Pushing a primary school's ICT to the limits

[synaesthesia]

I'm after some ideas, brainstorming etc.

 

What could be done for a primary school to really push the boundaries of ICT and interaction. Things like inter-class collaboration, visual aids, IT enhancements; generally making best use of available technology that actually would have a positive impact on the learning within that school.

 

It may be new tech I or the school don't know about, it may be using the existing stuff better.

 

They have:

 

IWB's (Promethean) & decent (Casio) projectors

Vanilla Windows network (win7 throughout, 2012 server)

Visualisers

Unifi wireless going in soon

One PC per classroom, to be raised to 3

iPads for students (soon to be 2 crates of 16, currently have 1 crate)

Surface RT's for staff

2 ICT suites - one permanent suite, the other is a suite of laptops which can also be taken to classes/other locations

[X-13]

This is relevant to my interests. [And I'm going to shamelessly steal your ideas.]

[3s-gtech]

Wow - that's a great basis to be coming from, you could really push things there! I'd perhaps look at the inter-device unify you can get with some web and cloud based systems - should help to enable use of these devices as a single system. So, perhaps a HAP+ install (or a commercial solution) for accessing your files and documents on all devices?

 

How good/modern is their email solution? There are some great collaboration/group tools available with some solutions.

[witch]

TBH all the tech in the world won't do you any good if it is not being used to its absolute best.

What's the teaching like? Have they thought of getting the STEM people in to show some innovative stuff. They are good (for science and maths as well), and it is free too.

STEMNET

 

Other than that I was going to say some sort of collaborative or blogging stuff

[synaesthesia]

Cheers, we'll look at that. I've certainly been giving HAP a thought, we use it here to good effect so wouldn't take much for me to implement it there.

Email is lackluster currently but in an academy move they'll have something far better (I believe Office 365) so hopefully that'll help matters.

The teachers are for the most part very good; certainly some do like to keep on top of latest development and have taken on board some cracking ideas from other schools. Unfortunately as that's not my area of expertise my thoughts on that are a little lacklustre.

 

Having witnessed how good some of these kids are, especially considering their age, with things like Google Sketchup and Scratch, I have no doubts that the staff will happily take on board suggestions. It honestly surprises me to think this particular school is in probably the roughest part of town and some of the kids have backgrounds many would only hear about in the bad parts of the news. Happily, many of those enjoy school even more as a result and get that little extra back out of it. I know how much pleasure that gives the staff at that school.

 

I would like to see the use of some things like Mindstorms bearing in mind how good they've been with scratch & sketchup as watching a visual job transform into a physical being would be awesome.

[witch]

The STEMNET guys will do stuff with robots, raspberry pi etc which could be a good way of seeing what is out there and what would suit your school.

We have one guy running a Scratch/Kodu club and others came in to show programable electronic bits and pieces.

This is what you might want to get something "real" for the kids to work with:

littleBits

[jonnykewell1]

The sahara clevertouch interactive televisions are really nice, mount at a decent height for the kids to be able to interact with them too.

[Valyyn]

At BETT this year, I saw a talk from a lady called Charlotte Beckhurst (link to her blog: About | ChicMEEk) who works at Hartsbrook E-ACT Free School.

 

They are doing some really cool things with their pupils using Windows 8 apps and touch-screen monitors, plus things like sky-drive linked cameras/phones.

 

I was really impressed by some of the things shown as well as the videos of the pupils actually using these things properly.

 

Might be worth getting in touch!

[dhicks]

I'm after some ideas, brainstorming etc.

 

We're just looking at new projectors at the moment, and it's quite remarkable just how short-throw projectors are getting - the Hitachi A222 can seemingly be mounted on a table and project an image out onto its surface. Add a LeapMotion controller stuck to the side of the table and you have an interactive table for around £1,000, which might be worth a try.

[synaesthesia]

Cheers! Throwing some of those ideas the school's way now.

 

I agree about the short throws; it's amazing what they're capable of and prices are dropping considerably, which I suspect may be a lot to do with the emergence of LED units. Bought a Sony one for my main school - needed a fairly large screen at particularly small throw. We were impressed enough by the Casio we put in our hall - 4m width projection from just a couple of meters throw.

[witch]

We have the lego robots and the children love them. Those littlebits are good

[p858snake]

iPads for students (soon to be 2 crates of 16, currently have 1 crate)

Surface RT's for staff

 

Why the mix? Wouldn't it be better for standardization across the student/teacher devices?

[synaesthesia]

Standardisation can also be seen as something that holds you back. Exposure to all sorts of technology and devices can't be seen as anything other than a good thing.

 

It wasn't something I was involved in, but it works never-the-less. The surfaces are laptop replacements and do that particular job better, IMO, than an iPad. The number of ipad currently is 1 per 2 children in a class (15) + staff.

[jmak]

The biggest success we've had is "continuous provision" of resources. We have 6 laptops in each classroom and as the kids tend to work in groups of six whatever activity they're doing, this is enough to effectively have a computer each for a given task. We introduced this system just over 2 years ago and apart from the general uplift in ICT capability of the pupils, the most noticeable change is that the kids have started to see ICT as a range of tools that they can use, rather than a treat. Staff have become much more confident too - previously having computers out was something they actively avoided and now if you go into a classroom they're usually just out, available for the kids to use.

 

The thing I'm looking at now is how we could use Google Apps. I want to get collaboration going - perhaps one class working on a story in a Google Doc and then another picking up the baton. You might also want to check out "doctopus". More one for the teachers as a much more efficient way of distributing and collecting assignments. I think that use of collaboration capabilities is something that is new(ish) - none of our staff use it and that it is likely to become a normal way of working.

 

I completely agree that we shouldn't tie down to one type / brand of technology. Learning to use a range is much more valuable than a detailed knowledge of a particular system.

[CADA]

From a primary ICT teachers point of view I agree with jmak, the kids need to see ICT as tools not treats (our school is not there yet, iPads have not been in long enough!). They should experience all OS, a range of software and hardware. Life does get more complicated as you add more systems and devices and I like to wait a while until somebody comes along with a minimum fuss, workable solution. We run a CC4 network and I have only just purchased iPads because I needed to be convinced that they would be able to work together and upload/download work from one to the other without the trouble of synching to a Mac or using Dropbox (we are using Foldr and it's working well for us).

 

I agree that tablets have their use but cannot replace other laptops or desktop machines. It's about mixing and matching to suit: In Yr 3 this week we started to look at programming. We talked about algorithms using real life examples, then we used A.L.E.X the robot app on the iPad to grasp sequencing (they can walk around with the iPad checking they have the turns in the right place). We then went on Enchanting Enchanting : Enchanting : Enchanting on the computers and used it to program the Lego Mindstorms robots. Enchanting is just like Scratch, which they already know, and maybe a bit easier for the little ones than the NTX software. Fitness for purpose is the only way.

 

Longer term I would love to bring in Picoboards or Maky Makys, Minecraftedu (there are excellent teaching resources for this) or maybe some Raspberry Pi's (need a lot more convincing about their educational value before we go there though). I also need more time to play and a money tree at the bottom of the school field.

[CESIL]

Sounds wonderful...now all I have to do is get our older teachers to share their ideas and accept that what I have been suggesting for the last 10 years would be an improvement on what they have been doing for the last 20 years...like, oh I dunno, maybe like, not using VCRs and updating resources...

 

...but, at least two of these teachers are leaving this term

 

The main problem with all these lovely changes it that I am the lucky SOB that gets to deliver the new content...

 

..bitter? Me. You bet!

[eean]

The thing I'm looking at now is how we could use Google Apps. I want to get collaboration going - perhaps one class working on a story in a Google Doc and then another picking up the baton.

 

A brilliant tool. Had my year 4s writing fantasy stories on it. I had them working in pairs on one document, with the rest of the class given view and comment permissions. I found it incredible how the effectively the children collaborated - sometimes they would both talk about the next few paragraphs then set off and write them independently, other times one would write and the other would read and edit simultaneously. I've done collaborative writing before with partners sharing one computer but inevitably one child does all the writing and the other does nothing.

Then they were able to read each other's work, using the comment feature to give each other feed back. I particularly like how each comment turns into a discussion thread. I also used the comment feature to give feedback.

They also continued working at home - some arranging a time where they would both be on the document. I went on at 9.30 one night to mark their work of the next day and they were all on it! I had to tell them to go to bed.

[p858snake]

Sounds wonderful...now all I have to do is get our older teachers to share their ideas and accept that what I have been suggesting for the last 10 years would be an improvement on what they have been doing for the last 20 years...like, oh I dunno, maybe like, not using VCRs and updating resources...

 

I currently volunteer with Scouts QLD and we have a online/webbased "lesson planner" tool called EurkeaKit (IIRC) by creatop (That I've never logged into) but you might to look into, get teachers collaborating that way.