2. INTRODUCTION
I am a teaching assistant in a year 2 class of an infant school. I have
planned to set myself a challenge and ultimately engage the children
with the task and I hope they will be enthusiastic in taking part. I hope
this will be something we will do regularly and it wont just be a ‘one off’.
We are very fortunate to have excellent ICT provision throughout our
infant school. We have an eager ICT coordinator who ensures our
equipment is in good working order and she has a ‘wish list’ to keep it
up to date with current trends!
3. LEARNING OBJECTIVES
This will be a Literacy session and I have planned to use the ICT
equipment as a way of recording or creating a story and its characters.
Some children find it difficult to sit and write a story but through using
equipment such as a microphone or ipad they can record their own
story without fear of correct spelling and keeping pace of writing during
the lesson. They can also record in short bursts, save and return to add
more when possible.
Ultimately I would like them to enjoy being creative and explore how
to use this wonderful equipment but also share what we have created
with others.
5. CLASS DYNAMICS
We have 26 children in our class. We are a year 2 class
with the majority now aged 7years old.
We have a good range of ability with most achieving
Foundation Phase outcome 5.
The lesson I have planned will be covered by the whole
class eventually but initially I intend to work with the lower
ability group who are currently achieving a good outcome
four but with elements of outcome 5.
6. CLASS DYNAMICS
I will be referring to the Framework for Children's Learning for 3 to 7-
year olds in Wales to set the activity to the expected standard for the
age group and the outcome we will be working towards. It covers the
seven areas of learning. I will be looking at the outcome for Language,
Literacy and Communication when designing the activity.
I will also be making links to the Skills Framework for 3-19 year olds in
Wales to ensure I am including the development of skills in thinking,
communication and most importantly ICT.
The skills framework works across the curriculum and skills that the
children are developing through this activity will be transferable to other
subjects.
7. LESSON/ACTIVITY OUTLINE
We have found it difficult to get some children to write a story! They
may share some lovely ideas with you about a character or theme of a
story but when it comes to writing it they become distracted or tell you
they cant do it. I intend to use our ICT equipment as a way of them
recording their ideas and stories and building upon this by using other
methods to extend their story. They could also use their recordings as a
prompt to help them write it into their book. Through using the ipad and
class computers the activity is achievable for all ability groups but when
we observe and assess the end product that is where we will see the
differentiation in content and how they plan to extend their work.
8. LESSON OUTLINE/ACTIVITY
I feel this will have a solid purpose and enhance their prior knowledge. The child
may find a resource that they really enjoyed learning and it will give them
confidence in their ability in story writing.
When making a cross curricular link it is important it is done with consideration of
the end product and what the child would have achieved in relation to their
progress and development. There is no point doing a literacy lesson and adding an
ipad just to tick a box if neither part actually work together.
The Learning Wales website gives guidance for using ICT to support Literacy. It
provides links to current documents from the Welsh Assembly but also shares case
studies of good practice from other schools. It interesting to see what others do and
from this you are able to be inspired with what is possible in your own classroom.
9. FOUNDATION PHASE OUTCOMES
Framework for Children's Learning for 3 to 7-year olds in
Wales
Outcome 4 – Children speak audibly, conveying meanings to a
range of listeners. They begin to extend their ideas or accounts by
including some detail.
Outcome 5 – Children speak clearly, with increasing confidence
and use a growing vocabulary. They show an awareness of the
needs of the listener by including relevant detail.
10. RESOURCES
We will be using two of the class computers, three ipads, one tuff
mic, one flipcam and one tuff cam.
Children who aren’t using equipment will be working in pairs to plan
their story using a giant story map or puppets. The more confident story
writers may be writing straight into their books or using a sheet set out
like a film reel to segment and plan their story.
We will be working towards everyone producing their piece using the
equipment.
11. 5 Minute Lesson Plan
The Big Picture
Lang, Lit & Comm lesson – creative
story telling and preparation for
writing activity.
All children have previous
knowledge of story writing but this
will demonstrate their ability to
create a story through another
medium (ICT).
The link will be Literacy and ICT.
Some children will work
independently and others with a
partner to share ideas.
Objective
To begin to produce a piece
of work using the equipment.
To be able to explain to some
one else how they created
their piece of work/character.
Engagement
The children love using
the computers and
ipads and I will explain
what we hope to
achieve. Replaying what
they have done and
giving positive and
specific praise to keep
them engaged.
Stickability!
Hopefully they
will take away
the fun they had
creating their
story. What else
they could with
that equipment.
What they
would do to
improve/do
different next
time.
AfL
I will be working with the group
so as they progress I will ask how
they feel about using the
equipment and observe their
level of engagement. Ask them
specific questions about
characters/scenes and if they
think they could improve. During
the plenary we will share our
progress.
Key Words
Character/s
scene
Connectives
Opening
Build up
Problem
Resolution
Good adjectives
Differentiation
More able will be creating
their story map/writing to
prepare to record.
Average creating their story
map or using puppets
Below average will be using
small world to play out a
story and computer/ipad to
create a character.
Teacher/Student
Carpet session to
introduce what everyone
will be expected to do
and state objective.
I will emphasise I’m there
to help but I want to see
their ideas and the story
developing.
I will give opportunity for
the children to
experiment and just
observe and ask
questions as I move
around each activity.
12. THE EVALUATION
The session began well with the children eager to get started on their
activities. A few children volunteered their suggestions for characters and
scenarios to begin their story.
Initially the children just wanted to play and a couple of children found it
hard to get started and were looking at others were doing for reassurance so
I partnered them up and asked them to collaborate to produce their story.
I was pleased to see all remained on task with a few asking for my help
with a few technical issues!
It was a learning opportunity for both me and the children. When using
the apps on the ipad such as puppet pals the children were able to extend
their story by changing the scene and adding in their own characters.
13. THE EVALUATION
I supported them by demonstrating how to use the equipment and allowed
them to ‘have a go’. I offered reassurance when needed but I was just there to
observe progress and support when the children were working at their story.
Observing their progress through the session most were consistently engaged
and everyone produced a very good piece of work. I am intrigued to see how we
will use these devises in the future and the skills they have gained from this session.
I feel it was beneficial to allow some children to record their ideas and not to
only give value to work if it is written in their book which some find very difficult.
Through apple tv we were all able to watch the ipad videos which was a very
proud moment for the children involved and others are keen to complete their
videos to share those too!
14. THE EVALUATION
On occasion the classroom did get quite noisey with some very
interesting character voices and the excitement of being let loose with
the resources. Perhaps next time I would withdraw a group to another
room or the hall to give them opportunity to record with background
noise.
We are fortunate to have a lovely outdoors area which could also
be an area we could utilise for future ICT investigations.
I do feel inspired to include more ICT when producing work. With
literacy it fitted well to the individuality of a story writing activity. It was
achievable to all and required very little differentiation during the lesson
but our more able and talented children will be enhancing on their
work.
15. THE EVIDENCE
This group were using the small world farm to create their story. To begin they decided on the
problem, where a horse goes missing from the farm. One child filmed it using the ipad. The
other two children then carried on just playing out the story as they wanted and improvised as
the other added to the story. They worked well as a group and when the activity finished they
were eager to share their next idea for the run away horse!
16. THE EVIDENCE
These are screen shots of a Puppet Pal story. Its an app we have used before on
the ipad. Its quite simple to use and allows the child to change scenes and sizes of
characters. Through apple tv we are able to view the stories as a class. We have
used this app before. The children have complete control over the story building
and they love adding their voices to the characters.
17. This is another app on ipad where a
child has drawn what he thinks Mr Stink
looks like. He didnt want to create his own
so after hearing the story at home he
thought he would draw him and think of his
own adventure for Mr Stink next time! This
particular child does not enjoy story writing
and currently under writes a few sentences
which he finds a challenge.
I feel he enjoyed this activity and next
time I hope he will record a description of
his character or retell his favourite part of
the story.
THE EVIDENCE
18. THE EVIDENCE
This is the beginning of a story
recorded on the easi-speak mic.
The child struggled to think of a
beginning to their own story so
they chose to innovate the story
of Jack and the Beanstalk.
19. THE EVIDENCE
We use textease for the children’s work on the computer. During this session the
children used its paint package to design their character. Another child chose to start
their story and changed the font and colour to make it ‘different’. They are confident
using textease and some of its features as they have been using it since Reception.
20. TO BLOG OR NOT TO BLOG!
As part of my assignment I had planned to set up a class blog. We
had a carpet session where I explained to the children it would be our
class diary where everyone got to contribute something about their day
or an achievement. They shared lots of ideas of what they would like to
write about.
Due to some restrictions to our class computers we were unable to
set up our class blog by the deadline for this assignment but the IT co-
ordinator is going to put a blog space on our school website which we
are really pleased about.
