A Journey into Learning

Project Natal is a device announced today for the Xbox360. It’s a motion sensing device that allows you to control video games and Xbox 360 menus with your body instead of a peripheral controller. Natal gives you voice and full-body motion control over your on-screen avatar using an RGB camera, depth sensor and multi-array microphone.

I’ve written before about our use of the Wii Fit in our curriculum. It has been a fantastically motivating tool to help children develop their balance and coordination. Project Natal looks really exciting. This kind of technology be incredibly useful in the classroom.

Take a look at the preview video.

I’ve been using 2Simple DIY to platform games with a Healthy Eating theme. We had great fun! The children downloaded pictures of “bad foods” from the internet, designed the level’s, created their characters, recorded the sounds and playtested each others games. Best of all – the games can be saved as a SWF file and can be easily uploaded to the internet which has got the kids more motivated than I have seen them in a long time. The project has reminded me of the power of ICT to enhance creativity and empower children. It rather reminds me of something I read recently:

For learning to take place with any kind of efficiency students must be motivated. To be motivated, they must become interested. And they become interested when they are actively working on projects which they can relate to their values and goals in life.

Gus Tuberville, President, William Penn College

Take a look here  (KS3 GLD classes)! Also here (KS2 mixed GLD and ASD).

I am very excited to be going to Ghana on Saturday. We have an international link along side William C Harvey School in Tottenham with New Horizon Special School and Castle Road Special Schools in Accra, Ghana and is funded by the Department for International Development. We have called the programme Creating Friendship and Interdependence. I have set up a shared blog by the same name to facilitate the link – which is viewable by invitation only since it contains photos of our children. Blogging is prooving a fantastic means of building a relationship between the schools in the two countries. The schools have both recently had computers donated by IT Schools Africa and Teachers Beyond Borders. Hopefully I can get them set up and usable whilst I am there.

The Ghanaian teachers visit to London in September was covered by the BBC. I hope that our visit will be equally successful! I’ll try and keep this blog updated whilst I am there…

Koosh Generator is a lovely little online program that would work well with SLD learners using a touchscreen or interactive whiteboard and when teaching cause and effect. I spotted it on the prolific Teaching Learners with Multiple Needs blog.

Vocaroo is a great little web app. It has a beautifully simple interface. After recording a sound file it give the option to listen to it, post it on the internet (via an embed code) or send it via email. You can even download it.

I can see an application here with the work we have been doing using blogging with our pupils as well as building on our shared blog to build upon our international links with our partner schools in Ghana. I look forward to trying it out in the classroom.

Spotted on Doug’s blog.

“The Feelings Game“ is a simple game teaching emotions. I works really well on an IWB. This would fit in really nicely with a lot of the work we do with our ASD learners.

I found it on the excellent Woodlands Junior School website, which has a page of useful SEN links.

I recently started studying for an MA in ICT & Education at Leeds University via distance learning. I have been asked by my tutor to keep a journal of my experiences – and it made sense to me to intergrate it with my existing blog.

I attend weekly sessions that take place online. The current module I am studying is called Learning with Virtual Worlds. We previously studied a number of Integrated Learning Systems - that are teaching machines very much based on the behaviourist learning model. Learners progress at their own pace and the computer carefully tracks the students progress through the course. My experiences as a teacher have led me to believe that learning always takes place within a social context. Learning is a collaborative process that never seems to follow the expected smooth upward path. Learning, in my experience, happens in fits and starts. I, therefore, found the concept of a Integrated Learning System rather unappealing (all rather too Brave New World for my liking). All the reading I have done around the subject seems to rather confirm my initial sentiment. Learning machines, on their own, don’t work.

This weeks session is on the subject of Computer Mediated Communication (CMC). As part of the course we use a system called First Class. Their are synchronous and asynchronous discussions. I must admit that I am rather comfortable with the format. I feel comfortable in the online environment. I can participate from anywhere I have access to an Internet connected computer (work, home, the pub). I love having a text copy of all the online discussions that take place (my hand scrawled tutorial notes taken at university were always completely incomprehensible to be when I went back over them). I like being able to have easy access to other students notes – it seems to make the whole learning experience more collaborative.

CMC is also of particular interest to me because of my work with ASD learners (Autistic Spectrum Disorder). I have noticed that many of the communication difficulties are minimised when they use CMC. Many of them love to use collaborative online games (Runescape, Club Penguin, World of Warcraft etc). I have always found it interesting that they appear to be expert at collaborating within these games – and yet often find face-to-face communication much more difficult. Of course – the social rules and norms are normally much more logical and systematic online than they are face-to-face.

However, I am not really sure why CMC appeals to ASD learners so much – but I do look forward to trying to find out!

I’ve posted previously about the blogging project that I am undertaking as part of the TTP at the Haringey CLC. I am piloting the project with a single child – known as ‘D’. His blog is now up and running - although I have encountered several challenges.

D’s literacy is low. Although he is verbally able, he rarely has the patience to construct written sentences. He can read – but again rarely sustains it for any length of time. However, he is literate enough to glean information from web-pages. He can copy text from the page onto the computer. He is able to understand the text within windows menus and pop-ups and can read the contents of most of the buttons on web pages (single word). The multi-media aspects of the Internet appeal to D. His obsessive nature is also well suited to the Internet – whatever his latest obsession is he will find web pages devoted to the subject.

As with any young person -  there are issues with blogging and child-protection. However, D is a particularly vulnerable child. D struggles with understanding the boundaries between appropriate and inappropriate behaviour and craves adult attention. I feel that it is absolutely essential to protect D by ensuring that I vet all posts and comments before they are posted live on the Internet. Although I am eager for D to make the blog his own, I am also determined not to allow anything on there that would allow anyone to identify D or his family. In order to do that I set myself up as the administrator of his blog, and D himself as a contributor. However, after some investigation I discovered that meant that D was unable to upload media to the blog!

As a way of overcoming this problem I have set Moselle School up with a Flickr account. I am planning to spend Friday morning with D capturing all of his haunts round the school – his seat in class, where he eats his dinner, where he spends his playtimes etc. We will upload the images to flickr together and then embed them into his blog. D is a master of copy and paste – and with a little support was able to easily imbed an image into his blog.

This afternoon I happened to be working with D in an ICT lesson – where we were using a piece of software called 2animate to make simple drawings move with a computer animation technique called tweening (aka inbetweening). With no adult support D managed to upload the gif to Flickr – and then enbed into a post.

Saw these ICT resources for the teaching of basic numeracy and literacy. Thanks to ictopus for the tip.

I am currently carrying out a class-based action research project on using blogging with SEN students as part of the Tansformation Teachers Programme run by the Haringey CLC.

I’ve focused on a single learner, D, who suffers from Smith Magenis Syndrome. He is a relatively bright KS3 boy with some autistic tendencies. He has many obsessions - and often has violent outbursts - as is typical of the syndrome. D loves using computers.

I hope that a blog will provide a useful outlet for D – and I hope that it will reduce the number of violent incidents. I also hope that it will help improve his literacy and ICT skills.

Take a look at D’s blog.