During the second visit to the school, we were split into groups comprising of three students and 5 children. The challenge of the morning was to create a talking book which could express the meaning of one of the Rights of the Child (UNICEF, 1989). Our group decided to adopt Article 16: Every child has the right to have privacy (UNICEF, 1989). We decided to use this article, as we thought it was one that not many other groups would choose, and also we thought it was really important for children to understand that they have a right to privacy, even if they do not fully understand what the word 'privacy' means yet.
The children in our group were in Year One, and none of them knew what privacy meant. However, when we asked some questions, mostly based around the school's 'Oasis Room' (A room where children are allowed to go if they need some time out or peace and quiet), it was evident that the children did understand what privacy was, just not what the word 'privacy' meant. This was a good basis to start on, and so we quickly moved on to creating our talking book.
Elements of the day that really surprised me, was the ease that the children used the iPads with. We were using all sorts of different apps on the iPads, and the children knew how to work every single one. If anything, the children were actually guiding us on how to use the apps most effectively! As John and Sutherland (2004) express, ICT is a growing part of children's everyday lives, and so it is no real shock that the children could easily master the apps on the iPads, however the way a group of five and six year old children responded to them was really amazing.
Something that was a challenge to us as students, was that we were unfamiliar with Apple TV, and so we were not sure how to properly utilise what has been demonstrated as a truly amazing feature for teachers. We overcame this by just using small screens (e.g. iPads and computers) which were effective (Heinrich, 2012) , however this was towards the end of the session, and the children were less engaged as they could not all see clearly at the same time. I feel I have learnt from this that even if I am not trained or do not understand how to use a certain piece of technology, I need to make sure that I know what I can do instead. Although we overcame this issue, we were trying to make the Apple TV work for about 20 minutes before giving up and using the iPads. This is time that we could have used to further the children's knowledge of the article, or time we could have spent editing out taking book. Nevertheless, we got our book done on time, and the whole group inclusive of the children were happy with the outcome.
We left most decisions up to the children, and nearly all of the text that is written on our talking book was typed by the children, or spelt by the children and a student typed it. As English specialists, we used every opportunity to enforce literacy that we could, to ensure ICT is seen as a cross curricula resource (Potter and Darbyshire, 2010).
To conclude, I really enjoyed the session with the children in school, and learnt a lot from how far advanced the children are in ICT, even in the very early stages of their school life. I feel that as a group we reinforced literacy, in the form of digital literacy, and we also kept in mind that the heart of the challenge was to further children's knowledge into the Rights of the Child (UNICEF, 1989), focusing on article 16.
Heinrich, P. (2012) The iPad as a Tool for Education: A study of the introduction of iPads, Winchester: Naace.
John, P and Sutherland, R (2004) Teaching and Learning with ICT: New technology, new pedagogy? Education, Communication and Information, 4, pp101-107
Potter, F. and Darbyshire, C. (2010) Understanding and Teaching the ICT National Curriculum, Oxon: Routledge
UNICEF (1989) The United Nations Convention of the Rights of the Child, London: UNICEF UK.
It made interesting reading about someone elses issues and problems. Children at Year One age do have a short attention span, so when technical problems occur they can easily lose interest. The next time you teach digital lieracy, what strategies would you have in place to over come the the technical issues such as the TV? How could you have engaged the children in such a way that their learning progresses?
ReplyDeleteI found the same problems as your group with the Apple TV. The time we spent trying to work it out the children were not interested in the task or to see their book anymore. It is nice to see that your children had the capabilities to use the apps on the iPads. Our group had a completely different experience to you where the children only knew how to type and go back to the home screen. As for the apps the children said they had never used them before so we were teaching them bits along the way. It is great to see that your group left most of the decisions to the children which was really important for their creativity with the talking book. I look forward to seeing your talking book next week!
ReplyDeleteThanks for the comments!
ReplyDeleteIts good to see that Nicola had similar issues with the Apple TV as this makes me feel better about not engaging the children for 100% of the time. I feel that with the teaching of ICT there are always possibilities that things will take more time to set up or not go to plan. This is just something we will have to try and plan for when teaching, and have alternative solutions in mind!