worry that we won’t cover the curriculum properly and I’ll end up in trouble with OFSTED (I’m sure every NQT’s biggest fear is OFSTED).  The second reason is that I’ve only been qualified for a few months and I will be trying to get experienced teachers to use ICT who don’t want to.  Tricky Stuff.  Thankfully the school has teachers who really want to help get this new way of working off the ground.  
More updates soon…