2. The school that I attend for my placement has numerous technologies available for the children.
This includes computers, laptops, Ipads and smart boards. By using these technologies the
children develop their knowledge and skills such as, improve language skills, promotes
school readiness and cognitive development, enhances social interaction skills and develop
problem solving skills.
I am based in year 3 my position in the school is to support a group of lower ability children and
to support a child one to one when needed. I listen to the children reading to be aware how
the child is doing so I can note a record down for the parents and the teachers to be aware of
how the child is doing if she/he is progressing or needs extra support. I support the children
in all areas of learning such as numeracy, literature and ICT. I also support the teacher in
managing class behaviour. I give advice and guidance to the children when they need
support. On Tuesday I support a child one to one, who has English as a second language. I
support her by going on the Ipad to allow her to explore the apps which link to her education
to allow her to gain more knowledge and help her with her reading and numeracy. I provide
her with numerous websites which allows her to explore and gain knowledge on all areas of
learning.
My intentions for this activity is for the children to be able to find, explore, analyse, exchange and
present information. I also want to focus on developing the skills necessary for children to be
able to use information in a discriminating and effective way. I want the children to be familiar
with wordfoto app and be able to describe their friends. To be able to spell correctly using
electronics. ICT skills are a major factor in enabling children to be confident, creative and
independent learners.
3. The aims of the activity are to enable children:
to develop ICT capability in finding, selecting and using information;
to use ICT for effective and appropriate communication;
to monitor and control events both real and imaginary;
to apply apps and software to creative and appropriate uses of information;
to apply their ICT skills and knowledge to their learning in other areas;
to use their ICT skills to develop their language and communication skills;.
It is important that the children have knowledge of ICT so that they know how to
use the wordfoto app. The children will be able to describe their friends by
inserting the relevant words on the app which then creates the children's
photographs and turning them into artworks made up from layers of words. The
children will have lots of fun working on this app! Wegerief and Dawes (2004)
states “ Creativity is often described as a thinking skill or at least as an important
aspect of thinking that can and should be fostered” (p.57).
4. In my class we have 25 children with different levels of ability. I am currently
working with year three children. The children in my class are aged between
8/9 years old. All children are at different levels and stages, we have the
higher ability children in one group and the lower ability in another group. This
helps the children to work at their right level of knowledge and put them at the
appropriate level of work. To help the children I showed a sample of my
artwork from wordfoto app to give them an idea of how a completed work
looks like, explaining to them what I wanted from the activity. Some children
were already familiar with wordfoto app as they have used it at home with their
parents. I did however help some of the lower ability children to put their user
name and password in to the computer to access the app. In my lesson plan I
followed the National Curriculum in Wales (2008) framework to see if the child
is meeting the right curriculum at their stage or level, this guided me to see
what the curriculum required to meet the right criteria for my lesson .
5. In my ICT lesson I firstly organised the classroom for the children , I arranged the seating and
tables for the children to be able to have a clear view of me demonstrating what needs to be
done for the lesson. I put the resources ready out on the table which were markers and A3
paper for the children to use for brainstorming words in groups to describe their friends . For
this activity my main aim is for the children to be able to use wordfoto app and to be able to
describe how they feel about their friends by using technology. I started off by telling the
children to go in to groups of fives and to brainstorm some words of how they feel about their
friends. By putting them in to groups it allowed the children to share ideas , words and it
allowed them to work as a group to support each other. I then used the smart board to show
them a sample of my artwork I created by using wordfoto app which we will be using for the
activity. I then introduced the children to wordfoto app and showed them how to use it and
what needs to be done for the lesson. After that I took the children to the ICT room and gave
them the opportunity to use the Ipad, laptops and computers to be able to do their work on.
The wordfoto app we used for the lesson was for the children to be able to create a artwork
this involved the children to describe their friends by inserting the relevant words on the app
which then creates the children's photographs and turning them into artworks made up from
layers of words. The children's oral skills were developed by talking and presenting their
work to the group. The children had fun making their art work and were excited to show it to
their parents. The main objective was achieved by children being involved heavily with ICT
work. In my lesson plan I have referred to the National Curriculum (2008) document.
6. The resources I used for my lesson were the Ipad, computers and laptops in the ICT
room. For my ICT lesson we used wordfoto app which is an app that creates artwork of
pictures which can be edited with words. This app enables children to be creative and
enhance their knowledge in a enjoyable and creative way. The wordfoto app is used a lot
in my school for all ages of children to create an individual artwork in a creative and fun
way. The wordfoto app can be used in school and at home by downloading the app on
your Ipad, laptops or mobile phones. The wordfoto app I chose enables the children to
concentrate on their literacy skills and their ICT skills, for example taking a photo, adding
pictures from the web, changing the font size or style. The children had to insert words in
to the text boxes to describe their friends by using computers to do this activity it helped
the children to spell check and to be able to edit their font or delete words that is not
needed. In the classroom I used the smart board to show the sample of my artwork to
all the children. I also put markers and A3 paper for the children to brainstorm some
words in groups to help describe their friends when doing on the computers for the
lesson.
7. Date 08/05/2015 Class Year 3
Subject ICT Focus Wordfoto app
Age Range 8/9 Years old
Learning Objectives
To use ICT to begin to organise items.
To use technology to combine text with
photograph, graphics and drawings.
To use the skills and techniques learnt to
organise, recognise and communicate ideas for
a specific purpose in different contexts.
To begin to develop typing speed and accuracy
to enable independence access of a computer.
Differentiation
Teaching assistant support
Peer support
Level of understanding and communication
Able and less able child
Extra support
Resources
Ipad
Computer
Laptop
Smart board
Markers
A3 sheets
LNF. Thinking & ICT Skills across the Curriculum
Extract information from variety of sources, including ICT.
Become aware that ICT can be used to communicate ideas.
Use given ICT resources to help create, present and safely share their ideas including text, word – banks and images.
Area
Classroom and ICT room
Time 10:00am – 11:00am
Evaluation
Children’s Learning
The children stayed engaged and motivated while being on the IPads as they
enjoy using them for learning.
The activity gave the children the opportunity to work together or
independently.
The learning objectivise that were gained through this activity helped the
children gain more knowledge about using ICT and to be able to use it
confidently.
My Learning
From this activity I learnt that children need to be given
more opportunities to work on the IPads the children gain
more knowledge and improve their ICT skills.
I learnt children work better in pairs or groups as they can
share ideas and learn from each other.
I have also learnt that some of the lower ability children
have great skills on the ICT, some are better than the more
capable children. This helped the lower ability children to
show off their skills and be confident.
8. The purpose of the activity was to help the children use the wordfoto app. I initially took a
class of 25 and put them into groups. Altogether I made 5 groups. As stated in Senior
(1989) “When a group of children sit together around a keyboard, share ideas and
takes turns to type, they interact and discuss. The written language then draws
naturally upon the spoken language. The finished copy is truly representative of the
group as it is independent of any groups' hand writing style” (p.194). I demonstrated
and gave information to all the children about the activity we were going to do. The
children were very excited about it. In the class the groups were given markers and A3
papers to brainstorm some descriptive words in order to describe their friends. The
children were engaged doing their brain storming. Thereafter, I showed the children on
the smart board an example of my artwork that I created from the wordfoto app. The
children became very keen to do one for themselves. Once the brainstorming and
showing the example of the artwork the children then went to the ICT room. In the ICT
room the children were no longer in groups and worked individually. Each children
received an Ipad and Laptop or Computer. The children logged into their own accounts
and downloaded the wordfoto app. Through out the process I supported and
supervised the children. The children had to capture a photos from their devices of
their friends in order to create their artwork. The children then upload the photos of
their friends on the app. The app then creates word boxes for the children to insert
their words. The words on the app which then creates the children's photographs and
turning them into artworks made up from layers of words. The children then had the
opportunity to explore the app in more details. They could edit their pictures by
changing the font , colour, style, backgrounds, brightness and contrasts. The children
printed out their pieces of work and too it home to show to their family.
9. By doing this activity the children learnt descriptive words when brainstorming in their groups
and they learnt to be able to log on to their accounts and to be able to use wordfoto app with
little bit of support at the beginning by me and their peers and then gradually they learnt how
to do it independently. Higgins and Packard (2004) states, “When considering the use of ICT
in the teaching of literacy and National Literacy Strategy, there is a range of opportunities to
consider. Given access to the right equipment, using ICT in the whole class teaching
elements of the strategy can be very powerful” (p.65). They developed ICT skills by
exploring on wordfoto app by learning to be able to enlarge text and experiment with different
font, backgrounds, editing and style. By experimenting with the wordfoto app it helped the
children gain knowledge on ICT and enhanced their learning on the artwork they produced at
the end of the lesson. When doing the group work with the children , the children learnt how
to work in a team and share ideas. The children developed their social skills by
communicating with each other and enjoying themselves.
The ICT supported the learning by doing their activity quicker, it gave the children the opportunity
to explore and be creative using technology. In my class some lower ability children have
difficulty spelling words and by using ICT it corrected their spelling by using the spell check
tool. By using ICT they were able to look up words and see other words they could use as an
alternative. This helped the lower ability children to feel confident in their spelling as the ICT
corrected the words for them.
I supported the learning by deciding to do the wordfoto app. This is a easy app to use and the
children did not find it difficult to use. I explained to the children what the app is about and
they looked forward to using it. I initially provided the children with the necessary resources
and showed them how to use it. I helped the children to get started and running. With the
lower ability children I helped them log in to their accounts. When the children asked
questions I provided them with adequate answers.
10. The ICT activity was amazing to use with the children it helped me learn how
important the use of ICT is in peoples lives and how much the children enjoy
using technology. Before using wordfoto app with the children I had to explore
and get familiar with the app to be more confident and to provide the right
information to the children. With this experience and knowledge I have gained I
will use it in the future and develop it further and continue supporting the
children’s learning.
If I were to carry out this activity again I would look for a similar app which could be
better and have more functions where it could enhance the children’s learning
further. I enjoyed the ICT module as it gave me the opportunity to explore and
gain more ICT skills using technology. I was also introduced to blogging and it
was a fun experience using it. The ICT module has improved my teaching in
school using ICT with the children as I feel more confident using technology. I
really had fun doing this activity and I am sure the children did as well as they
were excited to take their work home and show it to their family. As Higgins,
Packard and Race states (1999) “IT can find it’s inspiration and context within
the rest of the curriculum. It can support, enhance and extend learning in many
other subject areas. It can also be an excellent source of inspiration and
motivation, but often ICT computers are used primarily as a source of ‘Drill and
practice’ (sometimes referred to as “Drill and Kill”) activities. This situation can
cause stagnation and does not promote IT or ICT skills in any useful way”
(p.33).
11.
12. DCELLS (2008). Key stage 1 and 2 of the National Curriculum for
Wales. Cardiff:WAG
Higgins and Packard (2004). Meeting the standards in primary
ICT. Aguide to ITT NC. Routledge Falmer.
Higgins, Packard and Race (1999). 500 ICT Tips. For primary
Teachers: Kogan Page Limited
Wordfoto App (2015) “Taking your photographs and turning them
into artworks made up from layers of words.” (ONLINE -
http://www.knowyourapps.com/reviews/wordfoto/)
Accessed:08/05/15
Senior. S (1989). Using IT across the National Curriculum: Owelet
Books.
Wegerif.R and Dawes. L (2004). Thinking and learning with ICT.
Raising achievement in primary classrooms. Routledge Falmer.
