Artefact 3

Above is the document that I will be handing out to the school. The instructions will be for the children to have a conversation and copy down what they have said to each other in the speech bubbles. Each will take it in turn to fill in one of the bubbles.
The scenario will be 'a conversation you would have in the playground'
I have set out the document to be plain, so that this does not pucsh the children towards one subject.

Artefact 3

Meanwhile thinking up a new question I am beginning the design of the third artefact.
My main aim from the artefact is to see the way that children socialise between each other. I would like to prove that children are less social because of gaming. I would also like to see the way the children converse with text, so that i could see examples of text abbreviations/ slang etc.

I believe that the best way to do this would be to have the children in pairs, and let them converse but also write down what they have said in speech bubbles. I will make sure that they are free to talk about whatever they like, they will not be observed because this will move away from the point of the artefact. I will set the scenario as the playground and let them free to speak and write what they please to each other.

Moving on to artefact 3

For my personal research project i am looking for the subject area where the problem is. This should be a specific problem and as i move through each artefact, this should get more specific until i can attempt a solution at the problem. As i have explained in the previous post, i was proved very early that the subject area was not too much of a problem.

However the most interesting pieces of information that was called to my attention from the previous artefacts, which was the socialisation of children. Mrs White had explained that she has seen a significant difference with the way children talk, play and write.

She explained that children were less social in the playground there is more fighting (play fighting) specifically between the young boys. They often used text messaging abbreviations in their writing such as, you/U and LOL for laugh out loud.and finally there is more references to gaming in their story writing, for example the settings could be a war/battle field, or one specific example was jumping on cloud to cloud and more references to Super Mario.

This then tells me that it is gaming that is having this effect on the children and not the learning. Therefore inn order to reach the specific problem i have got no other choice than to reword/change the original question!

the areas of interest, are no longer between the thinking and learning of children compared to traditional methods. It has shifted towards, socialisation, gaming and parenting.I will have a think about the re-worded question and post it on the blog at a later date.

Artefact 3

After artefact 2 i am a little stuck as to where to go. It seems that there is not a problem with learning technologies in primary schools. This is interesting for me because my research question has been dismissed!

My Question:
How can new technologies be used to enable new ways of thinking and working to enhance the learning in a primary school environment, when compared to traditional methods?

I was trying to prove that technologies were not helping children advance in learning however I have been proved wrong. My research document concluded that there where both good and bad traits for technological learning. I then asked Mrs White who believed that technology was helping the students, which was also the view of 90% of the teachers in the survey...

my results from the first artefact also show that during school time the children are not sat in front of a computer for any significant amount of time. 1-3 hours a week was the set standard, and therefore i do not believe that this is a significant enough amount of time to have any effect. I was expecting that children would be using computers 1-3 hours a day!

Artefact 2

I created a survey including the same questions as i had asked the headteacher mrs White of Gorsey Brigg Junior School. I sent out the survey to random primary schools in the Yorkshire and Nottinghamshire regions of the UK. I received 21 responses in total, i have displayed some of the more interesting results below in tabulated format.





I asked the participants what they have notice change in terms of socialisation between the children. below is a round up of the best responses.

App Design

So thinking ahead about my PRP Project, i have an app in mind. The thought of mking an app scares me therefore i will begin by creating a prototype. I realise that ipad iphone etc does not support flash. However an easy way round this would be to use the i pad peek link, this will give an examle and will allow me to create and test the prototype.
I have shown an example of the flash in ipad peek in the image with my piracy project.

=D 100th Post Yeahh

Twitter feed JavaScript JSON

I have finsished my twitter feed which is to go into the footer of every page of the website, the image is above, just need to style it now :D

Artefact 2

Since completing artefact one I have decided that the one opinion is not really enough. I need more data so that I can move forward with my investigation. I have decided to create a questionnaire with very similar questions to what I asked Mrs White in the previous artefact.

Client Meeting

On Wednesday the 16th March I went up to Mansfield to have a meeting with my client. This included receiving the content for each page, feedback for the site, and also changes they wanted doing, and additions they had later thought about.
changes included...
1)changes to rolling image on the homepage
2) selecting images for each page
3)collecting images for partners and awards
4)size of the blog reducing
5)email form
6)twitter feed in footer
7)List of services bullet pointed and different sizes
8)Information from leaflet
9) Contact details changed, and map created.
I will try and get all of this done for next Friday

Artefact One Conclusion

Since the interview i have looked at the results, and tried to pick out the interesting comments made by Mrs White. The main areas of interest came from the 'social' question. It was interesting to see that the children do seem to be becoming less social together, incorporating computer games into playtime situations. Also the idea that the letter 'U' is often used instead of 'You'.
Another thing that was interesting was the settings in stories, often battlefields, or jumping on clouds (super mario) comparing them to stories of 10 years ago when i was at the school.

For my next artefact i feel like i need opinions from more teachers to get a better view of the spread around the area or across the country. I will create a questionnaire and send it round to as many schools as possible with similar questions to what i asked Mrs White.

Artefact 1 The Interview

Would you consider Gorsey Brigg ahead or behind the average school based on the technology opportunities?
Not ahead average really
Some schools have children allocated with a laptop each

What process is taken to accept a new piece of technology? Is it the government or you personally?

It is a school decision finally

It is a government driven decision.
What happens is that the school gets grants to spend on say interactive white boards; they can only be spent on the specific things. If they do not the buy the technologies there Ofsted grades will be reduced.

How many hours a day do the children spend on a computer?
Not daily

How many hours a week do the children spend on a computer?

Weekly or twice weekly daily use of the interactive white boards.

Do you have a specific ICT teacher or does all of the staff have access to teaching on the computers?

All teachers must have basic skills
ICT Coordinator Phil Mullins
ICT Technician 3 hours weekly to solve problems.

Are the interactive white boards and projector screens used more than the regular white board?

Both used every day

It was year 5 when Mr. Hitchman introduced me to the internet, there was one computer in the classroom, how many do you have today (10 years later)?

30 ICT room two or three in each room

Do the children spend time on the internet or is it mainly software based?

Internet for research topics
Teachers use the internet all the time

What software’s do you use?

The Sherston Software Packages games include
Lower School Goldie Locks, Splodge, Young Mcdonalds Farm, Seasons of Little Brown Bear.
Upper School Junior Viewpoint (spreadsheets), Model Shop, Map Detectives (geography), email detectives (email)
Games off the internet too CBBeis

Do you use specific computer games or software’s to help children learn? If so which ones?

Mainly games
Do you believe technology is excelling learning in general?

Cant not believe that
It opens up a world that cant be accessible otherwise
Its all about balance

Do you believe computer based technologies will dominate classroom teaching in 10 years?

No can only do so much

Do you think this would affect the social skills of the children?

There is a change in social skills
Problems with speech, writing in text language you/u
Settings in their stories are often game settings, violent settings, such as a battlefield, or jumping on clouds (Mario)
More play fighting in the playground

Do you think the children are more difficult to control when using the computers compared to a regular lesson?

Not really no, they are engaged in motivational tasks
There can be frustration when things crash or work is not saved properly.

During my time at the school there was always a strong teacher student relationship with all the pupils and teachers is this still as strong today?

Yes not particularly changed

Do you think increase in technology will reduce the strength of the relationship?

Yes in some ways, teachers cannot bond with students properly if they are walking round problem solving.

Do you think the teacher will ever be replaced by the computer?

no

Other interesting technologies?

Kalleidos- online learning space to display work, it also allows a safe secure and monitored social networking alternative to facebook which can be accessed both at home and at school.
Parent mail, allows teacher to easily send emails and texts to personally speak to parents or even inform of snow days etc.

Artefact 1

Following on from my research document with the question
'How can new technologies be used to enable new ways of thinking and working to enhance the learning in a primary school environment, when compared to traditional methods?'

I came to the conclusion that it was very difficult to judge weather or not a child's thinking and working was affected by the use of technologies.
I decided that my first artefact should go deeper into the investigation by talking to a teacher.

I chose my old primary school teacher Mrs White to interview, the interview took place at the school, I also had a tour of the facilities, and talked with most of the teachers. The interview with answers will be on the next blog post.

Mobile Version Hands On!

I have decided to take a break from the main website, and look into creating a mobile verison for Hands On. I took a look at the BBC's mobile version and looked through the code and styling. I have used one of their images of andrew strauss just to measure up what it should look like on the mobile browser. Below is a screen shot taken from my iPhone of the logo an image and the links. I will now spend time on the mobile version while i am waiting for the content for the main site.

Hands On Website Update

I have been spending most of my recent time on the Client website. Additions since the last post are increase in header size, small alterations to the jQuery Slider images. I have created a working login and blog using PHP. The navigation is all now working and i have created blank pages for the other links.
To create the login i used the code which i used in the second term last year for my first PHP project. I also created the blog by editing the code David Downes taught us last year in the CD example. Next On the agenda for the site is to get all of the content for the other pages of the website. I also would like to include a PHP image uploader and also the othion to delete images and posts.
For the latest vesion view www.willgilberthorpe.co.uk/handson