Today I attended the 4th Specialist Schools and Academies Trust Primary National Conference. I was invited to run some seminars for the delegates. Situated in one of the conference suites of the Emirates stadium, the home of Arsenal football club, the event accommodation was spacious and well equipped.

I ran my hour long session twice during the day, it was titled ”Connected Classrooms“. I based my practical ideas on 4 different connections.

• Student – Student (same class)
• Students – Students (different classes, countries, cultures)
• Teacher – Student – Learning (connecting with our curriculum)
• Teacher – Teacher (using Twitter for CPD)

I tried to keep my presentation simple and coherent, with a clear message about the ways we can use technology to engage learners.

We used the Nintendo Wii and I spent some time playing Endless Ocean and talking about the ways we have used it in our recent topic. I highlighted classroom blogging as a simple means to establish meaningful connections with other classes around the world.

Drawing upon my experiences of Twitter I spoke about why it is the most important CPD I have had. The most important connection we need to facilitate is between students in our own classes. I went into detail about how Voicethread can do this, the ways we have used it in a recent sequence of writing work and why it is one of my classroom cornerstones.

I think technology has the potential to both perpetuate traditional notions of classwork and to in fact smudge the definitions of what independent work means.

If you were one of those attending the sessions, thankyou for joining me and please feel free to leave me a comment about your reactions. I really value your feedback.

The sun will soon be rising on 2010 and I just wanted to look back at a hugely eventful year for me personally. Here are some of the things that have been memorable.

Last Christmas we spent our holidays in Australia. It was an amazing trip for me and I would dearly love to return to that part of the world, perhaps on a more permanent basis. When we arrived in Sydney our apartment was not going to be open until later in the day. We had landed about 8am and the prospects of entertaining a 2 year old with all of our luggage still in tow was going to be tricky. But to our rescue came Judy O’Connell and Dean Groom, both of whom I had known from our various online networks but had never met before. Judy kindly picked us up from the airport and we went back to her house where we were able to unwind for a little bit. Dean picked us up later and took us on to our apartment in Manly. I am so grateful for that amazing gesture of kindness – it got our trip off to a great start and illustrates the trust that can be developed through online connections.

The TeachMeet community has had an incredible 2009 and I have been fortunate enough to have been to five events in person. The BETT show TeachMeet began the year and I was just amazed by the scale of things and the huge interest from the commercial sector. In May Stuart Sutherland and I organised and ran the first TeachMeet in the Midlands, hosted by the National College for School Leadership. It was incredible to be part of the full organisation and we are hoping to hold another in 2010. I was delighted to be invited to do a mini-note at TeachMeet North East London and also to organise TeachMeet Channel 4 to bookend their education conference. In September I was able to return to the Scottish Learning Festival and another TeachMeet held in the BBC Scotland building. Along with popping into various Flashmeetings I also attended Dai Barnes and Doug Belshaw’s hugely successful EdTechRoundup TeachMeet which was held online. This added another amazing dimension to this incredible professional development event. With Stuart Ridout, I am currently organising TeachMeet Bett 2010 as well as TeachMeet Takeover – it looks like it should kick off another inspiring year of grass roots professional development.

When you get an invitation from royalty to a conference in another country you can be excused for being a little sceptical. But the inaugural World Innovation Summit for Education (WISE) in Qatar was no joke. I was delighted to be included in only 1000 of the invited delegates from all over the world. A handful of edubloggers were invited but not many actually attended. It was a privilege to represent primary school teachers from the UK and be part of the wider discussions. Although the word “innovation” was in the conference name, little was done to “walk the walk” in terms of the communication processes used. That said, I blogged and tweeted my way through the event to encourage remarks and comment from a wider audience. I hope that if there is a 2010 event that more will be done to encourage delegates to share what they experience with a world audience.

This time next year I will have spent a term in a new job! After a bit of grumbling I stumbled upon a Deputy Head Teacher job that I believed would be a great opportunity. I spent the return flight from Qatar writing the letter, which got me an interview. The day and a half interview was a great challenge and I was thrilled to be offered the job. I will be starting as Deputy Head Teacher in the Summer term. I have been in my current post for about 8 years and I have been through some great times, but it has long been time for me to move on and face a new challenge. As part of the interview I asked readers of this blog and followers on Twitter to help with some testimonials. I printed them off and found a moment in the formal interview to hand them out to the panel – it was an amazing set of references and I have no doubt helped secure the job. Thankyou to everyone who contributed to the 20,000 character job reference.

During 2009 I continued my involvement with multi-touch technology in the classroom. At BETT in January I met with representatives from SMART and organised an early trial of the SMART Table in my classroom. After working with it I felt it’s capacity to impact on learning was limited. Sadly the trial was abruptly ended, in my opinion due to an honest and frank account of my experiences I blogged about. Although critical of the SMART Table I was committed to helping SMART improve and develop it as it would directly benefit the wider multi-touch educational technology field. But, alas, they prevented that by taking it away and they did it, in my opinion, to limit the damage caused by my negative posts. I am now a member of the SynergyNet steering group at Durham University who are developing a multi-touch learning project, and met in November of this year for the first time. The developments at Durham are really exciting: multi-touch classrooms, networked tables able to pass media between them and a general focus on the pedagogies that underpin multi-touch enhanced learning.

This academic year we have been doing shorter half-termly topics in Year 5. We have found that although shorter, they are more focused. The first one was Sealife. Built around and inspired by the Nintendo Wii game Endless Ocean. It was a pleasure to work with the children during the 7 weeks as we explored, discovered and learned together. Using an open ended game to drive a topic was amazing to work with and the children were completely engaged and enjoyed every moment.

Maths Maps has been a long time in the making. Years ago I made some Google Earth resources that used the satellite imagery to structure maths activities. With the development of Google Maps and the ability to now collaborate on a map as if it is a document, such as a Google Document, I have been able to realise what I had always imagined with these resources. Each Maths Map is a maths topic with activities located on real life objects visible in the satellite imagery layer of Google Maps. In total the 3 current maps have been viewed 85,000 times, but more importantly the idea has inspired other teachers to begin using Google Maps to produce engaging content for their learners.

This year I finally made the switch to a self hosted blog. With the nudging of Doug Belshaw I bought some space and installed WordPress, transferred everything from my old blog and have been really happy here in my new home. The most obvious advantage is the personalisation that you can achieve with your own space. There is no limit or other person choosing what you can add or not. You are free to be as creative with your space as you are with what you write. I was pleased to have been nominated by my peers for 6 different Edublog Awards categories this year, thankyou to all those who wrote such kind words in their nomination posts.

I just tweeted about a couple of updates to two different “Interesting Ways” presentations. The IWB resource was started in November 2007 and now there are about 30 different crowd-sourced resources with a huge amount of shared expertise. I prefer not to be too tool-centric, nor do I like the formulaic “100 Awesome things to do with a Cabbage” sort of posts that have littered education blogging recently. In my opinion what sets the Interesting Ways resources apart is that (a) they all begin at zero, they are put out there not as a perfectly formed multiple of 10 lists and (b) they are built by everyone, the crowd, educators explaining and sharing their experiences. They are authored by the community and I feel lucky to be in the position to keep encouraging them along.

A memorable year in lots of different ways and Christmas at home this year has been made really special as my 3 year old son’s excitement has built to a feverish crescendo. I have been able to share in some of that too. I wonder what 2010 will bring? I am looking forward to it already. I wish you all the best for 2010 and hope you continue to join me.

Imagine for a moment you have a Nintendo Wii, or similar, in your classroom (perhaps you do already) which you use for games based learning. Topics or subject units you teach are centred around the use of a specific game and you are in the middle of one such topic.

One day a parent comes into your class and tells you that as a punishment at home their child is banned from using their own games console. The parent knows about the work going on in your class and wants to know what you are going to do about it?

What would you do?

This interesting situation was posed to me recently (some of you might be able to figure out in which context) and is completely fictional. Nonetheless it is a very interesting point for discussion with more and more games based learning work going on in schools.

I have been lucky enough to have developed the use of the Nintendo Wii and DS consoles in our school. We have used the Wiis in our year group in a number of different ways across the curriculum. However the use of Endless Ocean as an integral part of our Sealife curriculum unit has really helped me better understand the role consoles can play in the classroom.

As you may have read in my call for Consoles for Classrooms, I believe that the console should have a well deserved place in the primary classroom as a media platform. But it is as much about seeing potential beyond the games. As soon as you get beyond the “console games engage kids” you start to explore ways to take the game out of the console. Make the most of the potential it has in the wider curriculum, in the unit or topic and in your classroom.

Endless Ocean was central to what we were doing, it wasn’t a bolt on or extra, we had planned for it to be a driving force. But I think what made it so successful and the unit to be so “joined-up” was the thought we gave to what we would do in addition to the game. You can see from the images of sealife work and our loooong display board that we fully embraced the opportunities Endless Ocean and Sealife offered.

The right sort of game will engage the children in your class – in my opinion you have to take that as a given. It is what you do with that engaged group of children that counts. Here are some take-aways:

• Games can be used in isolation – they can be just as effective in single lessons.
• Don’t dwell on just the game – think beyond it, how can you leverage that enthusiasm.
• Make time for your own play. Set up a different save profile, that way you can stay one step ahead.
• Plan ahead, but also decide not to plan! Discovery in gaming is an important part of the experience – sharing the unexpected with your class is amazing.
• Mimic the immersive nature of the gaming environment in your classroom.
• Build displays that develop with time as the unit/game progresses.
• Allow the children to play independently as well as in small groups.

I suppose the clearest message from my experiences I can give is to leverage the children’s enthusiasm in other learning opportunities and as the blog title suggests take the game out of the console.

To kick off Whale Week (the final few days of work using Endless Ocean in our Sealife topic) with my class I planned to discover the Blue Whale in the Nintendo Wii game.

Planning a discovery is I suppose a bit odd, but in a moment of solitary gameplay, I mean planning, in the classroom I found the Blue Whale. The children never stumbled upon it during their own play in the last few weeks. As a result I thought it would be a great way to introduce our week of work based on these amazing animals.

I explained to the class we were going to be taking a dive together as a class. I have done this infrequently over the last 6 weeks, but it is useful to work together sometimes to discover new things and to maintain the momentum.

I didn’t explain that we were looking for the Blue Whale. As I swam away from the shallow waters of the bay, the gloomy blue depths that stretched out ahead of us seemed to raise the tension. As I turned back towards the boat the sound of bubbles from the diver was overwhelmed by the children shouting, “What’s that?”, “Over there!”, “Turn around!”

Appearing before us was the Blue Whale and the children were so excited, it was the largest creature we had found in the game. Here is the Flip camera footage we shot to capture the moment as our diver swam with the whale. (If you listen closely you will notice that at school I take on my Darth Vader alter ego)

Finding the Blue Whale in Endless Ocean from Tom Barrett on Vimeo.

The children went off to work with Google Squared and find out more about the Blue and other whales.

On the BBC last week Stephen Fry was tracking down the Blue Whale in the last in the series of Last Chance to See and so we spent some time watching someone finding the Blue Whale for real.

It was a great way to start our week of work, I could never offer that experience for real – the simulated moment we shared using Endless Ocean was a lot of fun and hopefully a memorable one.

We had fun today using Wii Sports Golf during our maths lesson. This week the children have been practising different written methods of subtraction and today we repeated the Wii idea from last year.

After doing some recapping of the compact method of written subtraction we worked as a whole class with the game. Each child was at their tables with a whiteboard and pen.

• Start by making a note of the length of the hole you are about to play (A). This appears at the top right hand corner when you are teeing off. Get the class to write this down.
• We had a 4 player round to generate lots of questions to practice.
• Choose someone to come out and tee off. When their ball comes to a rest it will show how far to the hole (B). It does not show the length of their shot – so complete the subtraction with the class A – B = C (shot length)
• We repeated this for the other three players.
• As you get your different shot lengths (4 in our case) you are presented with lots of opportunities, such as ordering the shots from longest to shortest, how much further was ? then ? – we used some of these with the whole class after the first group of shots were made.
• With the longer holes you may be able to get another calculation from the 2nd shot – but most of the time the second shot will sail over the hole. This makes it a bit tricky to calculate shot length.

Another direction you could take the game in a maths lesson is to plan for ordering decimals. When the ball lands on the green the game displays how many metres/yards to the pin (hole). It will show it to one decimal place. With four players hitting the green then you have the option of trying to order 4 different distances.

WiiMaths is created by Tristan Methers with funding from the Victorian Dept of Education and Early Childhood Development as part of the Knowledge Bank Next Generation Research Projects. Tristan outlines the investigation into positive and negative numbers in the game of golf and explains:

In Golf names are given for the  number of strokes taken on each hole. If you score the expected amount for a hole that is called a Par. If you get a stroke over the expected amount that is called a Bogey and one stroke under the expected amount is called a Birdie. The number of  strokes under and over and their names are in the table below:

• ALBATROSS  -3
• EAGLE  -2
• BIRDIE  -1
• PAR 0
• BOGEY +1
• DOUBLE BOGEY +2
• TRIPLE BOGEY +3

The students are then given a verbal 9/18 hole golf course to solve and come up with a final score, linking the naming of the strokes to the total score:

Example:

• Hole 1  - Eagle
• Hole 2 – Bogey
• Hole 3 – Par

I think that this is a good example of explaining the maths behind the scoring system itself and would allow a class or small group to practice +ve and -ve numbers in an engaging way.

Why bother?

This games based approach to maths engages the children. It certainly engages my class. They asked me to do some more in the afternoon. More written subtraction! They are switched on by the use of the game and enjoy the challenge of the maths that we packaged up within it. With some successful baseball addition earlier this week too, it is proving effective to use Wii games in this single lesson role.

Are the children better at subtraction because of the game?

Crucially we were able to practice and refine our calculations over a more sustained period in the lesson due to the game. The same occurred with the baseball addition earlier this week. Children were happy to work hard on the maths for longer due to the involvement of the game. If use of the game is combined with solid, clear and supported teaching of the written methods beforehand then it can raise the standard of work in the classroom.

Please share with me any other ways you have used Wii games in support of your maths lessons, as I am always on the look out for more ideas.

(Pic “dangerous walk“ by cinocino)

We have been working with Endless Ocean on the Wii for a couple of weeks now as crucial element in our Sealife topic this half term. I thought I would grab a few minutes and return to the surface to reflect on it’s impact so far.

Manta Ray by Kawa0310
Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs Lic

The game has been perfect for our work in class as it is so open ended. There is no specific path or “levels” that need to be completed in a certain order. Once you are through the brief tutorial, which covers some of the basic controls, you are free to explore the ocean depths.

These open ended, sand box style simulations provide great learning opportunities for classes.

The currency of progress comes in the form of fish of course, or indeed any marine life you encounter. During our first week we organised a set of 5 activities in our literacy lessons that were rotated (a carousel) throughout the week. These included a teacher led (guided) reading session, some online research on the species we had already found and a group playing the game to explore it for themselves. It is important to allow children time to play it independently or in a small group.

I provided a simple factfile template (differentiated for a couple of levels) that gives the children some structure to their research and has proven useful for them to collate notes from the game. Here is a little video of some of the gameplay you would experience in Endless Ocean.

Each species that is found is recorded in the game’s Marine Encyclopedia (See 2:05 in the film above) which is proving a useful record. I also have lots of fish shaped card and written the names of what we find for display in the classroom. Children can then choose something from the display to go away and research without being tied to the game. I think it is useful to display your progress of discovery in this way. Taking the game out of the console into your room continues the engagement.

When you find a fish in the game you have to interact with it to learn something about it. In the film you will see each species has 3 facts to discover. The longer you interact with the fish and the more frequently you discover them, the more facts are revealed.

The children have been very engaged with the topic so far – we were using the Wii in our first literacy lesson in Year 5. A pretty interesting start to the year for them, not what they were expecting perhaps.

Gigantus and Sphyrnie by
BrittneyBush
Attrib-NonCommercial-NoDerivs Lic

Many of the children have discovered fish during their time playing the game – you may have seen from our class Tweets of our dives we have been excited to find, amongst others, the Japanese Bullhead Shark, a Red Stingray and the Leopard Whipray. The children take great ownership of these discoveries. After I remarked on a certain type of fish I had not seen before, a boy proudly turned to me and stated, “I found that yesterday!”

Their engagement goes beyond the discovery. It continues onto trying to find out about the species in more detail. I think they make a connection between their simulated experience in the game and the desire to find out more. They want to find out more as they have invested something. With a trip to an aquarium planned for later in the term we will hopefully close this loop of experience with real life examples.

The experience of using the game so far shows me that a rich, games based simulation adds an ingredient that is hard to replicate in any other way.

I said in my last post I wanted an edge to our learning that provided moments of shared discovery and we have had many of those. For example, as a group has found a species like the Scalloped Hammerhead or the first sighting of a dolphin we have all downed tools and just enjoyed that moment.

In one shared dive with the whole class we swam away from the coral reef (which we have been learning about too) and in the murky depths I could see a large grey and white tail swishing away from us. We began to realise what it could be and I had to swim to catch up with it…suddenly we were surrounded by a group of Indo Pacific Sailfish. We thought it was a shark. It was a lovely moment of discovery we shared as a class and one that captures what is possible with these games.

You can probably see that these moments offer some excellent opportunities for narrative or recount writing which we have been exploring in the last few days. There be a story in them murky depths…

We do so much these days to try and engage our learners within our classrooms, to create content that is inspiring. But what about finding inspiring content for us. Teachers need to be inspired to go on to create great learning opportunities. We mustn’t forget about finding content that inspires us too. With the summer fast concluding concluded I feel energised, excited and inspired to begin our sealife topic. Here is a bunch of my ideas.

When you begin digging into this topic area you soon realise that there is SO much good content, resources and ways to work with it that maybe everyone should be doing it. I can’t wait to get my snorkel on! If you have been following me on Twitter then you have probably been awash with my notes about it all.

Endless Ocean

This is one of the major elements of our unit, and I suppose you might say that the topic is lead by using this game on the Wii. I already know games based learning is a powerful way to engage learners. Innovative work by teachers in Scotland continues to inspire me and I hope that our unit will measure up to their great work.

It is a very open ended game, allowing the player (a diver) to just swim around and explore the reefs, lagoons and open waters on offer. I love the fact that we don’t know what we might found in the murky depths. I began making notes as to the types of fish we discovered. But you know, I think the engagement and hook will be in those moments when suddenly, unexpectedly,  someone finds a lion fish or a hammer-head shark. I recall these same moments of shared discovery when we played Myst, and it produces a great community of use in the classroom.

I want our play and our learning to have that edge. To emerge gradually as the map does in the game, I know which direction we are heading but what we find there is an unknown.

Steve Bunce has already used the game with classes and suggested I use a carousel of activities so that smaller groups can use the game on a more intimate level. There also has to be some time when we are sharing the discovery and exploration as a whole class. I will be planning the first week of work to include small groups working on the game and four other independent activities related to our topic.

Marine Guide

We will use the game throughout the whole course of the 7 week topic and most importantly find out more about the species we catalogue in the game. As you discover a creature you are given it’s name and a snippet of information about it, this is then recorded in the game’s Marine Guide.

I am going to ask our kids to do something similar. A drawing, habitat, size, food – all entered into a small paper book. I want to keep it simple so we can update them quickly as we discover different creatures. I would like the children to explore some online resources to help them learn more about the different species. This ties in with the non-fiction strand of the literacy strategy.

There seems to be quite a considerable number of species to find and I am not expecting the children to amass information on all of them. Perhaps on occasion they can choose from a handful of species we have found to record and then there may be those that we all need to record. I will see how things pan out.

Fish Friday

This idea is very much from my RANDOM pile but I think it could work really well. John Davitt has created something called the Learning Event Generator that randomly selects a topic and a way to show it. For example: DO “How to make an omelette” AS “a play by play sports commentary”. The AS list is over 200 ideas strong and I would highly recommend it whilst you are planning.

So take a big list of the species we have discovered and an edited (can we really do that in the classroom, with these kids) list of the outcomes and you get…

Show me what you have learned about the SWORDFISH as a FINGER PUPPET SHOW.
Show me what you have learned about the LUMINESCENT SEA SLUG as a T-SHIRT DESIGN.

I would break the two parts up. Give the kids, in small groups, the species name and 10 minutes to gather what they already know and more. And then reveal their way of showing their learning and 25-20 minutes to work on it. I think it is going to be fun and will challenge our classes in different ways.

And that’s my idea for Fish Friday.

Scuba Diving

As you can tell from the game you take the part of a scuba diver. Apart from actually diving in the local pool I wanted the classes to better understand what scuba equipment is all about. I am hoping to arrange with the local scuba diving club to bring a whole load of gear into school so that the children can not only handle it but get to chat to real scuba divers. Maybe they can have a go on Endless Ocean with us too and tell us how realistic it is!

Google Earth > Ocean Layer

Google Earth never ceases to amaze me and before researching into this topic I didn’t look too far into what was on offer in the Ocean layer. It will prove to be a highly valuable resource for our children, helping them better understand the actual information geography of different aspects of the topic. But as we have seen in the past, Google Earth will just be one way for children to “find out”, others will prefer reference books or websites. The important thing is that the choice is there.

Here is a list of some of the features in the layer, plus my notes.

• National Geographic comprehension quiz – would be good as a paired reading task.
• Animal Tracking – would help to illustrate some shark and whale behaviour.
• ARKive layer – lovely resource of endangered marine life shown in context.
• Using different layers of info for reading text – perhaps creating a few quiz questions of our own.
• Expedition Tracking – active expeditions are shown, such as Roz Savage the ocean rower.
• Shipwreck sites
• Fishing stocks and UK fish factfiles – would be useful to explore some species native to our waters. Tie this in with the work on persuasive writing and sustainability of fish stocks.
• Dive and Surf Spots – adding Panoramio layer to show diving pictures.

There is so much here to consider (there are many more layers I have not referenced) but just knowing that we can direct children to a high quality resource like this is great. Disappointingly most of the embedded video which helps depict the variety of life uses YouTube which is blocked in our Nottinghamshire LA. A prime example of why it shouldn’t be. Although the placemarks in the ARKive layer also use YouTube video, on their own site the video is hosted, and it is a vast collection of images and video too.

Augmented Reality

Augmented reality (AR) is the combination of 3D models, a webcam (if on a desktop or laptop), AR software and a printed symbol. The screen will show what is visible through your camera. The camera tracks the symbol you have printed off and then places the chosen 3D model on that position. Turn the printed symbol and you turn the 3D model.

This is a screen shot of me impaled by the Sydney Tower.

Whilst exploring the topic I saw a tweet about the 3D Top Trumps that have been released. I wish there was a Sealife set to buy! I have played a bit with augmented reality (AR) with our classes last year. It has huge potential for learning. I used the AR Media Plugin for Sketchup and Google Earth to support some of our work on India.  Small groups looked at the Taj Mahal in 3D and it helped them get a better idea about the structure of the building.

For our Sealife topic I want the children to explore different 3D models of tropical fish and other creatures from the oceans. I discovered an amazing set of 3D artwork by Max Grueter in the Sketchup 3D Warehouse and in his collection he has some divers too with some lovely depictions of older diving suits. Just looking at the models in 3D is limited in it’s use, it will be engaging I know that – but I want the children to perhaps answer questions and engage more with what is displayed.

I am thinking through and developing some AR Comprehension Cards. Combining text, the 3D model and then questions to challenge the children too. Will be a great way to engage those reluctant readers and to look at reading comprehension in a different, augmented way!

Finding Nemo

This film could be used on it’s own as a central part to a sealife topic but we are going to concentrate on the more open, interactive Endless Ocean to guide us. But we will be using the film to explore some of the PSHCE issues uncovered within it: families, loss, friendship and growing up. I know the children will enjoy it and it is another way of engaging them with their learning.

If you have a copy of the DVD you will know that the bonus disc has some great resources that could be used in the classroom, such as the short film about the coral reef with Jean Michel Cousteau. I like Mr Ray’s Encyclopedia which gives a short narrated film clip about a handful of species from the film. I would use this in a notetaking exercise with the kids, or perhaps in 2s or 3s for a quiz.

My Planning

For what it is worth I have published some of my more detailed thoughts about the literacy involved in the unit in this Google Doc. Let me know what you think. I have thought about the ways I would like to engage the children with the topic and then looked at the Primary Strategy references. If I followed the strategy verbatim we wouldn’t cover information text (Year 4 unit) but I want the children to create exactly that sort of thing, so it’s included.

What you see in the planning is medium term and there every idea I had about the different literacy work. With only 7 weeks we will not cover everything nor do I expect to.

Books

Since being in school I have discovered lots of books that we already have that will support our work and these (with the help of many people’s suggestions on Twitter) will also help supplement the work we do.

• Dougal’s Deep Sea Diary – Simon Bartram (Good for recount and writing from a diver’s point of view)
• Baleen – Josephine Croser (A nice narrative but also would be good for information during “Whale Week” – yes we might have a solid week on learning just about whales. Amazing creatures. This might give us an opportunity to use our Google Sites, encourage the children to build a mini-site about whales.)
• The Hidden Forest – Jeannie Baker
• Commotion in the Ocean – Giles Andreae and David Wojtowycz (To inspire some simple poetry)
• The Wreck of the Zanzibar – Michael Morpurgo
• Why the Whales Came – Michael Morpurgo (Would probably use these as a class story throughout the unit)
• Odious Oceans – Horrible Geography
• The Fantastic Undersea Life of Jacques Cousteau – Dan Yaccarino (Unique and beautiful picture book)
• First Encyclopedia of Seas and Oceans (Usborne first encyclopedias)
• Is a Blue Whale the Biggest Thing There Is? – Robert E. Wells
• Migration Marvels - Voyage Guided reading set. (More able)

If you get a chance to look at the Dan Yaccarino book you will probably realise why that one gets a special mention from me. There is only a few sample images online of the picture book but I love the tantalising glimpse of the artwork it is made up of.

I contacted Dan about the artwork, which he said was done using stencils and an airbrush, to see how we might recreate some of it in the classroom. Layered tissue paper might work well and I expect we will spend a lovely afternoon very soon with copies of the book in hand and our creative hats on!

Tracking

From the Expedition layer in Google Earth I discovered the ongoing coverage of the ocean rower Roz Savage. This is an ideal example for the children to keep tabs on throughout the next few weeks as she makes progress across the Pacific. The Roz Tracker is a lovely example of real time mapping and social media which gives a great insight into the conditions onboard and the state of mind of Roz.

The RozTracker is an interactive map that you can use to track Roz’s progress across the Pacific, and see exactly where she was when she posted various social media.

One of my favourite Tweets from Roz says so much.

surrounded by sharky feeding frenzies. not the day to take a swim.

It would be good to spend some time with the children doing a couple of things purely based on this short message:

• Find out what type of sharks might be there based upon her location, the fact there are many and their behaviour.
• Based upon that information try and work out what type of shark she may be referring to. Send her a Tweet explaining what we found out. Are we right? Does she know?
• Learn what sort of food the sharks may be feeding on and draw up some food chain information. Why might it be described as a frenzy?
• Use this as a starting point for some descriptive fiction.
• Explore newspaper coverage of shark attacks.

A fine example of how social media can put are classrooms in touching distance of people doing remarkable things.

Another fantastic resource that I discovered via Twitter is Tour de Turtles. The site tracks 11 sea turtles as they begin their migratory journey. Each turtle has a name and is depicted as a contestant in a race, competing with each other. The turtles are being tracked with GPS and you can look at a map showing their ongoing progress.

There is loads of information about the 11 different causes that the turtles each represent – each one impacts on the lives of the turtles in some way. For example there is poor old Chica who is struggling in last place at the moment and according to her map is not entirely sure which way she is going! The cause that Chica represents is “Sea Level & Temperature Rise from Climate Change” and you can even watch a pre-race interview with each turtle and then live footage of them setting off too.

A lovely site that holds stacks of information for the children to explore, the opportunity to raise awareness of real issues affecting these creatures and big slice of fun and humour to engage young learners. We will definitely be checking in with the turtles. I expect I will ask the children to adopt one of the 11 for the next 7 weeks and see how things work out, encouraging them to learn more about them and keep tabs on their progress.

That just about wraps up some of my thinking for this next half term and as I said at the outset I am excited to get underway with it all. Just to finish you could always record your own dancing turtle like I have done. I know that after all the 7 weeks of hard work the dancing turtle will probably be the one thing the kids remember most!

As part of my numeracy lesson yesterday I used our class Nintendo Wii to support some of the shape work we have been doing. I identified the mini game Block Spot within Big Brain Academy as an opportunity for the children to continue to practice visualising and consolidate their understanding of 3D shapes.

After a short times tables test, which we do at the beginning of every week with our Year 5s (9/10 yr olds), I explored some vocabulary and basics of reflective symmetry on a grid using SMART Notebook. We briefly revisited the shape symmetry we had covered in the previous week and I ensured the children were now thinking of a line of symmetry or mirror line independent of any one shape. 

As a precursor to reflecting different shapes in vertical and horizontal mirror lines we used simple colour patterns reflected in a grid and a simple flash activity from Primary Resources. On the class IWB we completed some together and I highlighted some possible areas that could be problematic – we counted the squares to and from the axes and all of the methods used to check the position of reflective symmetry.

I remember using this in my first year of teaching in a computer suite. On Tuesday the children worked in pairs on our class laptops to challenge each other in making a pattern and then completing the correct reflection. I had planned to continue on to do some work on paper but the practice and familiarity they gained from just working with different coloured squares will contribute to their work later when reflecting shapes. For a challenge children could work on a grid of four quadrants (2 mirror lines) and a random pattern and for those needing more support they could continue with the single mirror line with adult support.

As the children were working on their laptops I had the class Nintendo Wii running with Big Brain Academy and called out a pair of children at a time to use it. I used it in Solo mode and the Practice of the game Block Spot (Visualise category). I would have preferred them to have played against each other or in a small group but that would have included other games – I wanted them to just focus on visualisation of shape to support the week’s topic. In the pair they took it in turns to answer 10 questions about matching a random 3D shape made of coloured cubes to a choice of four. All of the blocks on screen are spinning and so recognising the features quickly and their similarities is tricky.

You can see what they got up to in the Block Spot game in this short film taken during the lesson.

I was pleased to see that the rest of the class were not distracted by the Nintendo Wii being played on the IWB and other then a few cursory glances were getting on with their own reflective symmetry task. The novelty of using the Wii in lessons has already worn off!

The motivator of using the Nintendo Wii as a way to support learning is a no-brainer to me with this age of children and I am pleased to further establish it as a learning tool in the classroom. It is not simply good enough anymore to adhere to the argument that they use too much of these things outside of school – they are very powerful ways to deliver learning and engage children. It is just a case of finding the correct game and context.

I also discovered another game within Big Brain Academy that I would use within any future lessons on symmetry. It is called Art Parts and is described as follows:

In this Visualize activity, players must complete the sample painting by stamping the missing pieces onto an unfinished scene. When it becomes more difficult, Art Parts flips the unfinished scene sideways or flips it upside-down.

There is much more to explore in terms of using the Wii to support the general learning environment of a primary classroom – but I think that in my classroom I have seen it become a source of great fun and an engaging learning tool.

Please let me know any games or ways you have used your own class Wii to support your lessons.

All of the children in our year group have been enjoying using our class Nintendo Wiis and we have even used them to support the numeracy work that has been going on over the previous week. A student teacher began work in my colleague’s classroom on Monday and was amazed to see him enjoying a game of tenpin bowling on the Wii with some children from his class. She remarked that she was not expecting to see that when she walked in!

In addition to looking at ways the console can support parts of the curriculum, I have added a bit of structure to how we use the Wii just for fun in the class. The children can earn Wii Minutes from me through all the usual avenues of hard work and good behaviour.

I have 15 and 25 Wii Minute tickets to give away which would allow someone to play on it during a breaktime or at a lunchtime. I thought it would be fun to have the tickets in the shape of the Wii remotes and on the flipside is the number of minutes as you can see in the picture. I set my teaching assistant on to it and once printed the images of the remotes were backed with gold card and laminated along with the number of minutes – simple.

The children have been motivated and enthusiastic to earn them alongside the usual class reward system we have. Yesterday a pair of children enjoyed a game together who had both earned some time and today a boy who was working brilliantly throughout the morning chose a friend to join him in a blast on Wii baseball.

In my opinion it gives me a great way to reward those children who are always working so hard and do it with a smiles on their faces. The reward is genuinely engaging for them and they love playing it on the big screen with plenty of room to swing the bat or serve an ace.