Port Ellen Tablet

The Last Post

2006-09-04T22:06:00.000+01:00

It is now September 2006 and it has been six months since I last posted an entry – I think this tells me it is time to say farewell and make this our last posting. I know that in the last six months I was ambitious for our blog – looking for more interaction from both the children and other members of staff. I was not in the tablet class very much last session, but Arlene always kept me up to date with developments within her class. Perhaps there was just too much blogging going on which made the whole feedback process less manageable. A lesson may be to keep things simple – one class blog which changes focus throughout the year?
Back to the tablets. We are now two years on from when we were first given the tablets and boy, have things changed in our school regarding ICT! Has this been just a case of keeping up with the times or have the tablets changed the way we think about ICT in learning and teaching? I think that the tablets have given us an insight into the future – a change in the way our children learn. They have also given us the confidence to use the tablets in new and innovative ways, thus changing the way we teach. I still think the staff are a little overwhelmed by the tablets and worry that something is going to go wrong with them. The secret is to be brave and fearless and use them – they are only tools after all, and if something goes wrong, it gets fixed. To be fair, very little has gone wrong with the tablets –we’ve had a couple of damaged pens, and one screen which is on its way out, but that’s not bad considering the amount of use they have had over the past two years.
There is no doubt that the tablets motivate the children. Even though the children have become used to having them at their fingertips, they have never become complacent about using or looking after them. Its funny, but I have a new class working with the tablets this year, and it is interesting watching the children build up ownership of them and being responsible for them – worthy qualities to develop. Meanwhile, in the next classroom the original tablet children are constantly through asking if they ‘could borrow their tablet’ – wee souls!
Indulge me with one last tablet story – Last term I decided we needed to get the children using the class digital cameras more, so I planned a series of activities using the cameras, the tablets and free photo editing software called ‘Picasa2’ (from Google). Each class from P3 – P7 became confident in taking photos, downloading them onto the tablets and editing them using Picasa2. This series of activities ended with a photo competition, using objects in the school grounds as the subject. The children’s photos were fantastic – each one was different. Every child succeeded in printing off an edited photo – skills they can carry on in the classroom and at home independently. The Royal Bank sponsored the competition and the winner was given a digital camera. I uploaded the photos onto www.photoboxgallery.com/portellenps - why not have a wee look at what our wonderful children have been up to? This topic was such a success – it covered ICT, citizenship, enterprise, school grounds – you’ve got to have a go!
I think the tablet project allowed us to dip our toe into a new and exciting learning environment. We liked this new environment and decided we wanted more. This has led to staff being excited about what ICT can do for them in the classroom. We are excited about what this new session is going to bring. But it has taken a lot of work to get to this point. We have invested a lot of time in training, creating a framework in order to bring ICT to the classroom and making it meaningful. We have also invested a lot of money in equipping our classrooms with a good set of ICT learning and teaching tools. It has not happened overnight but I think the tablets have contributed to all of this. Changes have to be small and sustainable. We are now at a point where I team teach ICT with each member of staff. Slowly they are taking the reins and making ICT work for them.
This summer I signed up to be an SSDN / GLOW mentor. We have to write a blog about how we use ICT in our daily work. If you would like to hear how Port Ellen is getting on in the brave new world of ICT, pop in every now and again, it would be good to hear from you- http://kathleenjohnston.edublogs.org/
Lastly, I’m sorry if my attempts at humour have diluted the worth of the tablet project – at the beginning of the project I felt it was so important for readers to hear from a real person – someone who has to juggle life as well as teaching. Thank you for taking the time to find out about our progress within the project, and I hope you have found this diary useful. The PC Tablet Project has been an amazing learning experience for us and our children.
All the Best
Kathleen

Special Guests to the Tablet Blog

2006-03-14T22:37:00.000Z

Ladies and Gentlemen, we are about to add a new dimension to our tablet blog. We decided that you have probably had enough of me wittering on about how wonderful these tablet thingies are - you probably want to hear it from the ones that know - that's right, the weans! Therefore Arlene and I are going to get the Tablet Children (as we so affectionately call them) to post some entries onto this blog. We want them to tell you all about their use of the tablets and for them to be totally truthful. No bribery will be involved unless they get personal. We are also going to ATTEMPT to post on some pics of their work.
I had a wee peek at another blog which looks a lot of fun for the children to interact with - www.talkingteds.blogspot.com (I think that's right). Over the next couple of weeks I am going to encourage the children to leave some comments and maybe get some ideas for their own blogs, as it is a very bright and attractive blog.
Talking of other blogs, we've got another one on the go - it is called www.portellenbookreview.blogspot.com This blog is going to be run by the children in our school and the adult Port Ellen Book Group. The book group have been working hard in preparation for Port Ellen Book Festival, which will be on June 17th and 18th. We have a mixture of children's and adult's authors coming to speak at the festival. We thought the blog would be a good forum for people to share reviews of the authors' books and leave comments. I have just been at a meeting of the book group tonight and the ladies are keen to leave reviews. If you are a keen reader, keep an eye on it. It's still fairly new, so be patient and we will put more info on as and when we get time - ahem.
I digress - I'm a bit of a blether when I get started! Speak to you soon. KJ

March 2006-More fun with 2Create

2006-03-14T22:25:00.000Z

It's been a funny old month. We have had a visit from John McPhee and Andrew Brown to tie up the evaluation of the project. Gulp! Eighteen months have just flown by! Andrew asked me how I felt about my involvement in the project and I said (now no smirking) I felt priveleged to have been part of all of this. Never has my interest or enthusiasm been any less than keen because this whole process has been so fascinating. We have been witness to a taste of how our children are going to learn in the future. Sometimes when I call into the classroom to watch the children working on the tablets I am still amazed at the relaxed and confident atmosphere. Everyone is engaged in their learning - even she who will remain nameless! Last night I dropped by the after school story writing club run by Arlene. The children are using 2Create(FAB,FAB,FAB) to make a story using text and pictures. While I was blethering to one of the children he said 'Oh, by the way MrsJohnston, I can make my pictures interactive'. This wee guy had discovered how to link sound and movement to an image, then make it interactive! After I had picked myself up off the floor my mind started whirring and I was gabbling to Arlene about class stories which we could put on the Smartboard for the pre5 unit and infants to interact with. Suffice to say this wee discovery is going to take us off on another fun filled learning journey. Buckle up and enjoy the ride! KJ

February 2006

2006-02-24T14:07:00.000Z

Hello, Dear Reader! It seems a long time since I was last in touch, however, I have not been idle! We now have 4 nice new tablets 512MB as opposed to 256MB in the old ones. The newer tablets should work a bit smoother and cope with the software we install onto them without freezing too much. The only down side is that the new models have the pens slotted on the outside of the tablet. These pens look more like a normal biro, but are less robust and more easily broken than the older models, which are smooth and pop into the frame surrounding the screen.
We had a visit from the high school technicians the other day - a very welcome sight! We had a log of the problems we had come across - the boys were heartened at how few problems we had encountered. They felt that most of the problems with freezing were to do with our tablets not being able to cope with some of the graphics work we had been asking them to do. Poor wee things - overworked! All in all they were most impressed by the whole project. As they spent the day working on the tablets in the classroom, they were aware of the work the children were doing. They couldn't believe the high skill levels and motivation of the children. This was a great boost for Arlene and I. I'm always a bit intimidated by ICT technicians - I'm always worried I make a right ICT gaff, and get flustered when I talk about the spec of a machine! However, we can't have done too badly, as the boys were amazed at how well the tablets were running considering the age of the users.

The last time we talked, I mentionned Assessment is For Learning and the tablets. We think that the tablets are perfect for making use of formative assessment. Assessment can be done by the teacher through one - to one work (remember the marking via email? - we are advancing onto the use of the public pupils folder on the network now). They can assess one another's work through the data projector and the whiteboard- this is an effective tool which we use often. They can also assess their own work. One example of this is a child who printed off a poster in which she had a piece of written work - using the pen. Once she had printed it off, she looked at the poster and decided that the hand writing was not neat enough and went off to make the necessary changes. Second time round, the work was much more to her liking. The children are able to evaluate their own work and then make the necessary modifications without starting all over again. I believe there is a lot of power in the delay of finishing a piece of work and then seeing it being printed out. It is as if the children are seeing their work with fresh eyes. How many times have we said ' Go and read this over again', and it hasn't happened...
Our learning support teacher is also making use of the tablets with some of the children. She is using the highlighting facility for the children to highlight the words they think they have spelt incorrectly. She is also using speech recognition software with one wee boy. Progress is slow, but she feels there is the potential for the software to be a real help when this child goes to high school.
I have to let you into a secret. It is the mid term break. It is a Friday afternoon and I am sitting at my computer, multi tasking - my husband has come in to get a shopping list for the butchers and has muttered something about being a saddo doing work during the holidays... sounds familiar?

Anyway, back to the tablets. Did you know we won an award? Argyll and Bute ran a council awards scheme, culminating in a grand dinner in the Corran Halls in Oban for the finalists. My HT Violet Cusworth, John McPhee and I were there and the tablet project picked up the award for 'Innovative Use of Technology'. We were dead chuffed. There is also going to be an article about us in LTScotland's magazine, Connected. Fame at last. I may retire on this high spot and buy some hens...
I've had a request to let you know about some of the other things we have been involoved in using ICT. Well, as you know, Arlene has been busy blogging away, with two blogs up and running. I plan to set up a blog for our Eco Schools Committee, with the children on the committee making the entries. This will keep the community up to date with our progress. We have also used funding to put a digital camera in all the classrooms, including the pre5 unit. This will encourage both teachers and children to make use of the cameras to plan, implement and assess their work. We have also invested in two laptops from Novatech solely designated to the two Smartboards. We have also bought trolleys to house the laptop, projector and speakers. We aim to have a piece of kit like this in every classroom over the next two years. The plan is to make each class almost self sufficient with basic ICT resources. Over the past few years, most problems have arisen when teachers go to use ICT resources and they are either not available or they don't work. This scunners everyone involved and they end up not using the resource. We are tring to overcome this. Through class work with the children and CPD training with the staff, everyone should be able to make good use of the resources in class and see them as valuable classroom tools - a bit like the tablets! I'll let you know how we get on.
Ok, getting major hassle from husband now to go to the Co-op for the weekly shop. Ah, the joys!
Until we meet again...

Great start to the New Year

2006-01-22T17:36:00.000Z

Hello there everyone. After our very busy festive season we are now back to some form of normallity and the tablets are still in full swing and as good as ever. I've recently introduced the class into the world of 'Blogg' with our tablets. Our first venture was writing a blogg about what the children are learning in their environmental studies topic which is called 'Britain since the 1930's.' Not only is this great that the children can use their tablets to post work online themselves but it also assesses their learning. This activity has highly motivated the children and has given them a real purpose for the topic.

We have also started taking weather readings from our station everyday and posting these on our Blogg. If you want to check out the weather at port-ellen primary school just visit www.weather56.blogspot.com

Next week I'm starting an after school club on writing using ICT. We intend to use the software package 2create which is on all of the tablets. This software creates slide shows which I'm hoping will be a stimulating and motivating way for the children to write and illustrate their own book. We were having a few small problems with 2create with some of the tablets freezing but we were very quickly sent the updated version so our problems will be a thing of the past.

We have lots of plans for the tablets this term and hopefully I'll be able to update you on a regular basis.

Speak to you again soon

AMK

Collaborative Learning and Peer Support - KJ

2005-11-22T09:19:00.000Z

Today I want to talk about the effect the tablets have had on collaborative learning and peer support. Our school does make good use of both these strategies. Our children enjoy working together to support each other and to share the learning experience. However, I have noticed that this is particularly evident in the original tablet children. Their teamwork skills are excellent they make use of individual skills within each group in order to succeed in the task set. I have noticed that even if they don’t get on particularly well with their tablet partner sociably, they make a good effort to wok well with them during the set task. This is not just evident in ICT but is becoming increasingly more noticeable in other curricular areas.
The children’s use of peer support is exciting. As I have expanded the tablet project to include the other stages within the school I have use of the original tablet children to show the others how to use the tablet most effectively. Last week I asked a P3/4 to design tickets for our Christmas pantomime. I the invited some of P5/6 in to work with small groups of P3/4 children to create tickets on the tablets. That was the task set – I didn’t tell them which application to use or how to do it, I just set them the task and stood back and observed. Now this P3/4 class can be somewhat ‘lively’ but every single child was engrossed in their task. Because of the extra tablet advisors in the class, there must have been about thirty kids in the room aged from 7 – 10. As I appeared to be surplus to requirements, I got the video camera out and started filming them – they were even oblivious to this!

We also had a Jordanhill tutor in school that morning who was visiting one of our students. She popped in to see the class and was amazed by the children and how every child was engaged in their activity. She asked questions about the project and then stated – ‘ I love this and I’m definitely coming back!’

Evidence of peer support of a slightly different kind is also popping up in the playground, in the corridor and at the lunch hall. Is this because the kids are getting such a buzz out of helping each other, or is it because helping one another has become part of the learning environment? Or am I imagining all of this? I don’t think so – but I do think I need to look at this more closely and use the observations of other members of staff. Its all very exciting.

Two points I wanted to make before I finish. I am not getting the chance to give the tablet project as much attention as it deserves at present – my head teacher is on long term absence and I have had to takeover. This, combined with other PT duties is leaving little time for anything else (like a life!). But rest assured dear reader, I use every opportunity I can to find out a little bit more about using the tablets in learning and teaching! One more point – if anybody from the authority is reading this, PLEASE can we have somebody to give our tablets a bit of TLC – they are running a bit slow and could do with a wee bit of attention – outwith my skills area, guys!

Next instalment – Assessment is for Learning and the PC Tablet – what are we learning today?

A Joint Venture

2005-11-09T22:13:00.000Z

Hello again!We have been very busy with our tablets over the past few weeks and we have used them with different classes. However, before I write about that I would like to introduce you to Arlene McKerrell, our P5/6 class teacher. I have just introduced Arlene to the world of blogging and we are going to submit a joint entry to the blog today. To make it easy for Arlene I am going to ask her some questions to give us an idea of her first impressions of the tablet project, so welcome to my world, Arlene!

What are your first impressions of the tablet project?
The tablets are fantastic! I feel that they are a great learning and teaching resource. What a fantastic way to motivate children!
Can you give us examples of activities you have used the tablets with?
Where do I start? We have used the internet to do comparisons of farms in India and Scotland; we investigated different rainforests in Science; we used different applications to create mazeltov cards for RE; we did a shared writing activity which encouraged the children to explore talking within the writing prrocess; mental maths using the tablets (great fun!). We also use the tablets in every day situations when the children feel they need them.
What are the downsides of using the tablets?
The only downside we came across has been the application 2Create freezing, which has been resolved. There has been the occasional problem with internet provision, but that has been to do with problems within the network. Oh, and remembering to keep them charged!
Thank you for your first thoughts, Arlene - delighted to see they are so positive (she must have a great mentor!)
I promise to make a submission in the near future to let you know about some of my observations . From now on Arlene and I will finish each submission with our initials, just to give you an idea of who has written it. Speak to you soonKJ & AMcK

The Beginning of a New Session

2005-10-10T08:05:00.000+01:00

Things are a little bit different in the organisation of the tablet project this year. I have been taken out of class to cover McCrone time within the school and to mentor a probationer. It was deided that I should deliver ICT throughout the school, amongst other curricular areas. I am also team teaching in the Infants. Listed below is my class contact time-

Monday am-P1-3 mental maths, pm-P6/7 Science and ICT
Tuesday am- P3/4 Art & Design and ICT, pm-P1-3 music and ICT
Wednesday am- P2 measure, P1 Developing Writing
Thursday all day - P5/6 maths, grammar, spelling, Art&Design, ICT

As you can see my timetable allows me plenty of scope to explore the use of the tablets at a variety of stages and within a range of curricular areas - an exciting opportunity! I have to say at this stage that there is no way that I am able to plan specific activities to suit the tablets - where’s the time?! - however if an opportunity arises where I can see that the tablets can make a worthwhile contribution to the activity, then I sieze it! As an example of this, I was working with my wee P1 group - 5 children, I know, a luxury! We were talking about a special person and looking at who their special person was. We listed some ideas and had a chat about different special people in their lives. I then told the children that they were all special because they could do so many wonderful things. We explored why each of the P1s were special and I said that they were so special that I was going to take a photograph of them and I was going to put the photograph onto a very special computer that they could use. We looked at the tablets - they had worked with them before in Nursery- and the children remembered how the tablets worked. I installed their photograph onto Windows Journal and scribed for the children why they were so special. The children then decorated their work by drawing coloured borders and pictures of their achivements. They were on task for over an hour, and at the end of it all they had a wonderful piece of writing for the teacher, and one to take home and tell their family about. The class teacher couldn’t believe how focussed the children were for the writing session. By the end of the session the children could also change the colour of the pen on the tablet, which is no mean feat, and there were some wonderful examples of peer support in achieving this!

I am sure at this stage you are wondering what has happened to the original tablet children. Well, most of the original class are still in P5/6. Four of the P6 children have moved on to P6/7, and new P5 members have moved up to P5/6. The class teacher is Arlene McKerrell and I am working with Arlene as her mentor throughout her probationer year. This allows me the ideal opportunity to support Arlene and the new class in working with the tablets and also for me to work with the children one day a week. Arlene and I put together the partners for working with the tablets. We decided to pair up an old P5 with a new P5 to allow peer support to work its magic. We have 21 children this year, so this means we have one group of three in P6. Each pair has a new photo of themselves on the desktop of their tablet. We have also had the chat about ownership and being responsible users. So far the class has responded well to the new arrangements and they are delighted to be using the tablets again to support their classwork.

I am hopeful that nice, kind Mr MacPhee (hope he reads this!) is going to invest in some extra tablets for us to use. That way the original tablets can stay in class all day everyday, and I can have a set to travel with me throughout the school. Keep your fingers crossed for me!

As a final note, I have had several messages sent to me with queries regarding the project. Thank you to all who have shown an interest. Unfortunately there has been a blip which has prevented me from replying to them. Should you wish to contact me directly with any queries, my school email address is- kathleen.johnston@portellen.argyll-bute.sch.uk
Have a great October break, and I’ll get back in touch after the holidays!

The End of Session

2005-09-29T05:40:00.000+01:00

Hello again! It has been a LONG time since I have made an entry, humble apologies! I thin k the absence of entries is reflective of how busy life is just now! At least you know I am a real teacher with a real family - husband, two weans, a dog and two goldfish ( imminent arrival of two rabbits because of wean number one's eighth birthday!). However, I have sought out time to devote to you, dear reader to update you in life with our tablets.

Our end of term was hectic at Port Ellen, just like every other primary school in Scotland. In amongst beach parties, sports, etc. I was trying hard to round off our first year using the tablets. We produced some wonderful slideshows using 2Create, which we linked to our renewable energy topic. By the end of the term the children were experimenting with animation of their drawings. I do wish we had had the time to experiment further as I feel the children were capable of producing even more intricate pieces of work. I am looking forward to building on these skills in the new session.

The idea was to present the slideshows to the rest of the school at our next Eco School assembly, but it didn't happen due to time running out, as usual. Instead, we had a class show, where the children presented their slideshows to their classmates.

With the last term of the academic year over, I had time to reflect on our progress so far. The questions I asked myself and the children were-

What contribution do the tablets make to learning and teaching?
How do the tablets affect the way the children learn?
How have the tablets changed my style of teaching?

These questions are at the very heart of the project and cannot be taken lightly. Andrew Brown and I have been working together to evaluate the project using a recognised tool. This has allowed us to study in more detail the impact the tablets have made on our school lives. The findings of our evaluation will be made available to those interested at a later date.

Multimedia Fun and More

2005-05-30T16:29:00.000+01:00

Sorry I have not been in touch recently, but life has been hectic - summer term and all that!
We have been having lots of fun with 2Create, the multimedia package. The children have been experimenting with sound and moving images, exceeding my expectations and skill level! The tables are turning a bit and they are showing me how to use the software! However, to stand back and watch the children, they are all completely involved in their tasks. There is also a lot of collaborative learning going on, with children showing one another how to do something, and if a new part of the program is discovered, the skill spreads like wildfire throughout the classroom.

We have not been without blips, however. The 2Create application has frozen on several of the machines, several times. I have been in touch with 2Simple, and they are sending me a newer version as soon as it is out. The company have been very helpful and are super to deal with - very user friendly!
I have also tried reinstalling the software, which has seemed to help a little.
Despite the problems, the software is definitely a popular addition to the tablet package.

The children have also been using an application called ‘Ultimate Maths Invaders’. This company got in touch with the school a few months back and guaranteed us a site license if we organised the sale of the software to parents. I liked the idea of children working on the same software at home as in school - an opportunity for a nice home/school link. We sold quite a few copies throughout the school, and the children now have a copy of the program on every computer in school.
Once a week the children play ‘Ultimate Maths Invaders’ on their tablets during mental maths time for about 10 - 15 minutes. They absolutely love it and say that it has helped them speed up their tables recall. Some of the children have the software at home as well and they say that it has really helped them. We also have a ‘Highest Score Challenge’ ongoing in the classroom, which also helps them with their place value.

Term 4 - A New Focus

2005-05-06T00:54:00.000+01:00

A new term and a new focus for our work on the tablets - this term we are going to be exploring the world of multimedia! Last week I introduced the children to the Appleworks Presentation application, as I had some slideshows made by other children to show them as examples. As an introduction we looked at a couple of examples and discussed them. We then explored why we would use a slideshow and what sort of things we could do with one. At this point I explained that the tablet partners were going to be split - half the children were going off to make a traybake (Heinemann 4 & 5 Maths - measure!) and the other half were going to begin a slideshow which would explain how to make the traybake. When the bakers returned they would take over the slideshow and the rest of the class would have a turn at measuring and cooking. The children had about 15 minutes to put together a rough plan and then half went off to bake. The children had to make up a slideshow with at least 4 slides. This task went on for the afternoon but what fun we had! The slideshows were completed and the traybakes were made. We sat and looked at the slideshows while eating the traybakes on Friday afternoon. By carrying out these activities in such a way we were able to cover maths - measure, Language - functional writing, and ICT - presentation work - a successful afternoon’s work which only lasted an afternoon - the slideshow did not eat into the following week because the children were new to the application but familiar with the skills required to carry out the task.This week we are trying out a new piece of software called 2Create, made by 2Simple. It’s a multimedia package which we have just started to get to grips with - I think it ‘s got a lot of potential for use with the tablets. I’ll let you know how we get on!

Fun at Pre-5

2005-03-24T22:36:00.000Z

This month we had a visit from one of the authority’s education officers, Andrew Brown. It was interesting for us to see what he thought about our use of the tablets. In preparation for Andrew’s visit, I had the children think about the tablets, and gave them four key questions -
What do you like the most about the tablets?
What do you like least about the tablets?
How do the tablets help you learn?
What would make the tablets better?

The type of responses were-
I like going on the internet, I like using the pen, it makes my handwriting neater, it makes learning fun, you can do work quicker, the keyboard should be in alphabetical order, it should have a touch screen, the battery should stay charged for longer.

Andrew was pleased to see that the children were relaxed and confident in their use of the tablets. They could show him examples of their work saved in folders, answer questions about their use of the tablets and also make the decision to choose another resource to carry out a task when they felt that the tablet was not appropriate.

We also spent a very pleasant session in the Pre-5 unit, with the older children showing the Pre-5s how to draw a picture on the tablets. They took their ‘wee person’ up to the printer to watch their picture being printed off. It was great to see how my children taught the younger children the different skills they needed to draw on the tablet. Some of the children were better at passing on the skills than others, but they were all successful in their task, with a picture for the Pre-5 wall and a picture for the wee ones to take home to show mum and dad!

Evaluation of ICT Skills

2005-02-18T22:05:00.000Z

At the beginning of this pilot I created an evaluation tool based on the 5-14 levels within ICT. I was curious about how the tablets would affect the children’s progress within ICT. I gave out the children a grid with each of the ICT strands on it. P4 ‘s grid was at Level B and P5’s was at Level C. We went over what each strand meant and how tthey transferred to class work.The children scored each strand with a + for something they were confident in, an = if they were not confident in something, and a - if they were completely unsure of something. At base, the results were fairly good, especially from P4 within Level B.
Six months on the children filled in the grids again and I am amazed at the progress the children feel they have made! I plan to hand out a Level C grid to the P4s as I am sure they will be confident in many aspects of it.
The areas the children feel less confident in - mainly multimedia work, will be covered over the next few months.

The results have reassured me that working in pairs has not affected the children’s perception of their individual learning. We work hard to ensure that the children use the tablets fairly through taking turns. They also feel they have learned lots through collaborative learning. Mind you, we have not been without the odd quarrel!

Using the Tablets in a Series of Activities

2005-02-18T22:03:00.000Z

We have been doing a health topic on being a health promoting school. The children have had to -

-identify aspects of being a health promoting school
-create a checklist in pairs to survey a particular group within the school -eg. parents, classes
-using the results from the checklists create an action plan identifying 3 areas for improvement
-create posters to promote positive aspects of a health promoting school

For every activity listed above, we have used our tablets. We have-

-brainstormed in Windows Journal
-created tables for the checklist and the action plan in Appleworks 6 - this ties in with Infor mation Handling in their Maths and ICT forward plan
-created posters using either Appleworks 6 or Windows Journal

Once again the tablets have enhanced the quality of results the children have come up with. The children are becoming quicker at completing tasks and are becoming more adventurous in applying skills they have learned. The rate of progress within each series of lessons is increasing with the use of the tablets.

Mind Mapping with the Tablet

2005-02-18T21:43:00.000Z

At the beginning of our topic on The Victorians I asked the children to make a mind map of all they knew about this period of time. I told them we would save these mind maps and look at them again when our topic was finished.
When we had completed our topic, the children opened up their mind maps and added all the extra information they had learned about The Victorians. This time they used a different colour to write with so that they could see clearly how much more they knew about the topic. This not only showed the children how their knowledge had increased, but also gave me a great piece of evidence for both pre and post topic assessment.
This activity could have been done on paper, but the tablets were able to produce multiple copies and once again, the children were not distracted by fetching different coloured pens, every resource needed for the activity was at their fingertips.

Emailing With an Attachment

2005-01-26T17:09:00.000Z

We had an interesting experiment with the tablets this week. The children have been practising sending emails - to each other, to friends and family, and to me. We were also using the tablets as part of a listening/ comprehension exercise. I decided to combine the two activities by getting the children to complete a piece of work on the tablet and to send it to me by email as an attachment. I then planned to mark their work and send it back to them.
To begin the activity, I read the children a short passage and then asked them questions about it. The children wrote their answers using the pen and ‘Windows Journal’. They saved their work to the desktop.
We then went over the whole process of emailing with an attachment on the whiteboard, with the digital projector displaying my tablet’s desktop.
I left my inbox on display on the whiteboard so that the children were able to see if their work had been sent to me successfully. This meant I had to refresh the page periodically.
Initially the children had problems with my email address, which is fairly long winded - leaving plenty of scope for mistakes! I used this opportunity as a lesson in itself in being accurate. When the children became more accurate, their messages began to come through in my inbox. This caused great excitement and the children were demanding a response from me straightaway! By now it was luchtime, and I promised replies to their inboxes by the afternoon session.
When I opened their messages, about 80% of the children completed the task successfully, with the remaining 20% being successful in sending the email, but without an attachment (they manged to do this at a later date). I marked the children’s work and sent it back to them. I have to say that this process was fairly time consuming as I had to download each attachment, mark it, save it and send it back as an attachment. The whole process took most of my lunchtime.
I feel the activity was a worthy one as it gave both the children and I a taste of things to come. Probably with the right technology and software, the process would be lot smoother, but we will continue to pursue this activity from time to time when the opportunity arises and proves to be a valid one.

Beginning of Term 3

2005-01-13T00:50:00.000Z

We are now at the beginning of term 3. We have 2 new children in the class and so I have had to shuffle tablets around to accommodate our extra pupils, but we are all sorted now. The charging unit arrived on Monday, with lots of cheers from the children! The unit certainly satisfies all our needs -
- it keeps all the tablets together, and so it is easier to monitor the security of the tablets

- the charger cables are now stored safely out of the way of small legs (I can’t believe we managed to avoid an accident!)

-the tablets can now be charged altogether in a much more efficient way.

This should make a big difference to the management of our computers. The unit will also enable the tablets to be charged and ready for use most of the time.

During the next couple of weeks we will remind ourselves of good house-keeping principles on the tablets and revise skills we have achieved to date . This will refresh the children and also prepare our new pupils for more exciting work in the term ahead.

A Christmas Update

2004-12-21T19:35:00.002Z

Suddenly we are on the last week of term and I am wondering (not for the first time) where the term has gone. The children are doing all sorts of Christmas activities on their tablets- calendars, cards etc. and excitement is mounting daily.
As we approach mid way of this session, it seems a good time to reflect upon the past few months of our tablet project. The tablets have brought with them a new dimension to our learning and teaching. We are able to explore new ways of finding out things without the pressures of shared resources and timetabling of computers. The children have embraced this new technology and have incorporated into their daily classroom routine - it is scary how quickly we can take such luxury for granted!
There have been blips over the past few months - computers wouldn’t run without them! Storage and charging has been a bit of an issue. Safety has been a concern of mine with regards to trailing charger leads. I have also been concerned about safe storage of the tablets, ensuring each tablet and its associated bits and pieces are kept in a suitable place. Our charging and storage unit has taken forever to arrive! Our hopes were raised briefly about two months ago when a unit arrived, but it was so badly damaged that we had to send for a replacement. Never mind, hopefully Santa will have delivered a new one for when we come back!
The tablets don’t run as smoothly as the Applemacs we are used to. Sometimes the children can become frustrated by frozen screens. This may improve as the children learn more self help skills and avoid bad habits.
The children and I are looking forward to the next term to see what else we can do with our tablets. Meanwhile, we are off to enjoy Christmas!!

An Interesting Point

2004-12-20T19:40:00.000Z

We recently used the tablets within an RE activity. The children were to design a poster advertising the value of Jesus’s parables and they had to use Zacchaeus as an example. I was using this activity as an assessment of the work we had covered on the parables of Jesus.
The children completed their posters and printed them off and I was very pleased with their hard work. Yes, they were colourful and yes, they were fairly well laid out, but I knew the tablets would enhance the appearance of their posters. What I didn’t expect was the quality of the contents of each poster. I told the children how pleased I was with the posters and we discussed why the activity had been so successful. These were the childrens’ answers-
-the tablets have every colour we need
-the pens can go as thick or as thin as you want
-you don’t need to go and get different pens
-the pens don’t run out
This meant that the children could remain focused on their activity without being distracted by fetching coloured pens etc. The motivation was also there because of the variety of colours available.
I found the points raised within this activity very interesting. Up until now, I underestimated the knock on effect the graphics side of the tablet would have on the childrens’ learning. I regarded having a wide range of colours and pen widths as being an attractive add-on, but now I can see that this facitlity enhances the quality of the childrens’ learning.

Term 2 - The Planning Process

2004-11-11T18:01:00.000Z

At the beginning of term two I wanted to explore the use of the tablet in as many different curricular areas and situations as possible. During forward planning for term 2 I took into account this new classroom tool and incorporated it into my planning as much as possible. I was also conscious that I did not want to lose the spontaneity of using the tablet in the classroom when an appropriate situation arose or when the children wished to make use of the tablet during an activity. Often this is when the best use of the tablet arose! However I am aware that I have a duty to the pilot to explore fully the tablet’s potential as a classroom tool and so it is important that we also use the tablet in planned activities.
Our forward plan template is on our staff laptops, and I adapted the template to provide space for related tablet activities. During the planning process I have aimed to ensure the tablet contributes substantially to the activity and is not a fun ‘add-on’ . I continually ask myself why I am using the tablet in that particular activity and what it contributes to the lesson. I always ask the children at the end of the activity how they felt about using the tablet and what it contributed to the lesson.

Using Our Tablets in the Classroom

2004-11-08T08:32:00.000Z

During the remaining weeks of the first term we became a bit more familiar with the tablets, bearing in mind that the children had worked mainly with Applemacs at school. We applied the skills we had learned on our Macs to the new Windows platform and became a bit more confident in navigating ourselves around.
As well as becoming more familiar with the PC side of things, the children and I were keen to use the tablet side during our day to day work, and see what we could do with it!
I have listed several activities and the comments the children made about the use of the tablet within each activity.
Personal Writing- Using Windows Journal and writing using the pen.
-It is quite hard to keep the writing on the lines
-I’m quite scared of the computer in case it breaks
-Typing and writing was good. You get through things a lot faster
-It made the lesson quite easy
-It helped with the screen facing upwards
-It made it easier to write
The children using the tablets certainly enjoyed using them to write out their personal accounts, however, I was surprised at how long they took to write out the whole story. This amy have been because the whole process was new to them and they were trying to be extra careful. Using the tablets did encourage good handwriting. Hopefully this will last!
Mental Maths - Tables Bingo - Using Windows Journal -Blank
-I want to do Number Bingo like this all the time!
-It’s great fun, not like work
-It’s easy to see if you get the answer right
The children worked from a blank grid and placed their own numbers in the grid. They worked in pairs. I called out tables sums to the children and if they had the right answer, they used the highlighter pen to mark the right number on the grid. This was always a popular activity in my class, but using the tablets in this way cuts down on paper and time, and the children are highly motivated to take part because it is viual and colourful - their numbers on the screen which they can interact with.
Art & Design - Printing - Using Windows Journal Blank, and the selection, copy and paste tools
-It was good that we learnt new things to do with the tablets
-It was better than doing work
-Good that you can copy your pictures over and over again
This activity came at the end of a series of printing activities in Art & Design. I wanted the children to explore how technology could be used to create print designs for wallpaper, textiles, etc. The children loved the flexibility of this activity - being able to manipulate their designs in different ways and then being able to reproduce them to create a print design. In amongst all of this they became much more confident in using the selection, copy and paste tools.
Environmental Studies - montage of trip - Using Windows Journal Blank and digital photos from the trip
-Everything was brilliant!
-You can write on top of the photos
-It was great seeing the whole thing printed
-It was all so quick!
-It made my handwriting look bad
-I kept running out of power
The children came back from the trip around their village and immediately set to work writing down their memories and adding pictures and photographs, making everything work together to make a montage.This worked so well because of the efficiency of the activity. The children were able to transfer all their freshly acquired memories to a presentation which was quick, simple and great fun to do.Such a valid piece of work and my favourite activity so far!

Our Tablets Arrive

2004-10-28T16:24:00.000+01:00

We came back to school at the beginning of a new session to nine tablets, all shiny and new in their packaging (one tablet was still to come). One of our Authority technicians came over to configure all the machines and put them onto the Argyll and Bute Education Service intranet, ‘Eolas’ (Educational Online Learning for Argyll Schools). This meant that the children would have Internet access on their tablets (wow!)
Now that the tablets were here and not a figment of our imagination, I had to think about the impact the tablets would have on my classroom organisation. We decided to allocate one tablet to two children for the duration of the pilot. This way we could encourage ownership of the tablets and a responsibility for them to remain in good condition and be stored safely.
Each pair of children were given a tablet which was labelled and colour coded. The charger and pen were colour matched. We hoped to prevent squabbles over lost or misplaced items this way (so far so good).
Our next problem was where to store the tablets safely. I hunted the school for spare tote trays and gave each pair of children a tray in which to put the tablet and charger. The trays were labelled with the children’s names and the colour of their tablet.
I was not entirely happy with this method of storage as it was a bit of a squeeze in the trays with both tablet and charger being stored in this way. The other problem that arose was charging facilities within the classroom. As we only had three plug points in the classroom and two 4 bar multi-blocks, there was no efficient way of charging the tablets and I was very unhappy about the wires trailing about the floor. I had a wee look at the Nisco catalogue and found a cabinet that would both house the tablets and charge them. Hurray! However, as they were made to order, it was going to take about 5 weeks to come.
Right, so that was the tablets allocated, storage sorted, charging managed. The practicalities were in place so now all we had to do was get going!

Preparing for the Pilot

2004-10-22T00:16:00.000+01:00

As soon as we were aware of our involvement in Argyll and Bute's tablet pilot, we decided to invest in a tablet of our own. We wanted to become more familiar with these new beasties before the pilot began. The authority provided us with another tablet, which meant that two classes - P5/6/7 and P4/5 - were able to experiment with the machines for the remainder of the session -April to June 2004.
The children made use of the tablets in ways which were most familiar to them - going online, word-processing, graphics work and information handling. Several of the older children experimented with the text conversion and speech recognition tools.
At the end of the session the children completed a simple evaluation of the two tablets. Results showed that the children enjoyed using the tablets within tasks and found the pen easy to use however impressions were that the intitial interest was a novelty factor.
The main purpose of allowing the children to become more familiar with the tablets was achieved. We were now looking forward to the arrival of the remaining nine tablets and starting the pilot in earnest.

Getting Started

2004-09-30T20:35:00.000+01:00

Today we have started a blog for the Tablet project here at Port Ellen. We hope you find this useful. Please feel free to comment on what you read. From time to time, we will put further thoughts and musings on how the project is going, and thoughts and observations on how useful tablet computers are in the classroom.