Interesting article that is worth a read. Not heard of the Tablets for Schools campaign before.
What with the recent Surface Offer from Microsoft and companies like Jigsaw24 offering free iPad trials its seems that the market is getting very competitive for schools interest.
Showing posts with label ipad. Show all posts
Showing posts with label ipad. Show all posts
Becontree iPads Project - Children's Feedback
We asked the children in both of the year 2 classes, a set of questions about their use of computers in and out of school and their hardware preferences. We asked these questions at the start and the end of the project. Please follow the link below for the results.
Children's iPad feedback on Posterous
Becontree iPad Project Summary
We have loved using the iPads at Becontree Primary School and are very sad now that they have had to go back. When we first received the iPads the children were very excited to use them and they have been similarly excited during the last term when we have been using them. They have been extremely sensible when using them and they have had no problems in sharing them and taking turns.
On the positive side they are very easy to use and move from one room to another as they are so light and easily portable. Due to this nature two classes can use them in one afternoon as the children can sensibly take them from one class to another. As the iPads are not as large and bulky as a computer they aid discussion when used in a group, as children can easily use the iPad as a discussion point and talk over the top of it.
There are thousands of apps available that can be easily incorporated into many lessons across all curriculum areas. These are often fun and engaging and encourage all children to take part. The iPads are very user friendly. All that is needed to operate an iPad is the child’s finger and all children, even those that have special educational needs or who have English as an additional language, can use them easily.
Most importantly, the children really enjoyed using them and all felt that the iPads had helped them in their learning. They were certainly engaged in lessons where the iPads were used.
Although there are many positive aspects to using the iPads there are also drawbacks to them. When we first tried to use the iPads, we quickly realised that they were not all the same. The initial set up took a long time, making sure that they were all updated to IOS 5 (hopefully not an issue with newly purchased iPads) and then ensuring that they all had the same apps on them and on the same screens (making it easier for children to find apps demonstrated by the teacher). However, once this was completed, it made life a lot easier and the iPads were much easier to use.
There are also updates which are needed from time to time for the apps. They do not take long to update but obviously each iPad needs the update and internet connection is needed for this. If like our school you have a portable wireless router this needs to be available to download the updates and obviously for some apps (such as Google Earth) too.
Charging the iPads is also necessary. They do have a long battery life but they need to be continuously checked to ensure they do not run flat in the middle of a lesson. Charging them is easy but there needs to be enough available plug sockets. Work cannot be printed from the iPads directly (without an air-print printer) and to sometimes, to save the work a picture needs to be taken and then imported into a folder. It is not that difficult to do once you understand how to do this but it is something else that takes time with numerous iPads. A Dropbox account is a definite asset to centrally save work and there is a Dropbox app for the iPad.
The main disadvantage to the iPads is that they are very expensive and due to this we only had six to use. This can be difficult to organise when using them with a class of thirty children, but given the choice we would love to keep them. In fact, having used them with EAL children, the EAL department has invested the last of their budget on a school iPad and wireless router. I hope we will be able to invest in more in the future.
A trip around the Earth...
As well as continuing to use the iPads in Maths and English lessons for starters, we have built the iPads into our IPC (International Primary Curriculum) lessons in the last few weeks. We have been learning about heroes and the children started by learning about past heroes and heroines including Florence Nightingale. One of their tasks was to use Google Earth on the iPads, to explore the places that Florence Nightingale visited. They found this task very interesting. One of the children made the comment that seeing the globe zoom out and move made them realise how far Florence travelled from England to the Crimean.
Initially we had some problems getting Google Earth to connect and the app kept hanging. We had to update the app and once we had done this it worked fine. It did highlight the need to check that apps are working before the lesson. With apps still being developed there can be quite a few bugs!
These superheroes were created with Make me a superhero Lite. My criticism of this app is that there is a fairly limited amount that can be changed to personalise your superhero, however it does allow you to save your superhero. Perhaps the full version allows more variation.
In contrast, Superhero Creator has quite a lot that can be changed but does not have an external save function. The children could only view their heroes within the app. One workaround for this could be to take a screen shot (press the iPad's home button and power button at the same time).
Reading, Spelling and Ofsted!
In Year 2 at Becontree Primary School the iPads have been used on many different occasions. In one of our Year 2 classes we have a child who hardly speaks any English and is at the very early stages of learning her letter sounds. When the rest of the class are completing their handwriting practice, this particular child uses the ‘iWriteWords’ app on the iPad, with the support of an SSA. This allows the child to practise forming letter sounds whilst hearing the sound of the letter as well. The SSA also encourages the child to say the letter sound as well in order for her to try and learn them. The only slight problem with this app is that some letters do not conform to the cursive handwriting style that we teach the children in Year 2. For example a ‘t’ and ‘l’ are slightly different to the way that we teach the children. Now that this child has become familiar with the app, she can use it independently if needed.
The iPads have also been invaluable during Reading and Spelling Workshop lessons, especially for the lower ability group. When the children are working independently in their guided reading groups, one group each day uses the iPads, on a rotation basis. The apps that they use are mainly ‘iWriteWords’ for children who need to practise their letter formation and learn their letter sounds as well as ‘Bubble Spell’ where the children are shown a word, which then disappears, and they need to press the correct letters to spell the word. These apps are perfect for this lesson where the children work in small groups and each child can have an iPad. The children using the iPads often work with an SSA but as they have become more familiar with, and able to use the iPads, they can work independently.
Recently, we had an Ofsted single subject inspection on ICT. As we are fortunate to have 6 iPads in Year 2 at the moment, these were used when the inspector came to observe a Maths lesson. The iPads were used during the starter of the lesson. The children were grouped into 3s or 4s and had one iPad between them. The remaining children in the group were given a whiteboard. The children used the app ‘Eggs on Legs’ which has questions relating to addition, subtraction, multiplication and division. There are also 3 difficulty levels for each area. The children focused on addition and subtraction on the first level. These games consisted of normal addition and subtraction questions as well as some missing number sums. This is an area that the children found difficult on their recent test. Once they were shown how to calculate the answers to missing number sums, all children were able to complete the games successfully. Initially, when the children were given iPads to use in groups they did not always work well as a team. The child with the iPad often dominated and the other children did not get involved as much as they could. They had to be reminded that they were working as a team and the children with whiteboards had to write the answer on that first, after discussing the answer with their group, before the child with the iPad pressed the answer. With practice, the children worked very well with the iPads and shared them sensibly.
The children in Year 2 love using the iPads and use them very sensibly. They understand how expensive and valuable they are. They are very good at sharing them, even when they haven’t specifically been asked to. There have hardly been any problems with the children using them. They are very user friendly and simple to operate.
Becontree iPads project - week 5 and 6
In the last two weeks we have used the iPads for both starter activities and as extention activities for early finishers.
In Maths the children used the app Super 7HD, a game which sounds easy but gets challenging fairly quickly. The aim is to make 7 by drawing a line between numbers. Some of these numbers are negative and the numbers are constantly moving. You have to avoid collisions between numbers that would take you over 7, or it is 'Game Over'.
The children enjoyed the app. It exercised their mental maths skills and gave them an added time pressure. They also had their hand/eye coordination tested in trying to be accurate when tracing lines between numbers.
In English we used Bubble Spell as an extension for quick finishers. This is a lovely app with a gorgeous under water theme, perfect for our year 2 children. There are three difficulty levels and I used the easy level with my lowest attainers.
They are presented with a word and a visual representation of the word. The word then disappears but the visual cue stays on screen. They are then presented with a number of bubbles containing letters and they must select the correct letters in the right order to spell the word. The bubbles move, so the children have to search for the letters and you can change the time allowed to get a word up to 59 seconds.
The children worked in pairs on this and it kept them very focussed. My only criticism of this app is that it would be beneficial if the word stayed on screen slightly longer than the couple of seconds that it currently displays. However, tapping the visual cue does show the word again.
Following our work with the iPads, our EAL coordinator is considering purchasing an iPad to use with our EAL children.
Becontree iPads project - week 4
This week at Becontree Primary School we have struggled to find time to use the iPads. As Christmas is approaching quickly, we have been in the middle of many Christmas play rehearsals, making Christmas tree decorations and also making hall decorations.
It has been assessment week this week and all children have been completing their termly maths and writing assessments. We have used the iPads this week for maths lessons. Once the children had completed their maths paper, they had the opportunity to play 'Math Drills Lite'.
While using 'Math Drills Lite', the children were told to use the adding and subtraction mode. They therefore practised their adding and subtraction skills. In this app, the problems are presented vertically rather than horizontally, as the children are familiar with. This was an advantage of using the app, as it gave the children the chance to see that calculations can be presented in different forms. Once it was explained that the problems were the same as they were used to and that they were just written differently, the children could answer them successfully.
As we only have six iPads, a group of six children used them first and the rest of the class played Maths games on 'Education City', which is an Internet based program that we have subscribed to at Becontree Primary School. Once the group of six children using the iPads had finished their game, they were rotated with children playing 'Education City'. This was repeated until all children had had a chance to use the iPads.
The children enjoyed using the iPads and used them very sensibly and carefully. All children accepted that they would have a turn using the tablets and play 'Education City' and were happy to give up the tablet at the end of their turn.
Next week, we are going to try and incorporate the iPads into more of our lessons.
iPads for Starters
We decided to use the iPads in maths lessons for a couple of weeks. It has been quite difficult to plan their use into lessons this week, mainly due to so many lessons being taken over by Christmas rehearsals. Because of this, we decided to use the tablets during maths starters.
We have been working on doubling and halving this week so we used 'Epic Math' (a free app) to practice. I spent some time before the lesson, looking for apps with specific doubling and halving practice but did not find manage to find anything promising. Since then I have searched again and found one app (called 'Doubling and Halving' and also free) which I will try out with the children in the coming weeks. 'Epic Math' allowed the children to practice their 2 times tables.
I found that although the children were engaged during the activity and mostly collaborated and shared well, they seemed sometimes to be guessing answers rather than thinking or working them out. I wondered whether the children were focussing more on the element of 'game' rather than the learning objective. It will be interesting to see if the children feel that using the iPads helped them learn, or were just fun to use.
In order to give the children something to compare using the iPads to, I planned one lesson this week with the mini laptops using Education City. The advantage here was that there are enough netbooks for the children to have one each. It was interesting to see that, even though they had a computer each, the children still chose to work together in many cases. The level of work related talk in both lessons was high.
The iPads worked well in the maths starter but as the children were sharing between 4-5, the starter took quite a long time and ended up eroding a chunk of the main lesson. Being super organised with what you want the children to achieve (which app to use, how to get started with it etc...) is key here.
Pencils versus iPads
This week our focus with the iPads was to create sketches of Guy Fawkes, to tie in with our ‘Eye on London’ topic. This work also linked to our modelling and simulations unit in ICT.
The objective for the lesson was ‘to investigate and use a variety of materials and techniques to create artworks’. As well as using the iPads, the children also used a variety of sketching pencils of different grades. They explored the different marks and shading they could create using these.
On the iPads we used a free app ‘Finger Sketch’. This has a range of tools which automatically produce different sketching effects. The free version does not have an eraser or undo tool. Saving work requires taking a screen grab using the power button and home button at the same time. The free version also has ads appearing at the bottom of the screen, but these are fairly unobtrusive and when not connected to Wifi they did not appear at all.
Because we have 6 iPads we split the children into groups of 6 and made it clear to the children that they would all have a turn. We told them that they would each have 10 minutes to create a drawing on the iPad and we put a timer up on the whiteboard so that they could see the timing was fair. We were very impressed with how sensibly the children used the iPads and how they were happy to pass them on when their time was finished. Even children in the last groups waited patiently for their turn and no one fussed about being last. When they were not using the iPads, the children sketched with pencils.
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| iPad sketch by Marcus |
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| Pencil sketch by Marcus |
All the children enjoyed the lesson and were engaged, whichever activity they were doing. The children tried very hard and made very good attempts at using the sketching pencils as well as the iPads. Generally the children found it more difficult to use the iPad but preferred this method to create their images. The finished pictures are generally good and look like Guy Fawkes although we felt that the pencil drawings were generally better than those produced on the iPads and the children agreed that the got better results with pencils. This could be due to more practice with pencils than iPads.
Next week we will be using the iPads for maths and reading and spelling workshop.
iPads Project Begins - Becontree Primary
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| photo from www.brainparade.com |
This week we started our trial of using 6 iPads in the classroom. We introduced the children in year two to the idea and explained that we would be using the iPads across their work for the next term. The children are very excited. Some of them had the opportunity to use the iPads to create firework pictures during golden time and I was impressed with how sensible they were and how well they shared and waited for their turn.
We used most of this week for planning work; asking the children initial questions about their use of ICT in school and their uses of different devices in and out of school (scans of questionnaires to follow); and preparing the iPads. This took ages since it involved updating all the iPads to iOS5, downloading all the Redbridge Games Network apps onto one iPad, organising the apps and screens as we wanted them, taking a back-up of the iPad and then restoring the back-up onto all of the other iPads. Each iPad also needed setting up to connect up to the school WiFi signal including the proxy server settings. Of course, all of this is a one off set up and is worth the time it took. We now have 6 identical iPads making it easy for children to find apps, no matter which iPad they have.
At first we were a little stuck as to how we would use the iPads and I think we got a bit bogged down with the idea of 'iPad project', feeling that all the work should be linked. The simple answer slowly became obvious - we should use the iPads the way we use other computers; as and when they can be used to enhance the lesson and benefit the children's learning. Now we have started to plan the use of the iPads into our normal curriculum lessons, starting next week with creating sketches of Guy Fawkes as part of our 'Eye on London' International Primary Curriculum topic. We are also planning to use particular apps during maths starters and in phonics lessons.We will keep the blog updated with our progress, including what works, and what doesn't.
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