Primary/Elementary Poetry and ICT = Creativity and Collaboration

Try using this poem in class. First as a paired discussion activity then moving on to creating an illustrated video with children reading the poem. See ideas at the bottom.

Miss Lotte

That Miss Lotte who was nuts;

I mean completely round the bend.

She’d wear socks on her hands

And wave them at her friends.

She’d put her dress on backwards

And odd shoes on each foot.

It was definitely more than loose,

A screw was missing from her nut.

That Miss Lotte who was loopy;

I mean completely round the twist.

She said she new double dutch

And could converse with the fish.

She ate her dinner in the bath

And drank the water from the loo.

While all around her said, she was

Completely crackers and cuckoo.

That Miss Lotte who was balmy;

I mean gaga, crazy and mad.

Told the children they could riot

In the lessons that they had.

Said they should dance on the table,

Shout out and have a laugh.

But they stood open mouthed and knowing

She was noodle brained and daft.

That Miss Lotte who is bog-eyed

Is jam-headed and mungo-jerried,

Over the rainbow, out of her mind,

Tap-doo-lally and wholly wellied.

She is actually very kind.

Although not her only feature:

That Miss Lotte who is bananas,

Is the world’s greatest teacher.


Ideas for Teaching 

1. Identify the words that rhyme. use them to look at phonemes with the same sounds but different spellings e.g. foot and nut
2. Draw a picture for each verse (have children work in pairs or threes to do this.)
3. ICT Idea - Have the children illustrate parts of the poem using a simple art program. Something as easy as Paint will do this. (Tip - get the children to draw with a thick paint brush and block colour the picture for a comic strip effect) I like pixlr.com which is a photo editor.
4. ICT idea 2 - Let the children record themselves reading/speaking the poem (use simple sound recorder on PC or audioboo or something similar)
5. ICT idea 3 - combine the above ideas - use Windows Movie-Maker or another free alternative. My choice would be Videopad . Please not that with Video pad - you install it first and then uninstall it to revert from pro to the free version. (Further alternatives here.) Add the sound recording of the reading and the pictures that illustrate the poem. Give it a title and credits and publish to the web.
6.  Make a list of the words for mad/crazy from the poem.
7. Make up your own words for crazy. Try finishing these phrases. (if you get stuck add food types in the spaces)

• Mad as a ...
• ... - headed
• ... - brained 

      8.  Write their own own crazy teacher/child poem using the following structure

           Write two lines using made up words for crazy (two made up words per line for the better students)

          Write four lines of crazy things they do

          Write two lines using made up words for crazy

Formative Assessment in ICT Part 2 (3 Phase Rubric Use)

This post builds upon the previous post: Formative Assessment in ICT. Following the implementation of a new framework in the top two years of the primary school, and training based around building websites, webpages and using and making a blog, I knew that I needed to introduce Formative Assessment to bring the whole thing to life. This became especially important as the ICT suites in the school were set up in rows and therefore the environment imposes very traditional (read here old fashioned) methods of delivery onto the teacher. The other relevant item is that my other duties including managing the end of year reports system and setting up the timetables for the following year started to dominate my timetable.

With full timetables and training calendar, I decided upon a couple of shorter sessions in the mornings before school starts. With our early morning starts (the school day starts at 7) and teacher’s multiple commitments after school that mean that that time is taken up, the morning briefing session are the only spaces we can find. I used one twenty minute session to refresh the basics of building a webpage with a layout that fits the non-fiction genres of the two year groups (non-chronological reports in Y6 and newspapers in Y5). For the second session I focused on Formative Assessment. In particular the use of rubrics to structure a number of sessions focused upon building a webpage.

To support the planning I had created two rubrics for a building a webpage which combined success criteria from both the English framework and the  new ICT framework. In my introduction I made the point that rubrics are a tool that can be used at different stages of the learning process. The building of a webpage is a cross-curricular mini-project. It may take anything from two lessons to a couple of weeks to complete. It can be used in the introduction to the work, in the middle to assess progress and set next step targets and then, finally, as a summative evaluation tool. I have worked with the rubrics in all three ways.

How the rubrics are used is as important as when they are used. Let’s take the example of their use in the introduction. The classic method would be to display a rubric on the interactive whiteboard for all to share. Then the teacher could read through each part and explain its meaning and importance. This could work but not necessarily engage all the children in the room. Year six is particularly hard to reach at times; between the bubbling of emotions because of puberty, the clicks of special bonds of friends in the room and the minds turned towards the thoughts of going to the high school. How to engage? The answer is in group work; Vygotsky highlighted the important part socialisation plays in the construction of learning. Getting the children into groups and discussing the rubric, with a scaffold for the talk, will create better engagement. The children should be in groups of three or four. Ask the children to identify the criteria that they all know how to do. Further ask them to circle three to four things that they don’t know how to do. (It doesn’t matter that they might know it all; by asking for three to four things it removes worry from children who are further behind).  This sharing with a focus of what to look for will engage children within each group and across the classroom. It can be followed up by a brief feedback session and revision of the parts the children don’t know how to do.

Group work was discussed in this post here. Giving the children roles also facilitates better group work.  An appointed leader, a reporter and a reader would be good roles for the above.

Using the rubric in the middle part of the project enables the children to self-evaluate their own progress. I keep the structure simple: Give out one rubric per group and the children then visit each website and judge what has been achieved and what that student’s next target is. Again I like the group to record the targets in the footer of the rubric. This gives the necessary scaffolding to the exercise so it is completed correctly.

The rubric can be used successfully at the end as a final summative assessment tool. This is particularly powerful in the hands of the children as it empowers them with the understanding of what excellent practice in the particular project area is and leaves each with a target. I found through trial and error that the method of use has to be slightly different in the final phase of assessment. Children can be trusted to make judgements about their peers standard of work, particularly if you are using a rubric with different standards. Children are not able to distinguish between their close friends and the quality of their work so a more impartial system has to be set up. Over the course of one hour I asked the children to open up the website on each computer. I also placed one rubric in front of each computer and a further piece of paper to record the level. I then stood all the children up and rotated them one row (approximately four seats) around the suite. The children then sat down and judged the website against the rubric. Each child would use a pencil and mark the rubric to make a judgement about the overall best fit. Approximately seven minutes later I asked the children to record a level on the piece of paper and then to stand up. And then a second time I rotated the children around the room and the children repeated the exercise. Over the course of one hour I did this four times. For the plenary session the children returned to their own seat. Each child inspected the pare with the four levels recorded and considered whether the judgements of the common majority were a fair reflection of their website. Children then wrote their name on the paper (not before as this could have prejudiced judgements) and then lined up to hand it in to me. Children then commented to me whether they were happy with the evaluation/agreed with its decision or didn’t agree. The two comments formed two different piles. I would commit myself to speak specifically to anybody who hadn’t been happy with the decisions when I reviewed all the assessments.

As I went through the assessments for the two hundred and fifty children in year five and six, I found that there were less than 5% that were incorrect. The majority of the children agreed with each other and the overall common assessment was correct.

New ICT Curriculum

Today has seen the emergence of my new curriculum. It is the first draft of the curriculum in a form close to what it will look like when finished. This curriculum is a response to the archaic QCA planning in existence in many schools that use the English National Curriculum as its basis. I work at an International School and inherited an ICT curriculum and department in the primary school that was in a minimal state. Four years down the line I have  tried a number of innovative uses of ICT, and alongside a redesign of the curriculum into one that is cross curricular in its delivery, I have put together an ICT curriculum that more closely mirrors technology as it is used today. Further the curriculum looks to the future. Skills that will become the common threads of future English curriculum are here: collaboration, problem solving, critical thinking, communication and creativity.

The Curriculum Map can be found here. 

The next stages will be to use this document to create some year group defined maps that will share the learning across the school. Further I will then match up the assessment rubrics that I have been working on and how they can be used. 

Formative Assessment in ICT

Having recently embarked upon the use of rubrics in ICT, I have come to recognise the true power of formative assessment. Sharing rubrics with children whilst teaching them the skill subsets that will allow them to produce high quality pieces of work has shown that using assessment as learning not only has an immense impact on learning but can also save the teacher a lot of time planning for differentiation.

A rubric is a grid of statements of differing levels of competency. The teacher or in this case the children can match up their work with the statements and then take the overall picture to show what level they are working at.  Furthermore, children can see which statements they have rated themselves weak at and are then able to set them selves targets for their learning.

As I used the rubrics this week I started to hear the same target from many of my year 5 children. "I need to add more links to my website." This informed me of where I needed to take my teaching the following week.

To get to this stage I started by looking at the attainment levels for ICT. I looked a the differences between level 3, level 4 and level 5. What I immediately realised was that the statements didn't tackle the concepts I was dealing with in blogging, building websites and collaboration. What I did then was to deconstruct the attainment statements. Through this deconstruction I could see the fundamental differences between these three levels. Level 3 inherently deals with being able to complete or use ICT concepts as directed by the teacher. Level 4 is the standard level of proficiency for carrying out ICT work. Children can use search engines, complete excel formula, create graphs, write a sequence of instructions or use a MS office program without constant direction or guidance. Level 5 involved a greater sophistication and understanding of the same things. The student was able to use their skills and apply them to different situations. The work they produced showed an understanding of the audience and demonstrated the skills used to their maximum potential.

Having stripped these three levels of attainment down to their bare bones I was able to start to build rubrics for each of the new elements of ICT planning using my new insights into the attainment levels. My first attempts successfully split the attainment into aspects and then further into three standards of attainment - level 3, level 4 and level 5. I used these with my year six children for a while. At the same time I had been teaching the Year Five children from the opposite direction by slowly building up their skills. I came to a halt with these children and realised I needed to share attainment ideas with them. This time though I set it as a class task. I identified the different skills we had been working on for building their website: adding pictures, adding text, using columns, adding pages, adding a blog and the quality of the writing on the website. From these headings I asked the children to work in pairs and discuss with their partner what would be at the level, below the level and above the level for each of these aspects. The children folded a piece of paper three ways and produced columns of statements under the headings: working below the level expected, working at the level expected and working above the level expected. We collated the results as a class and I used these to create a child friendly version of the rubric I had started with.

I have used rubrics in the middle of topics and they helped the children to understand what was required. Further, I have used them at the end of the topic as a peer assessment tool. The children worked in groups or individually to make judgments about the other children's websites. After the children had done this and quite accurately assessed their peers websites they could also identify what they themselves needed to do next with their own website. Assessment AS learning!

Leap of Faith: New ICT Curriculum

There's a scene in an old Indiana Jones Movie (many of you will be saying - Indiana Jones old?) called The Last Crusade when Indy comes to a chasm and is asked to step out and trust that he will be held up on faith alone. He figures out that there is an actual bridge there to step onto but still has to step out onto the appearance of nothing. I feel at that point currently at school.

I, like the vast majority of English National Curriculum ICT teachers around the world, have long known that the QCA based scheme of work and the derivatives there of, was outdated and  out of touch with today's technologies and innovations. Web 2.0 is a well worn phrase but has not not had more than a passing mention in the Cambridge GCSE syllabus. Netbooks and many different hand held devices from PSPs, Nintendos, tablets to smart phones and mp3 players.

Over the two and a half years I have used a variety of websites and blogs to learn about and update my own ICT knowledge. I started way back with the ground breaking Cool Tools for Schools. This alone was able to give structure to my explorations and directed me towards tools that were so useful and accessible. More recently I have become an avid twitterer and have followed and taken note of John Mclear, Claire Lotriet, Julie Skinner, Simfin, Dean Shareski, Phil Bagge, Simon Haughton and Ian Addison alongside many others. In particular Ian's curriculum at the end which made me recognise that I had put into place the majority of ingredients that I needed.

For the last four years I have been teaching ICT knowing that it was stale and not where I wanted to be but I also didn't have that clear picture. Now as the ingredients have come together and more importantly as the cloud ware has been made available free of charge or with a really reasonable minimal charge, my curriculum has started to take shape. I still will retain its core areas of data handling, finding out and collecting and presenting information, but I will add more digital media that will open up and invigorate the rest of the curriculum that it will connect with.

Here is the new curriculum overview.

Maybe this is not a leap of faith at all. In actual fact the bridge that will take the teachers to a better curriculum is there. Watch this space. 

Rubics for Website use.

As the terms work comes to a close, my thoughts turned towards assessing the children's work. I have to admit that visiting every child's website has been a chore. I have been done it three times this term. That's twenty five children to a class, five forms a year group, two year groups. Roughly 250 websites. Visiting topic webpages and blog reflections. Then to have to do the same whilst recording NC levels to feed back to the children and then have them do nothing. It is to a degree soul destroying. The answer is Assessment for Learning. I did this in two different ways.

I went first with the year six classes and broke down NC levels 3, 4 and 5 into sentences to describe websites. Level 3 focused on some evidence of work. Level 4 was a well presented website whilst level 5 showed a clear awareness of the audience as the website was constructed. I asked the children to use the teams (discussed in previous post here) to review each team members website and match the work that they had done with the sentences. The children then identified the level of best fit and a target of something to do next. I did this exercise with some three weeks of work left so that the children could then put into action their self appointed target and improve their work. The exercise worked very well and the children responded enthusiastically.

The year five groups worked in a slightly different way. We listed all the features that the children had been working on over the last few weeks on their websites. These included: Title, pages, subtitles, text, pictures and layout. The children then worked in pairs to construct sentences about each of these that described work 'At the expected level for the class', 'below the expected level for the class' and 'Above the expected level for the class'. The children started slowly and needed two to three worked examples across the statements but responded as the lesson went on and feedback during the plenary to create a whole picture. The children were also able to identify what level of the statements applied to their own websites. They were particularly honest too.

Schools of Tomorrow: Part 2 - Group Roles and Collaborative Learning

Group roles in the classroom is something that has interested me for a long time. Two weeks ago I used grouped or collaborative learning in my ICT lessons and had some of the best lessons I have had in years.

Using collaborative learning in the classroom has many benefits:

• Active learning that engages a range of intelligences and learning styles
• A motivating and powerful learning environment due to peer and teacher influence
• Develops cooperation and other social skills whilst learning content 
• Real life relevance that shifts emphasis away from academic focus (although it doesn't remove it)
• Optimises classroom resources (particularly technology)

The roles consisted of a leader, a timekeeper, a scribe and a computer technician. Although my lesson had a room of 26 computer workstations, I limited each group to the use of one computer. I started by explaining each of the roles. A showed the importance of the timekeeper in tracking the different tasks, ensuring that their group completed each part and finished everything on time. The computer technician was the only person allowed to touch the computer. They did the typing and clicking and I didn't let the other team members touch the computer, giving the computer technician the kudos for the role. I spent some time highlighting the different dimensions of the leadership role. The role required the leader to keep all the other roles doing their jobs - the timekeeper keeping time, the scribe scribing and the computer technician teching. I also warned that if the group wasn't doing what they should be doing then I would take the leaders to task about it. I said it was their job to ensure the group worked. Further I said that at the end of the lesson, instead of highlighting students that I was particularly impressed with, I would say well done to the leader of the team that had worked well and it was their job to in turn say well done to their team.

The task revolved around the websites that each of the children had been building on Weebly for the previous five weeks. I had reached a point where I needed the children to look at what different levels of attainment meant in developing their websites. We had a list of criteria but the children were not really motivated to include the relevant parts. I had spent the previous weekend trawling the 120 fledgling websites and I had picked out the best 3-4 out of each class. I linked them to my Class ICT websites as current examples of good practice. The group were tasked with going to each linked website and identifying the items that had been developed on the website. We called this looking at good website practice. I gave the children twenty minutes to do this and it was the job of the timekeeper to ensure the group looked at enough websites. All of the children became engrossed in the task. As the twenty minutes went by, I reviewed the progress of the groups to ensure they had a list long enough for the next stage of the lesson.

I found that a couple of groups (and far from being the usual suspects) had not made enough progress. As I had warned at the beginning of the lesson, I told the leaders of the groups that it was not good enough and their group had to improve their progress. The result of this was fantastic. Each group stepped up and ensured the tasks were completed.

As I surveyed each of the classes that I had that day, I could see every child engaged. Some children took me completely by surprise and chose roles that led to do things that they would not normally do. A child, who I'll call Acer, chose to be the scribe and I could see him with his head down for the duration of the lesson, listening to the others and writing what they had to say.

The Timekeepers then signalled to each of their groups to switch task and they moved on. The end task was for the children to review each of the websites in their group. Then use the list of 'good practice' that they had compiled from reviewing the example websites to give each member of the group a target for their website. Even the tidying up went so much better with every leader being told it was their responsibility to ensure their area was left spotless.

At the beginning of this post I identified reasons for involving children in collaborative learning. One of those reasons was the optimisation of resources. Particularly in this modern world where we encounter new technology every month, I want to be able to use these things with my class. The latest meaningful trend is the tablet for the classroom. If you are trying to provide for every child or even every pair of children, it can mean buying at least fourteen new computers. Not a budgeting figure that means schools can react to the latest technology. But if you consider the use of the technology in the above group roles scenario,  a class of twenty-four could have six teams of four. Six teams would need only one tablet per team. Six iPads or Samsung Galaxy Tabs is a budgeting figure that is far more easily considered.

Group learning or collaborative learning can transform any classroom. It can bring an energy and direction that involves every child in the classroom. I found that once it was under way, I was able to work with individual children on their key skills. I demonstrated tabbing for speeding up the task and went through adding favourites with a couple of groups that had obviously not picked it up when I had taught it previously as a whole class exercise. It will be how I will approach the planning for the next half term.

I started to think about what other roles would be of use in the classroom. The role of  presenter is a natural addition to the group. It would have been good to have one child present their groups findings. I thought that four in a group worked very well so therefore I would be left with the conundrum of which person to take on the extra role. This problem arose a number of times during the day and I had a number of groups of three. I had thought that the timekeeper role would double up with the computer technician as the clocks we were using were on the computers but the children had other ideas. I recognized that this was a decision taken far better at group level.

You can find my developmental ideas below:

And can be found at: http://www.mindmeister.com/121351035/group-roles-collaborative-learning

Although an ongoing project, one area that I am going to develop further is the use of stock phrases. For the children to take on the role, they need to speak in that role. This doesn't come naturally so scaffolding the speaking, by providing a bank of stock phrases that can be used, will be important. You can see in the diagram where I have started to add them. Also you will find links to the research websites and resources I have come across. If you have any resources that I could add you could contact me through twitter or comment below.

References
http://www.wcer.wisc.edu/archive/Cl1/CL/doingcl/icebreak.htm
http://serc.carleton.edu/introgeo/cooperative/roles.html
http://teaching.berkeley.edu/bgd/collaborative.html
http://cte.uwaterloo.ca/teaching_resources/tips/group_roles.html
http://www.readwritethink.org/files/resources/lesson_images/lesson277/cooperative.pdf

Writing an Alphabet Poem

A simple poem structure can still let you, as the teacher, explore a number of poetic elements. Here I look at using the alphabet poem. Often thought of as over simplistic, this poem will grab all of your students' attention. They will laugh outloud as they explore the different sound effects. All writers, from the weakest to the most boyish, will be happy to have a go.The individual lines are sophisticated enough to stretch the most able of children.You will find the poem linked below with a writing scaffolding template linked as well. Alternatively I have often just put the first few lines on the board (IWB or hand--written) and the structure speaks for itself.

Start a lesson by asking children if they have ever made a sound for a gun while playing a game. Go around the class listening to suggested sounds and phonetically transcribe the sounds on the board for all to see.

Introduce the next poem as about an alien that comes to earth in a spaceship and shoots lots of different things before returning to space. Ask the children to think about the size of the things that the Gwolsh shoots and to decide if this might give an idea to the size of the Gwolsh.

Read A Gwolsh with a Gun by Tricky McDee.

Using the Poem

1. Look at the structure of the poem - identify the alphabetic pattern
2. Look at the pattern from line to line where the alphabetic pattern starts (sound effect first word, three words of alliteration, animal/object in the middle of line, effect or what happens on the end)
3. Spot changes to the pattern - does it matter?
4. Write their own part to the poem using the writing scaffolding frame here
5. older or higher ability children can attempt the writing scaffolding without seeing the original poem

Follow Up

Sound effects are for saying out loud. The children should read the poems putting as much effort into making their sound effect words as possible.

Larry's Helmet: Poem and Resources 6-11 yrs of Age

Larry’s Helmet

Larry had a helmet.

He brought it into school.

We all crowded round him,

Thought he looked so cool.

But when you put it on,

It was the strangest of things.

Weird ideas in your head.

New powers at your fingers.

You could make it fire out

Orange lasers at your friends.

Teleport them to the roof,

Till they accept your demands.

Invisibly walk around

Pushing little ‘uns out your way.

Make them think a monster

Had descended on their day.

But the thing I liked the most

Was the timely teacher test.

A smack around the head was when

The helmet worked the best.

 

Larry's Helmet is a poem by children's poet Tricky McDee. It is a poem that rhymes and that rhyme scheme can be explored. A good source of discussion is whether lines 6 and 8 rhyme. Older children can be introduced to the term half rhyme and could brainstorm half rhyme pairs on their table wipe-boards. 'ing' would be a good place to start with half rhyme creation.

Although Larry's Helmet contains rhyme, it does not mean it needs rhyme to make it a poem. This point must be stressed when teaching. This can be reinforced by asking the children to write their own poems. I will advocate a structured procedure below, but if you have children that understand and appreciate poetry writing, then don't tie them into this procedure. Just ask them to brainstorm around some areas before they set off writing.

The poem can be downloaded here.

6-8 Years of Age

Read the poem a couple of times. Have the children imagine they were putting the helmet on. What powers would it give them?

Write a poem by following the defined structure.

1. Decide on a child's name and ask them to describe their helmet
2. Write a line about what the helmet will do to their friends
3. Write a line about what their helmet will do in class
4. Write a line about a good/bad thing that the helmet will do (depends on the bias of the first two lines - third should be opposite)
5. Write a line about when the helmet works the best

For the younger children or in an ESL setting I would brainstorm each of these on the whiteboard; writing the answers given by the children in note form. The lowest ability children will then be able to choose lines from each category; cutting and pasting their ideas together to form their poem.

9-11 years

I would still follow the above structure but ask the children to write rhyming paired lines for each of the lines above. I would also ask the children to consider each of the senses to add depth to the poem. (Consider sight and add a colour - if it fits, consider sound and a suitable adjective.)

Follow up

The writing process should be:

• think
• write
• edit
• re-draft
• final draft

Above we covered think and write. The children should be given the opportunity to re-draft and finally do a presentation piece on a regular basis. (At least once every three weeks.) I like to use line guides behind plain white paper. Once they have written it out on paper, ensure they give their work a title and include a design or illustration or illustrated border.