I Should Be Marking

I’m very proud of myself today

Not only did I get through a whole class load of GCSE coursework marking, not only did my Y9’s run through Yacapaca reveal them to be dolts barely worthy of a level 3 but my Y8s put their BSL work to good use.

Last week we had a look at 3 or 4 British Sign Language websites with a view to some online tuition. Today we discussed a scenario (new, deaf pupil joining the school), thought up some appropriate and helpful phrases and then recorded them. I’ve spent an hour editing, adding titles, a soundtrack etc. and have a 2 minute video all ready to go. I’m just waiting on parental permission to allow one pupil’s image to be shown online and it’ll be up on the Showcase blog. Expect another one next week as well as I have a fortnightly Y8 class in just before the end of term.

Some days I really love my job.

I think I’m going to have to add a new category for this blog, ‘Inspired by the TES forums, or something similar. I think fully half of these posts must have started out there and here we go with another…

There was a post late last night from a teacher who was finding it difficult to teach ICT. Pupils assuming they can come into a lesson and play Flash games, check email, etc. I’m sure all ICT teachers have seen that, but I think that for most it isn’t a huge problem (or it hasn’t been allowed to be a huge problem, I should say). Problems holding their attention was another difficulty cited and the first couple of posts (apparently not everyone is up as early as me this morning) talked about the boring nature of the National Strategy. Me, I’ve been up half the night (kids, blech!) and so my response turned into a bit of a rant.

I talked about a lot of the simple ideas I’ve used to make ICT more interesting. Instead of competing with Miniclip and MSN, why not use what the kids are interested in to hold their attention? I don’t mean bribe them with games, not by a long way. I know far too many ICT teachers that do this and it drives up the wall. What I mean is do things that are interesting.

Kids really don’t care about how much it costs to put on a school disco (7.4). I’m hoping they’ll have more fun next term when I have them pricing up sofas, pool tables and PS2s (should that be PS3s?) for a youth club. Still a bit dull on the face of it, but show me a kid who can resist flicking through the Argos catalogue and I’ll show you a kid in need of a big hug.

Instead of making a website about the school (8.2) or a PowerPoint about themselves (7.1), why not get them to make a PowerPoint about wild animals for their Y5 bretheren back at the Primary Schools? Why not get them to make a website for one of their clubs, groups, bands, etc? Why not get them to make a showcase for their Art work - take some still and video cameras up there and get some multimedia content.

Instead of filling in worksheets about communication methods (GNVQ), why not get them to make an advert for a mobile phone company, an office training video or a stop-motion animation?

The list goes on and on, A colleague of mine was desperate to get her Y9 pupils to really understand how attachments work on email in preparation for the QCA tests so they spent an hour drawing silly pictures and emailing them to each other. They had a great time and actually got the idea for how to attach and access files sent along with emails. Something obvious to us but actually quite difficult for a lot of kids.

My point is (and I’m aware I’m preaching to the converted) that we have so many tools at our disposal that it is criminal to allow them to learn Office for 5-7 years and call it ICT. No wonder pupils get bored and fed up with that. Using the Internet to teach yourself sign language is much more fun and probably more educational than making yet another poster in Publisher [spit].

OK, so we’re near the end of term, my Y8s have finished and uploaded their websites, so now what? Well, after chatting with them about kids’ TV (in particular Justin on CBeebies) we got on to simple sign language.

So today, with 20 minutes left at the end of the lesson, we had a look at some BSL (British Sign Language) websites and started learning some very basic signs. I can now say “Hello, my name is Mr. C” as well as “My cow is ill”. I’m not sure which will come in more useful, but the plan is to write and then video some simple sentences. A quick bit of editing in iMovie, add some subtitles and we’re done. Cracking good fun and they’ve been signing “Afternoon, Mr. C.” across the playground at me all day.

On The Blog of Mr. C the other day was a mention of something called a Thunk. A Thunk is basically a pilosophical question with no right or wrong answer - is a broken down car the same as a parked car? If I read part of a comic book in a shop, am I stealing?

I have shamelessly stolen the link with over a hundred Thunks on and have started using them on my tutor group first thing in a morning to get them woken up. I may also use the themed registers idea posted in the comments by Jude.

I also decided to expand my pupil blogs and now have a dedicated Thunks blog on there. Each fortnight (or so, depending on how busy the blog becomes) I’ll post a new (or shamelessly ripped ofF) Thunk for people to discuss. I’ve also press ganged and/or spammed a few forums, friends and colleagues (including a Philosophy teacher who couldn’t get away until he promised to get his class to join in next week).

Please join in the discussion and we’ll see where our Thunks will take us

In my quest to find new ideas for how to use blogs, and other technological ideas, to aid education I’ve been looking at an awful lot of blogs recently.

One in particular is Max’s Dog-Blog - a blog written from the point of view of a bloggers, erm, dog. I’m sure there must be parts of the Enlgish curriculum that could make use of blogging as a fictional character (I’m not suggesting the dog is fictional, but you see what I mean).

Now all I need to do is find someone in the English department who is prepared to work with me and set up a CMS.

No, I’m not suggesting blogging to aid alliteration skills

I recently came across a blog article by Whelkstall that really struck a chord. The gist was that ICT should be used to help students succeed in general and not just for ICT’s sake. I don’t doubt that that’s true for ICT, as computers are merely tools. A blog is used to communicate ideas, a spreadsheet to perform calculations, a database to store and sort data, etc. The contrived projects we create for pupils are necessary to provide a framework within which to learn the necessary skills, but why not use a real situation?

The example provided was for an A-level ICT student to create a Flash animation about a particular artist which would also work towards his/her Art A-level.

Currently we run the Edexcel GCSE in ICT and for that we have to cover 4 coursework projects. Currently we create an interactive PowerPoint presentation (a crap project, but easy to get them into the writing and evidencing routine), relational database, spreadsheet and then a CD label and cover. Pupils choose their own topics but inevitably most end up creating an interactive travel brochure or shop catalogue, video rental or match booking system, pizza shop ordering system or hairdresser appointment calculator and a music or game CD cover.

Why not tie it in with their other work? Complete their spreadsheet task in conjunction with their maths work or help make a teacher’s mark book, make a database that ties in with geography fieldwork, make an interactive PowerPoint to help pupils choose which musical instruments to go for. The possibilities are, as they say, endless.

Of course this was the stuff they tried to drum into us during the PGCE but all we really got was the odd mention and no realistic possibility to throw our weight around during placements or even the NQT year. Only now, having had all those ideas shoved out of the way for the best part of 2 years am I in a position to actually do something about it. Hopefully now I can make the ICT projects more relevant, more interesting, and useful to subjects outside of my own.