Foundation Literacy with ICT Activities and Lesson Plan templates

What’s Inside

Note to the Reader.....................................................................................1 BEFORE YOU BEGIN – WHAT YOU SHOULD KNOW? ������������ 2 Exploiting available technology.............................................................................2

Word Processing...................................................................................................................... 2 What is expected level of development in Foundation Year?.............................................2 Teacher Knowledge, Skills and Understanding..................................................................3 How will Word Processing impact in the classroom?.........................................................4 Conceptual Understanding.................................................................................................... 4 Concepts involved in Word Processing..............................................................................4

CURRICULUM CONNECTION.......................................................... 5 Language.................................................................................................................5 Literacy....................................................................................................................6 How to use the ICT Capability Learning Continuum.........................................7

Using Australian Curriculum level descriptors in the Learning Continuum?................. 8

LESSON PLANS...................................................................................... 9

How to use the Activity Planning Sheets..............................................................9 New story for favourite character.........................................................................10 Delivering the Lesson.........................................................................................................15 Activity Planning Sheet......................................................................................................17

Retelling a Story......................................................................................................18 Activity Planning Sheet......................................................................................................23 Delivering the Lesson.........................................................................................................23

ICT TEACHING STRATEGIES.......................................................... 24

Teaching ICT Capability in the Australian Curriculum.....................................24 Determining a Starting Point – How to assess existing capabilities?.................24 Planning Technology-Literacy Integration..........................................................25 Introducing new software and techniques to students........................................26 Student Planning and Evaluating (Higher Order Skills).................................................... 26

Building on experiences from home......................................................................27 Stimulating and Structuring Activities................................................................................. 27

Monitoring Student Progress.................................................................................27 What should you monitor?....................................................................................28 Teacher Intervention..............................................................................................28 Scaffolding and Affordances..................................................................................29 Assessing ICT capability........................................................................................29

OVERCOMING TECHNICAL DIFFICULTIES ............................ 31 ORGANISING THE CLASSROOM................................................... 31

Low Resource Settings...........................................................................................31 High Resource Settings...........................................................................................32

APPENDICES.......................................................................................... 34

ICT Techniques Execution sheet sample..............................................................34

WORKS CITED...................................................................................... 35

NOTE TO THE READER Integrating ICT into teaching and learning is not straightforward.

Today, it is not sufficient enough for teachers to simply expose students to ICT in the classroom in order to develop their ICT capability or ICT literacy. To effectively integrate ICT into classroom practices is not to wait for the next big technological development to come around. In fact it has nothing to do with technology itself. Teaching strategies are the key behind every successful integration of ICT. ICT capability comprises of five crucial components and research has indicated that in successful schools teachers pay careful attention to these elements in a variety of contexts. Curriculum Connect will help you to prompt students to thing for themselves about how to apply ICT to a task, rather than dictating the ideas they are expected to employ.

As ICT integration is predominantly featured in the Primary levels of progression of the Australian Curriculum, the teaching strategies embodied within this resource will help Primary teachers ensure that their students progress confidently and competently to the level expected.

Literacy teaching in primary education plays a key role in the development of ICT capability. Through the use of generic ICT tools such word processing literacy can be enhanced if the teacher makes effective use of the provisionality inherent in ICT. There are close links between the ICT capability of a teacher to that of a student in literacy and numeracy teaching.

We have included these strategies in our NESA (formerly BOSTE) accredited online PD course “Primary Classroom Strategies: Develop Student ICT Capability Today”. This is our most popular course with enrolments being taken every month. It is aligned with the Australian Professional Standards for Teachers 2.6.2 and 3.4.2 towards maintaining Proficient Level teacher accreditation and will contribute to 4 hours of PD. This teaching resource comes FREE with any enrolment!!

Your professional learning will not end here though. By subscribing to our monthly newsletter and visiting our website, you will be able to keep up-to-date with the latest news, ideas and strategies all to do with integrating ICT in the classroom. As a subscriber, you will enjoy loyalty rewards such as discounts to our online PDs. This teaching resource is unique because it was written for YOU: • YOU want to enhance student literacy with ICT; • YOU are someone who sees the potential of students in your classroom; • YOU want practical and immediately actionable advice on strategies; • YOU want to meet the requirements of your National curriculum; • YOU want to ensure progression in student capabilities in ICT; • YOU integrate ICT a lot in your classroom practice; • YOU would like to create opportunities for learning in lessons and; • YOU are committed to following through with what you are about to learn.

This is why YOU are here!

We hope you enjoy this teaching resource and we look forward to helping you continue your professional learning in the future. © ICTE Solutions Australia 2018

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BEFORE YOU BEGIN – WHAT YOU SHOULD KNOW? It is more important for you to be knowledgeable about one program that your students will use than it is to have an acquaintance with a large number. This won’t hamper their development in ICT capability as it is better for them to work with a small number versatile programs and to progressively develop their skills and confidence in these through carefully structured ICT activities. Being familiar with a program will help you to identify when students may encounter a problem and enable you to plan for strategies to overcome them.

Also, it will allow you to identify when students are ready to move onto a new feature or to use the software for a more demanding task (Kennewell et al, 2000).

Being familiar with a program should take you beyond just knowing how to use the program for a variety of tasks. ICT capability for a teacher is the same as it is for a student – it is about developing an understanding and judgement about how to use those ICT techniques appropriately. Therefore, it is important that you reflect on the “processes it helps the user to carry out and the ICT techniques with which particular effects can be achieved” (Kennewell et al., 2000, p. 97). Consider then how you will introduce the program to the students along with what ideas need to be clear before they start.

Exploiting available technology

For this particular curriculum activity, you will need to exploit the features of MS Word as a word processor.

You will need to imagine the potential of this technology in relation to literacy development. As a consequence it may require you to take certain risks whilst experimenting with it in the classroom.

Word Processing As discussed in the earlier paragraphs to be an ICT capable teacher is about you making the right judgements and having the right understanding about it. The software that the students are required to learn about in this particular curriculum activity is a word processor or an application like Microsoft Word.

Language

Text structure and organisation Understand concepts about print and screen, including how books, film and simple texts work, and know some features of print, for example directionality (ACELA1433)

Literacy

Creating texts Construct texts using software including word processing programs. (ACELY1654)

Table 1. Foundation Year English that encourages ICT Capability development (Australian Curriculum, 2018) Being proficient in word processing skills is something which students will continually use and build on throughout their school career. Programs such as this can be actively used to encourage students to draft and redraft their written work. Interacting with text is just part of what it can allow students to achieve, but it also has other features like spell and grammar checker which structured carefully can used by teachers to develop a student’s spelling and grammar. Such features can be used to enhance a student’s presentation and because of its editing features it facilitates a stronger engagement with text by students.

What is expected level of development in Foundation Year?

By the end of primary school, students are expected to know the following word processing skills: © ICTE Solutions Australia 2018

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• • • • • • • • • • •

Changing font, font size, bold, italics, highlight and font colour; Justifying, changing spacing, indenting; Setting up bullets and numbers, re-starting numbered lists; Inserting and modifying a table; Inserting a blank page and understanding whit this is used (not just hitting Enter multiple time); Inserting a picture - embedding it tightly with text, understanding how to re-size and re-position it; Inserting graphics, tables, smart art, symbols; Inserting hyperlinks, setting how the link page opens; Understanding how to set up a header, footer and page numbers; Setting margins, knowing which is the standard setting, changing page orientation, setting up columns; Using templates.

Children in the Foundation Year (Prep) to Year 1 are expected to have begun to learn how to enter text via keyboard, overlay keyboard and on-screen word bank.

Teacher Knowledge, Skills and Understanding In order to teach word processing skills effectively in this activity, the following list attempts to identify the level of teacher competence in ICT expected.

• • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • •

Creating, opening, saving, closing, deleting and printing documents; Selecting font, font size, colour, style (italic, bold), line spacing and justifications; Inserting, deleting, selecting, cutting, copying, pasting and undoing; Utilising help; Inserting bullet points, tables, clip art, borders, shading and columns; Altering page orientation (landscape, portrait), background colour, page size and margins; Altering defaults; Forcing page breaks; Utilising tabs and indents; Utilising spelling and grammar checkers (including how to switch on and off), thesaurus, print preview, highlighter and talking facilities (including how to switch on an off) and find and replace; Connecting alternative input devices (overlay keyboards, touch screens); Constructing and utilising on-screen word banks; Inserting page numbers; Inserting text, graphics, tables and documents from other applications; Inserting symbols, headers and footers; Creating macros and templates; Utilising dynamic links between documents; Customising the word processor; Merging documents; Formatting graphics; Protecting documents.

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How do students develop as How do students develop as How does WP aid digital fluency? digital content creators? technological innovators?

They develop skills in producing text-based digital artefacts that can be shared, uploaded or printed.

They apply new skills to creating artefacts that are beyond the task description or in new formats.

Core skills will be used throughout schooling and will be built upon as students become more experienced in the software program.

Table 2. Benefits of Word Processing (Howell, 2012, p. 148) How will Word Processing impact in the classroom?

According to Potter et al. (2007, p. 103), using the word processor in the classroom will impact the classroom by: • Selecting appropriate opportunities – in which word processing software can facilitate, enhance or extend children’s learning, such as the importance of presentation in communication. In some instances the focus will be on teaching and learning in ICT (how to enlarge text, make newspaper type columns or add a border to a poster), in others ICT will be used as a resource in the teaching and learning of another curriculum area (writing for a specific audience); • Making explicit links between related knowledge, skills and understanding – word processing is closely associated with literacy and language work at all levels, and as a consequence has a contribution to make across the primary curriculum; • Modelling appropriate use of ICT – for instance, scribing and amending shared writing with the whole class or a group using the interactive whiteboard; • Demonstrating or intervening – for example, inserting an image into a word processing document, cutting and pasting, or deciding how and when to use the spellchecker. Explicit teaching of word processing knowledge, skills and understanding requires demonstration and intervention as with any other curriculum topic. Children may gain word processing skills by themselves, but without the guidance and direction of their teacher the acquisition of such capability will be haphazard.

Conceptual Understanding Conceptual understanding underpins the learning of every ICT technique and this is what makes the ICT techniques learnt through word processing so transferrable across the curriculum. In ICT capability, the “cognitive phase emphasises the importance of conceptual understanding. For example, understanding the difference between an effect and a style is essential to being able to learn the difference between them, and key to being able to use them appropriately” (Potter and Darbyshire, 2010, p. 18).

For example: “When we first show a child how to insert an image into a publication, it is helpful to talk about selecting the object by clicking, and to refer to handles and dragging when sizing or moving the object. If we use the same words in another context – or better still, prompts the child to use the words – the concepts should start to develop.”

According to Potter and Darbyshire (2010) these ICT techniques which we may select in order to create a solution to a problem are a function of the context, the resources available and our strategic knowledge.

Concepts involved in Word Processing Word processing can only be used effectively by students if they understand its documents are a stored file of characters together with formatting tags. © ICTE Solutions Australia 2018

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Text structure and organisation

Sub-strand

Use of drop-down menus e.g. Clicking on Shapes

•

Understand concepts about print and screen; Make connections between text and images; Use spelling patterns; Learn about standard Australian English in text; Use simple sentence to convey message; Spells some frequently used words correctly; Use of capital letters and full stop; Forms upper and lower case letters correctly.

• • • • • • • •

ACHIEVEMENT STANDARD – Receptive Mode (listening, reading, and viewing): Students recall one or two events from text with familiar topics and identify connections.

They understand that there are different types of text and that these have similar characters. Productive Mode (speaking, writing, and creating): Students understand that texts can reflect their own experiences. They identify and use rhyme, letter patterns and sound in words. Use familiar words, phrases and images to convey ideas. Writing shows evidence of sound letter knowledge.

Identify and safely operate ICT systems to complete relevant simple specified tasks and seek help when encountering a problem

Managing and operating ICT Select and use hardware and software

LEVEL 1 (by end of Foundation Yr) English: Students will be assessed on their ability to –

Use of the Scroll bar;

•

Learning about how books and digital texts are organised including page numbers, table of contents, headings, images with captions and the use of scrolling to access digital texts.

General Capabilities – Literacy ICT Capability Critical and creative thinking

Simple functions of keyboard e.g. Space Bar, Enter key, Shift key, typing letters.

•

Elaboration

General Capabilities - Literacy ICT Capability

ICT Capability: Students will be assessed on their ability to demonstrate the following ICT techniques –

ASSESSMENTS/ACTIVITIES

CURRICULUM CONNECTION

Understand concepts about print and screen, including how books, film and simple digital texts work, and know some features of print, for example directionality (ACELA1433

LANGUAGE

STRAND

Language

CONTENT DESCRIPTION

ICT CAPABILITY ELEMENTS

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Creating Text

Sub-strand

Literacy

Use of the Scroll bar; Use of drop-down menus e.g. Clicking on Shapes

• •

Use spelling patterns; Learn about standard Australian English in text; Use simple sentence to convey message; Spells some frequently used words correctly; Use of capital letters and full stop; Forms upper and lower case letters correctly.

• • • • •

Make connections between text and images; •

•

Managing and operating ICT Select and use hardware and software

Use spelling patterns •

Understand concepts about print and screen;

Make connections between text and images;

Understand concepts about print and screen;

•

•

English: Students will be assessed on their ability to –

•

Simple functions of keyboard e.g. Space Bar, Enter key, Shift key, typing letters.

•

•

Identify and safely operate ICT systems to complete relevant simple specified tasks and seek help when encountering a problem

ASSESSMENTS/ACTIVITIES

ICT Capability: Students will be assessed on their ability to demonstrate the following ICT techniques –

LEVEL 1 (by the end of Foundation Yr)

General Capabilities – ICT Capability

Using simple functions of keyboard and mouse including typing letters, scrolling, selecting icons and drop-down menu.

Elaboration

Identify and safely operate ICT systems to complete relevant simple specified tasks and seek help when encountering a problem

Managing and operating ICT Select and use hardware and software

Use ICT to follow or contribute to a simple plan for a solution

Creating with ICT Generate ideas, plans and processes

General Capabilities - Literacy Critical and creative thinking ICT Capability

Construct texts using software including word processing programs (ACELY1654)

LITERACY

STRAND

CONTENT DESCRIPTION

ICT CAPABILITY ELEMENTS

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How to use the ICT Capability Learning Continuum Like other general capabilities listed such as Literacy and Numeracy, it is imperative that if you want to ensure progression and continuity in student capabilities in ICT that you yourself are well-equipped to be able to recognise this occurring and then to plan for effective learning opportunities for each individual student. There is strong evidence to support that the level of confidence and competence you have in ICT, in other words, your own ICT capability has a tremendous impact on the quality of ICT capability a student can achieve. In addition, there is also proof based on recent ICT literacy tests from the National Assessment Program (NAP-ICTL) that exposure to just technology is not enough today to ensure that students themselves are equipped with the skills and knowledge to be lifelong learners. A key characteristic of ICT capability. What you need today is strategies that you know will work? To be an ICT capable teacher, one of the key qualities that must embody is the ability to “apply current instructional principles, research, and appropriate assessment practices to the use of ICTs” (UNESCO, 2017).

In order to be able to do this, such general capabilities like ICT capability not only provide you opportunities to develop this within students across Learning Areas but includes a Learning Continua that will help you plan for effective learning opportunities and map common paths throughout it. It is significant to note, that the four out of the six levels of progression in ICT capability lie within Primary education as indicated in the table. According to ACARA, each level in the Learning Continuum indicates a sequence of learning independent of student age. Take note as well, that individual students will progress in their capabilities at their own pace which may be influenced by prior experience, sense of self in the world and cognitive capacity.

Prior experience in this circumstance would be whether or not a student would have access to a computer at home. As a teacher, you could use this information to gauge the impact that home use might have on capability and the possible need to set more challenging work in school. It also presents you with the opportunity to ensure that the less capable students are not left behind because of a lack of regular access to ICT outside of school.

A student’s attitude to ICT could also have a lot to do with their sense of self in the world. You would need to determine whether they dominate group activities or are they reticent? Do they persevere or give up easily? Use this information to help consider the makeup of groups for an ICT activity.

Cognitive capacity refers to the level of decision making a student has in terms of the use of ICT. Higher order skills forms a key part of ICT capability and a student’s awareness of the uses of ICT inside and outside of school will play a strong role in their cognitive abilities.

These are some of things that you could use to assess a student’s ICT capability in your lesson. However, here is what you need to know. In order to be able to use the Learning Continuum proficiently, first we’ve already covered you own ICT capability but you also need to know how to recognise progression.

Research indicates that progression in ICT capability demands that: • Students develop greater autonomy and confidence in their selection and use of information sources and tools; • Students are expected to develop into discerning users of ICT, with an increasing awareness of the benefits and limitations of the systems they use; • Students become able to present their ideas in an increasing variety of ways with a developing sense of audience; • Students use ICT-based models of growing complexity for increasingly complex lines of enquiry © ICTE Solutions Australia 2018

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involving progressively greater decision making and personal autonomy and; • Student ability to evaluate their own work grows, and they become progressively more able to discuss and appreciate social, economic, political, legal and ethical issues.

Using Australian Curriculum level descriptors in the Learning Continuum?

Progression in the ICT capability LC is to do with the ability of students to meet the criteria stated in each Level Descriptors. The levels that lie within Primary education include levels 1 to 4 with the expectation that students in Foundation Year at Level 1, Year 2 at Level 2, Year 4 at Level 3 and Year 6 at Level 4.

The Learning Continuum is not indicative of the other year levels and highlights gaps between the various years and the level of progression. Each level description is a ‘best fit’ description and not a tick box assessment. It will be up to you to decide the intermediate level of capability a student has between various levels. For this reason, it is vital that you accurately determine their current level of capabilities in ICT whether it be a new student or current student. For example, a student Year 3 may be approaching Level 3 capabilities or be struggling and may have just surpassed Level 2 capabilities in ICT. It is for this reason, that the information pertained in the Learning Continuum would be best suited as key data to pass onto other teachers as a student changes classes, moves up a year level or changes schools.

However, the above paragraph highlights the significance of providing meaningful information to your colleagues. It would inappropriate of you to simply report that a student was functioning at Level 3, as this information is simply ‘best fit’ and the student might be functioning above or below that level in relation to one of the aspects.

There would be a lot more information required. For example, you would need to know more than just that a student could Use ICT as a creative tool to generate simple solutions, modifications or data representations for personal or school purposes; you would need to know in which media they had experienced in doing this.

Determine if it was with text as in a word processor, or with text and graphics like with a desktop publisher, and even with an image manipulation program (and if so, with a painting and/or drawing program). Know which program they had used (Potter & Darbyshire, 2005). To give this type of information to parents would be meaningless and this also includes the level descriptions.

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LESSON PLANS The lesson plans which follow are derived from the context of the Australian Curriculum where the general capability - ICT Capability - is located. It is important to note, however, that within the curriculum there are in fact a number of ways to integrate ICT and teach ICT capability. The first is to do as such and use the opportunities presented. Secondly, if opportunities do not arise then teachers can create them themselves so long as the appropriate time arises and that suitable software is selected for student use. Please remember, that students will only develop their ICT capability if they are provided with the opportunities to use more intellectually challenging content-free software such as word processors, coding programs, databases and graphic and graphing programs where the students’ level of decision-making and control is high.

ICT Capability in the Australian Curriculum Context In the Australian English Curriculum for this particular year level, students are created to Create and Construct text in the following context.

• Imaginatively (narrative); • Informatively.

Literacy Development The lesson plans included in this teaching resource only cover the ICT capability context of literacy development. Therefore, it is important that before implementing these in the classroom that you do further literacy activities and development based on the context provided in the Australian Curriculum. Lesson plans here can be implemented to further develop student literacy with the use of ICT at the completion of previous excercise and only when the teacher deems that the student has progressed to the level required and set by the work program devised.

How to use the Activity Planning Sheets

Planning and assessment are so closely related that is best that they are addressed together. As assessment is closely linked to forward planning, we have put together activity planning sheets that will not only save you time in your planning but also ensure that each aspect supports the other.

An activity planning sheet sets out what to look for in a student’s work as well as specifying the nature and purpose of the activity. Records like this can be used: • By principals, deputy principals and ICT coordinators to monitor the implementation of ICT across the school; • To assist the teacher in future planning; • To inform the teacher of the next year group of what has been covered; • To inform supply teachers; • To show any discrepancies between what was taught and what was actually planned.

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New story for favourite character Student Task Type up the draft of your favourite character on a document using the appropriate software and save it in the appropriate location using the correct filename.

Save your file under these names for these lessons: Lesson 1 – draft 1 “student name” Lesson 2 – draft 2 “student name” Lesson 3 – etc Final lesson – Final draft “student name” Teacher Reference: Please note that is only a suggested activity and that it should be used as a guide only.

MAKE A LIST HERE OF ANY ISSUES YOU MAY FACE AND ANY STRATEGIES YOU PLAN TO USE TO OVERCOME THEM.

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DATE:

SUBJECT: ENGLISH

Curriculum Context: Invent a new story for a favourite character

AUSTRALIAN CURRICULUM LINK Language – Text structure and organisation ACELA1433 - Understand concepts about print and screen, including how books, film and simple digital texts work, and know some features of print, for example directionality Elaboration: Learning about simple functions of keyboard and mouse including typing letters, scrolling, selecting icons and drop-down menu ICT Capability Element: Managing and operating ICT Select and use hardware and software Identify and safely operate ICT systems to complete relevant simple specified tasks and seek help when encountering a problem

Literacy – Creating text ACELY1654 - Construct texts using software including word processing programs.

Elaboration: Using simple functions of keyboard and mouse including typing letters, scrolling, selecting icons and dropdown menu.

ICT Capability Element: Managing and operating ICT Select and use hardware and software Identify and safely operate ICT systems to complete relevant simple specified tasks and seek help when encountering a problem PREVIOUS LESSON In the previous lesson, students invented a new story for their favourite character of a text they just heard. They drafted the story on paper and some drew a picture to accompany it.

LESSON OVERVIEW In this lesson, the students who have completed their story of their character can type it using the word processing software MS Word on the computer. Once finished they can then illustrate it using the Shapes tools. I will structure the activity which I will put on the screen, in a way that will stimulate thinking about choice of ICT tools. Students will discuss and compare features and functions of the available software and learn what ICT and where and why it is used in places.

LEARNING NEEDS OF THE STUDENTS For ICT: Most students will need to know their passwords and usernames in order to log into the computer. They will need experience in opening the software and saving a document in addition to using the mouse and keyboard.

For English: The aim of the lesson is to back up on their written story by practicing their literacy skills through typing using a word processor. They will be able to make changes to their text if spelling mistakes are made and understand how this changes the face of text. Also they will need to understand the concepts between print and screen.

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GROUPING/TIMING This activity can be achieved either as an individual or in pairs depending on the number of computers in the classroom. It may take 3 to 4 lessons to complete depending on the ICT capability level of students at the time.

RESOURCES What resources are available to you? You will need: •

Computer or laptop, iPad or other tablet computer

•

Word processor e.g. Microsoft Word or Pages for iPads, THEORETICAL CONTEXT Read through the ‘Teaching Strategies’ provided about: •

Determining a starting point – assessing existing capabilities;

•

Introducing new software and techniques;

•

Monitoring and observation;

•

Whole class teaching;

•

Providing scaffolding;

•

What you need to know and why – assessing;

•

Keeping track of student progress.

YOUR OWN LEARNING NEEDS

(ARE THERE ANY CONCEPTS THAT YOU NEED TO REVISE AND REVIEW BEFORE TEACHING?)

ICT techniques in MS Word: •

To create capital letters – Shift or Caps Lock;

•

New line – Enter;

•

Creating images – Insert Tab: selecting shapes and using Shape fill, Shape Outline and Shape Effects.

ORGANISATIONAL MEMORY JOGGER Things to organise include: •

Passwords;

•

Availability of computers;

•

Maybe keys to computer lab.

INFORMATION FOR TEACHER AIDES/ADULT HELPERS • Listen to what students to say and encourage them to share their ideas; • Help the children to understand that it is acceptable to try out their ideas and make mistakes; • Give the students time to work out their answers;

• Take every opportunity to praise students’ success when completing the activity or developing a computer skill.

LEARNING OBJECTIVES In this lesson, students will be able to: •

Turn on the computer (if needed);

•

Log on and off the computer;

•

Open the software application – MS Word;

•

Learn how to create a capital letter on the keyboard;

•

Learn how to type using the keyboard;

•

Locate and pressing various letters;

•

Saving a file using a filename.

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DIFFERENTIATION (ANSWER THE FOLLOWING QUESTIONS) What do you expect different members of the class to achieve in terms of their different ability levels?

How will you help children who are experiencing difficulties with ICT? How will you develop further the skills, knowledge and understanding of the most able in the class?

What do you expect the majority to have achieved by the end of the lesson?

LEARNING NEEDS – ENGLISH AS AN ADDITIONAL LANGUAGE The strategies that I will use include: -

Partnering the children appropriately according to the language needed to access the activity;

-

Allow some pairs to work at the same computer if they are experiencing difficulties;

-

Check and re-check understanding of task.

LEARNING NEEDS – SEN STUDENTS Possible strategies include: • Peer tutoring; • Use printouts to help with the sequence of events; • Make step-by-step cards; • Enlist the help from other students; • Consider any minor adjustments to the existing activity; • Use the never-ending activity e.g. beebots.

• Set challenges.

ASSESSMENT OPPORTUNITIES Students will be assessed on their capabilities to: English: • Operate a computer; • Logging on and off their portal; • Using a keyboard; • Using Shift key or Caps Lock to create capital letters; • Creating images.

KEY QUESTIONS Questions will be asked when it comes time to intervene and they will be in the form of focusing questions to assist students in the formation of generalisations. Interventions are also planned during the activity when students meet a need for the relevant knowledge. The planned interventions will be in addition to the unplanned interventions.

Possible structured questions that focus on the process used: • What key would you press?

• Where is the key?

• How would you create a new line?

• Why is there a squiggly line under the word?

• What key do you press to leave a space between the words?

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LESSON FORMAT See “Delivering the lesson” Whole class teaching is best for the demonstration of techniques.

EVALUATE THE LESSON (OPERATIONAL ISSUES, LEARNING OUTCOMES, NEXT LESSON)

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Delivering the Lesson Pre-Lesson In order to be able to determine the existing ICT capability of students in the classroom, a pre-lesson should be planned where you will monitor and observe their interaction and progress with MS PowerPoint to-date.

The information you gather will be essential and needs to be taken into account otherwise your planning will be, at best, ineffective and, at worst, potentially counterproductive.

Have a checklist handy that lists a number of basic ICT techniques using the software. Leave additional spaces for any new ICT techniques that you may see students use and check them off against each individual students’ name.

Beginning of lesson

• Explain to students that in this lesson they will continue to improve their writing by redrafting their work on their favourite character using ICT; • Discuss how ICT can be used to improve our communication with other people;

Introduction

• Have a whole-class discussion about what ICT is and where they might have seen people using it before. It might be at home or at school.

• Continue the whole-class discussion about how ICT can be categorised into two areas – hardware and software; • Talk about how software is an ICT tool that many people use and instructs the computer to do what you want.

• Ask the students if they have ever heard of that term before; • Based on their answers, explain how many different types of software exists for different purposes. For example, the that a doctor would use would be different to that of a teacher at school;

Body

• Explain how there are software that is commonly used by everyone. Provide examples of software at school or in the classroom.

In this part of the lesson, you need to further develop student autonomy in the selection of ICT tools and resources.

• Choose two examples of software that students would likely used in this age group. For example, presentation software and word processing software; • In a whole-class discussion, go through the differences between both in terms of what they can do and how it can be done; • Discuss the features and functions of both; • Ensure that you highlight their purposes whilst you are pointing out these features; • Ask students if they know of other programs on the computer at school or home. (continued on next page)

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• Have the student task/activity up on the screen for them to see; • It should be structured in a way that you can discuss with them their choices and decisions about choosing software for a particular solution; • If you just want them to draft or redraft their literacy work, use computer-related terms in the description of the task.

Example: Type your draft of the character story on a document using an appropriate program/software.

Body – Whole class demonstration of ICT techniques

Now have a whole-class discussion about which program you compared recently would be the most suitable for this solution and why.

Once students have decided on an answer, begin to demonstrate the key ICT techniques they will need to use in a whole-class demonstration.

• You will need to know if they could perform an ICT technique after having seen a whole-class demonstration.

• Think out loud the decisions you will make when choosing ICT techniques; • Model the planning process.

• When you have finished demonstration, set them off on their task.

Body – Monitoring and Intervening

Stop the discussion and review what you have demonstrated.

Monitoring students ICT work is important for two reasons: 1. It is common for students to appear to be usefully occupied with a task when in fact they are working very inefficiently and failing to exploit the potential of ICT; 2. Because of the richness of the ICT resource, they may divert from the task without it being obvious from their behaviour.

Monitor the components of ICT capability the following ways: • Routines – have a checklist of ICT techniques which indicate if a student hesitant, steady or fluent with it; • ICT techniques – use a checklist for this as well to record which students are capable of achieving which ICT techniques; • Processes – DO NOT give them step-by-step instructions! Encourage them to try new ideas. Provide the minimum amount of support and withdraw it as soon as possible.

• Higher Order Skills – You will need to judge the decisions children make I order to create a finished product. Monitor their HOS either by: • Modelling the techniques of strategic planning by thinking out aloud in front of the students to highlight the questions that might be asked during a process; • Giving the students responsibility for planning a task and then coach them by asking them focusing questions at intervals to guide students towards a viable plan; • Involve the students socially in planning, monitoring, evaluating and reflecting through whole class teaching.

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Body – Monitoring and intervening (continued)

As students are going through the process of using ICT techniques, intervene when they fail to meet the expected outcome. That is, when they meet the need for the relevant knowledge.

Use focusing questions to help students in the formation of generalisations.

Draw students’ attention to any issues through the use of focusing questions instead of talking over the mouse or keyboard.

Ask students to see you when they meet a particular stage in the activity.

Other times to intervene include: When to explain or demonstrate something which was not appropriate at the start or perhaps question students about what they are doing; When a student has a problem. It would help if you can predict these difficulties; To drive the pace of the lesson forward or to set a more specific task such as Saving their drafts.

Conclusion - Student reflection

Observe when the students have completed the task. Now it is time for them reflect on their learning experiences with ICT. Any reflection on mistakes will lead to learning which will improve their ability to make appropriate choices in the future.

Have a whole-class discussion on the ICT techniques and concepts learnt in the lesson.

If you have time, students can write a short report on this.

Activity Planning Sheet Foundation Year (Prep) Subject: English/ICT/literacy Topic: My favourite character

ICT Capability Learning Continuum Investigating with ICT Communicating with ICT Communicating with ICT Managing and operating with ICT

Activity: Students will use MS Word as a word processor to reinvent story that they recently heard. They will learn how to turn the computer on (if necessary), log on and off their portal using their username and passwords, to locate and open a software application, use the keyboard to locate keys and use the Shift key or Caps Lock key to create capital letters. Also, they will learn how to use the Enter key to start a new line and to save their work into their folders.

Advanced students will have the time to learn how to find and locate the Insert tab in order to select Shapes and format them appropriately using colour, effects and outlines.

Grouping: For students who are EAL or SEN that may work better as a pairs otherwise students can work individually.

Assessment: Independent management of work. Appropriate use of Caps Lock and Shift keys. Appropriate use of font/style/colour of text. Use of Shape formats like effects, colour and outline. Overall use of the keyboard.

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Retelling a Story

Type up the draft of your story on a document using the appropriate software and save it in the appropriate location using the correct filename.

Save your file under these names for these lessons: Lesson 1 – draft 1 “student name” Lesson 2 – draft 2 “student name” Lesson 3 – etc Final lesson – Final draft “student name” Teacher Reference: Please note that is only a suggested activity and that it should be used as a guide only.

MAKE A LIST HERE OF ANY ISSUES YOU MAY FACE AND ANY STRATEGIES YOU PLAN TO USE TO OVERCOME THEM.

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DATE:

SUBJECT: ENGLISH

Curriculum Context: Retelling a story

AUSTRALIAN CURRICULUM LINK Language – Text structure and organisation ACELA1433 - Understand concepts about print and screen, including how books, film and simple digital texts work, and know some features of print, for example directionality Elaboration: Learning about simple functions of keyboard and mouse including typing letters, scrolling, selecting icons and drop-down menu ICT Capability Element: Managing and operating ICT Select and use hardware and software Identify and safely operate ICT systems to complete relevant simple specified tasks and seek help when encountering a problem

Literacy – Creating text ACELY1654 - Construct texts using software including word processing programs.

Elaboration: Using simple functions of keyboard and mouse including typing letters, scrolling, selecting icons and dropdown menu.

ICT Capability Element: Managing and operating ICT Select and use hardware and software Identify and safely operate ICT systems to complete relevant simple specified tasks and seek help when encountering a problem PREVIOUS LESSON In the previous lesson, students invented a new story for their favourite character of a text they just heard. They drafted the story on paper and some drew a picture to accompany it.

LESSON OVERVIEW In this lesson, the students who have completed their story of their character can type it using the word processing software MS Word on the computer. Once finished they can then illustrate it using the Shapes tools. I will structure the activity which I will put on the screen, in a way that will stimulate thinking about choice of ICT tools. Students will discuss and compare features and functions of the available software and learn what ICT and where and why it is used in places.

LEARNING NEEDS OF THE STUDENTS For ICT: Most students will need to know their passwords and usernames in order to log into the computer. They will need experience in opening the software and saving a document in addition to using the mouse and keyboard.

For English: The aim of the lesson is to back up on their written story by practicing their literacy skills through typing using a word processor. They will be able to make changes to their text if spelling mistakes are made and understand how this changes the face of text. Also they will need to understand the concepts between print and screen.

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GROUPING/TIMING This activity can be achieved either as an individual or in pairs depending on the number of computers in the classroom. It may take 3 to 4 lessons to complete depending on the ICT capability level of students at the time.

RESOURCES What resources are available to you? You will need: • Computer or laptop, iPad or other tablet computer • Word processor e.g. Microsoft Word or Pages for iPads, THEORETICAL CONTEXT Read through the ‘Teaching Strategies’ provided about: • Determining a starting point – assessing existing capabilities; • Introducing new software and techniques; • Monitoring and observation; • Whole class teaching; • Providing scaffolding; • What you need to know and why – assessing; • Keeping track of student progress.

YOUR OWN LEARNING NEEDS

(ARE THERE ANY CONCEPTS THAT YOU NEED TO REVISE AND REVIEW BEFORE TEACHING?)

ICT techniques in MS Word: • To create capital letters – Shift or Caps Lock; • New line – Enter; • Creating images – Insert Tab: selecting shapes and using Shape fill, Shape Outline and Shape Effects.

ORGANISATIONAL MEMORY JOGGER Things to organise include: • Passwords; • Availability of computers; • Maybe keys to computer lab.

INFORMATION FOR TEACHER AIDES/ADULT HELPERS • Listen to what students to say and encourage them to share their ideas; • Help the children to understand that it is acceptable to try out their ideas and make mistakes; • Give the students time to work out their answers; • Take every opportunity to praise students’ success when completing the activity or developing a computer skill.

LEARNING OBJECTIVES In this lesson, students will be able to: • Turn on the computer (if needed); • Log on and off the computer; • Open the software application – MS Word; • Learn how to create a capital letter on the keyboard; • Learn how to type using the keyboard; • Locate and pressing various letters; • Saving a file using a filename;

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DIFFERENTIATION (ANSWER THE FOLLOWING QUESTIONS) What do you expect different members of the class to achieve in terms of their different ability levels?

How will you help children who are experiencing difficulties with ICT? How will you develop further the skills, knowledge and understanding of the most able in the class?

What do you expect the majority to have achieved by the end of the lesson?

LEARNING NEEDS – ENGLISH AS AN ADDITIONAL LANGUAGE The strategies that I will use include: -

Partnering the children appropriately according to the language needed to access the activity;

-

Allow some pairs to work at the same computer if they are experiencing difficulties;

-

Check and re-check understanding of task.

LEARNING NEEDS – SEN STUDENTS Possible strategies include: • Peer tutoring; • Use printouts to help with the sequence of events; • Make step-by-step cards; • Enlist the help from other students; • Consider any minor adjustments to the existing activity; • Use the never-ending activity e.g. beebots.

• Set challenges.

ASSESSMENT OPPORTUNITIES Students will be assessed on their capabilities to: English: • Operate a computer; • Logging on and off their portal; • Using a keyboard; • Using Shift key or Caps Lock to create capital letters; • Creating images.

KEY QUESTIONS Questions will be asked when it comes time to intervene and they will be in the form of focusing questions to assist students in the formation of generalisations. Interventions are also planned during the activity when students meet a need for the relevant knowledge. The planned interventions will be in addition to the unplanned interventions.

Possible structured questions that focus on the process used: • What key would you press?

• Where is the key?

• How would you create a new line?

• Why is there a squiggly line under the word?

• What key do you press to leave a space between the words?

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LESSON FORMAT See “Delivering the lesson” Whole class teaching is best for the demonstration of techniques.

EVALUATE THE LESSON (OPERATIONAL ISSUES, LEARNING OUTCOMES, NEXT LESSON)

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Activity Planning Sheet

Foundation Year (Prep) Subject: English/ICT/literacy Topic: My favourite character

ICT Capability Learning Continuum Investigating with ICT Communicating with ICT Communicating with ICT Managing and operating with ICT

Activity: Students will use MS Word as a word processor to retell the story that they recently heard. They will learn how to turn the computer on (if necessary), log on and off their portal using their username and passwords, to locate and open a software application, use the keyboard to locate keys and use the Shift key or Caps Lock key to create capital letters. Also, they will learn how to use the Enter key to start a new line and to save their work into their folders.

Advanced students will have the time to learn how to find and locate the Insert tab in order to select Shapes and format them appropriately using colour, effects and outlines.

Grouping: For students who are EAL or SEN that may work better as a pairs otherwise students can work individually.

Assessment: Independent management of work. Appropriate use of Caps Lock and Shift keys. Appropriate use of font/style/colour of text. Use of Shape formats like effects, colour and outline. Overall use of the keyboard.

Delivering the Lesson REFER TO PAGE 15

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ICT TEACHING STRATEGIES Teaching ICT Capability in the Australian Curriculum

In the classroom today, teachers need to do more than just expose students to ICT tools and resources in order to develop student ICT capability. Throughout the curriculum, there are ample opportunities for teachers to accomplish this. As a 21st century skill, ICT capability is best created when ICT is sitting transparently in the background of a subject context and is used to enhance its learning in a purposeful and meaningful context. It is essential that you intellectually challenge students in their use of ICT. Here are some points to remember: • Progression in ICT capability is facilitated through the broadening and elaborating context and ICT environments; • Use more sophisticated software in response to the demands of the task – the aim is to broaden and elaborate contexts and use more sophisticated software as a consequence of the increasing elaboration of curriculum context; • The student must find and overcome difficulties for learning to occur and; • Maintain an appropriate balance between the factors according the objectives of the activity.

Determining a Starting Point – How to assess existing capabilities?

Assessment is closely linked to forward planning and so if you intend to plan for the progression of ICT capability with students, it is vital that you have an appreciation of where the children are, where they ought to be and where they might be heading next.

In order to help your students develop their ICT capability begin by determining their starting point followed by accurate directions that will enable them to plot a course for success.

The assessment of ICT capability is vital as it will allow you to track progress and to plan appropriately for students to achieve their capabilities. Proper assessment will provide you with real evidence and knowledge of where the students are up to. Without it any planning conducted would be worthless.

Being able to determine the starting point of a student’s ICT capability is vital if you are to plan effectively for progression. Already we have discussed how planning and assessment are closely linked. When a new student comes into the classroom like literacy and numeracy their existing ICT capability needs to be determined. However, unlike other areas this may not be as straightforward as students rarely have a complete understanding but instead a series of connected ideas (Beauchamp, ICT in Cross Curricular Teaching, 2012).

As with pre-teaching assessment in Science (Summers et al., 1998 as cited in Beauchamp, 2012) a useful framework can be equally applied. When trying to establish an existing understanding with students you could look for: • Preconceptions – either a misconception, that is, a technical incorrect idea, or a partially understood technical idea; • Missing – a technical idea for which there was no evidence of any knowledge or understanding; • Knows – a technical idea of which the child demonstrated knowledge and understanding.

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It might also be a good idea to plan for a practice lesson so that you can observe and monitor their capabilities.

Planning Technology-Literacy Integration

Before you begin, it is important to set out your to maximise opportunities for learning to occur. The next step is to determine what you are going to teach. In this instance, the example I have provided comes from the portfolio example of the Australian Curriculum. It sets out the standards which you need to know. In addition, you need to determine your instructional objectives and have a clear sense of the ways in which the literacy objectives dovetail with the Australian Curriculum ICT capability objectives.

If you are teaching in a low resource setting in which there may only be one computer in the room. Depending on the nature of the task and of the software, in this case a word processor such as MS Word, you may need to divide a group of six students into two of lots of three and give them 10 minutes each. This could become the working group for the week and the class can be rotated. As a consequence you will need to plan other literacy work for students to do whilst they are waiting away from the computer.

Additionally, if you have access to a data projector and there is access to the carpet area, then students could be preparing small presentations on the learning objectives. An activity like this will further develop their higher order thinking skills.

The following two table may be of further assistance in your planning.

Activity 10 minute onscreen reinforcement of learning objective 10 minute onscreen search and replace, reinforcement of learning objective Collaborative work on presentation for the plenary about a particular learning objective.

Software Tutorial CD, focused aims, revision in a game-style environment.

Word processing

Literacy Vs. ICT potential High Literacy Low level ICT skills High literacy

Presentation software

Low level ICT skills High literacy

Word processing

High level ICT skills

Table 1. Plenary in a low resource setting (Potter, Sharpe, Turvey & Alllen, 2007) Activity Group activity reinforcing learning objective for 20 minutes

Software Three computers, tutorial software or word processing

Literacy Vs. ICT Potential High literacy Low level ICT skills (tutorial)

High level ICT skills (WP) Group activity on search and PDAs or laptops available for High literacy replace, guided writing group High level ICT skills Collaborative work through- Network room presentation High literacy out literacy lessons on learn- software, html editors etc. ing objective, used on the High level ICT skills interactive whiteboard and Word processing software, perhaps published online on Authoring templates providthe school website ed by the online supplier

Table 2. Plenary for a High level resource setting (Potter, Sharpe, Turvey & Allen, 2007) Š ICTE Solutions Australia 2018

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Introducing new software and techniques to students The effective use of ICT in activities demands higher order skills and so students need to recognise when the use of ICT might be appropriate for a task. To achieve this, start by discussing what can it do and how it might be achieved. You might want to discuss with them: Where there have seen this software before; how was it used etc.

By implementing this methodology you will be helping them to develop autonomy. It involves giving them the right knowledge they need in order to select the appropriate tools and resources for the solution.

A good example of how to develop autonomous learners would be to discuss with students the different software available. It doesn’t mean to go into great detail but share with them what they are, what they are mostly used for and then go further and explore various key features of them and question students as where and why these features would be used.

In primary education, students love to show their creative side and if given the chance they would choose a particular software that they would think will demonstrate their creativity the most. For example, if you ask to write a report on something some may choose PowerPoint over MS Word. The latter is the one you want them to use as reports are typically documented and Word has the features and functions to enable this better.

It is best teach ICT techniques when the task provided a suitable context. Provide extra practice in routines when necessary to supplement the work in context.

Student Planning and Evaluating (Higher Order Skills) By year 3 or perhaps year 4, students may be able to begin to plan and evaluate their own work in relation to ICT. Along with displaying your own enthusiasm towards the use of ICT to help with the development of the students’, they also have to articulate their thoughts about the opportunities, processes and strategies which they have experienced. This could be in the form of verbal, written or email and must be interactive.

Students should consolidate their thoughts in the end through reflecting formally on their ICT learning. If we encourage students to reflect on the use of techniques across contexts and situations, they are more likely to generate principles, ideas and strategies that are widely applicable.

In terms of processes, the particular techniques and the sequence are not fully determined by the goal, and the user needs an understanding of both the goal and the tools available in order to make appropriate choices. Sometimes the choice made will not produce the desired effect, and a different technique will be tried.

Reflection on this mistake will lead to learning which improves the user’s ability to make an appropriate choice in the future.

Concepts are developed through verbalisation of activities and by reflection on experience – particularly experience which is carefully structured. As a teacher it is important that you model the decision making process to students. If you model the techniques of strategic planning by thinking out loud in front of students, you will demonstrate to them the questions that might arise during the process.

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at intervals to guide them towards a viable plan.

Finally, involve the students socially in planning, monitoring, evaluating and reflecting through whole-class teaching.

Building on experiences from home

Digital natives such as this generation of students use a computer with increasing confidence and competence in their own homes. For this reason, teachers should build on their ICT experiences in order to gain most from their ICT work at school. Ensure that: • Student activities are interesting to them; • Activities are structured in such a way to stimulate understanding that may be difficult for them to achieve unaided; • You appreciate the nature of children’s ICT work at home; • You provide opportunities both inside and outside of the lesson for children who do not have home access to ICT facilities.

Stimulating and Structuring Activities To capitalise on home use of ICT ensure that: • • • •

You set clear objectives; Activities are structured; You set high expectations of students in terms of ICT use; You have an appreciation of any problems likely to experienced and have planned strategies to deal with them.

Use the following teaching method: • Whole class briefing on the context of the activity; • Detailed explanation to each group when they were ready to work on the activity; • Careful choice of pairs to work on the computer in turn; • A review of the key points with the group afterwards.

Also it is best to work the whole class or group beforehand to clarify your expectations, focus their attention on the activity, and generate ideas and to conduct the demonstration of ICT techniques.

Research (Kennewell et al., 2000) also indicates that it is best to identify to the students when it is the most appropriate to plan their work on paper first so that they had a clear view of what they intended to do. It highlighted how important learning activities need to be introduced by explanation and questioning of students, and then concluded with further questioning and a reflection activity that clearly summarises what they had learned.

Monitoring Student Progress

It is important to monitor student progress on computers for two reasons: 1. It is common for students to appear to be usefully occupied with the activity when in fact they are working very inefficiently and failing to exploit the potential of ICT; 2. Because of the richness of the resource, students may divert from the intended task without it being obvi© ICTE Solutions Australia 2018

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ous from their behaviour.

(Kennewell et al., 2000, p. 94)

What should you monitor?

ICT capability is made up of five components that each should be monitored. These include: • Routines – Definition: the ease and speed by which ICT techniques are carried out. For each year level, have a checklist of techniques available that each student should be able to use routinely. Keep this checklist up-to-date according to the software and hardware available. If students struggle with a routine then extra practice is needed; • ICT Techniques – Definition: a skill that has not become a routine yet. In this case, they can be carried out using the affordances on the screen (icons, menus) or with the help of adults or peers (Kennewell et al., 2000). Have a checklist for each class ready in order to keep track of each students’ confidence in ICT techniques – Give students who need help the minimum amount of support and then withdraw the support as soon as possible; • Processes – Definition: made up of several ICT techniques. Students need to have an understanding of the relevant concepts needed in order to make decisions about which ICT techniques are appropriate for the task. It is essential that they are not given step-by-step tasks so that you as a teacher can let them try out their ideas, and intervene when they fail to make the expected approach. As with ICT techniques, the minimum amount of support should be provided. Structure the activity with questioning, prompting and demonstrating if necessary. Then withdraw the support as soon as possible. Note: If a student uses a desktop publisher to produce a poster or a spreadsheet, you cannot use a checklist. Instead, your description of how a student understood a process should include the way a student approached a task and the level of support they received. You could then use the level description that best matches the approach to the task in the ICT capability Learning Continuum and record the level of support given; • Higher order skills – Definition: level of decision-making a student has during a process. There are three ways you can aid their development: 1. Model the techniques of strategic planning by thinking out aloud in front of the students to highlight the questions that might be asked during a process; 2. Give the students responsibility for planning a task and then coach them by asking them focusing questions at intervals to guide students towards a viable plan; 3. Involve the students socially in planning, monitoring, evaluating and reflecting through whole class teaching.

Teacher Intervention

Intervening in a student’s ICT activity can go a long way towards developing their higher order skills.

Ensure that you: • • • •

Use focusing questions in the form of generalisations to help students in the formation of generalisations; Split the task into stages if it is complex or if you are teaching a low-ability class; Only explain the next stage when a number of students have completed the current task; Plan particular points in the lesson when you will stop the class to review what they have done and explain the next stage.

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question students about what they are doing; • Unplanned points for when a student has a problem. It would help if you can predict these difficulties; • Intervening to drive the pace of the work forward or even setting more specific targets.

(Kennewell, 2004)

Scaffolding and Affordances

Affordances in relation to ICT basically means the opportunities provided to the student by the technology is support of the task, the social support provided by the teacher or any other adult and also the contextual support provided by the setting in which the activity occurs (Kennewell et al., 2000).

Scaffolding may also be provided by the technology itself in lessons using ICT. However, there must be a gap to bridge between the student’s abilities and the requirements of the problem situation if learning is to occur. This gap can be reduced if you add to the affordances of the environment e.g. providing an information sheet to assist in the use of the software or a clear demonstration using the data projector.

Arrange the following conditions: • On the basis of the student’s current abilities, the affordances are insufficient for the learner to complete the set task; • Adjust the affordances of the learning environment to reduce the gap sufficiently for the students to be able to bridge it with effort; • Student’s abilities change as a result of the experience.

(Kennewell et al., 2000) To encourage the use of higher order skills and understanding ensure that the affordances of the planning, monitoring and evaluating the activity is not too great.

The predominant source of learning for each ICT capability component are: • Routine – through practice; • ICT techniques – copying a teacher, peer or trial and error; • Concepts – through verbalisation of activities and by reflection on experience; • Processes – supported combination of ICT techniques into multistage procedures in a range of problem situations, with an increasing degree of personal autonomy and active involvement on the behalf of the student; • Higher order skills – developed in an environment which encourages exploration when opportunities are presented to decide which software to use and how to use it, to make plans, to monitor progress through an extended and evaluate and reflect on solutions made by ICT. (Kennewell et al., 2000)

Assessing ICT capability

If you wish to assess your students’ ICT capability I recommend that of which Kennewell et al. (2000, p.99) states: • Devise methods of enabling the students to monitor and record their own progress e.g. self-assessment sheets; • Question students and ask them how they went about a task; • Set occasional prescribed challenges e.g. Can you write a caption and print it out for me? © ICTE Solutions Australia 2018

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• Make use of well briefed parent helpers to work exclusively with children at the computer, recording the amount of help each child received; • Vary pairings to see how children work with other partners; • Encourage children to save their first drafts as well as their final drafts of each piece of ICT work.

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OVERCOMING TECHNICAL DIFFICULTIES

Students don’t need to be sitting on a computer to develop their ICT capability. The first bit of advice is that if you can get a hold of your school technician before the lesson starts, ask the person to check to make sure that all hardware and software in the classroom is operational. It is even a good strategy to request their presence at the beginning of the lesson so that if anything goes wrong they can sort it out for you straight away. What if this isn’t a possibly? What happens then?

It wouldn’t surprise you that the most commonly used software in the classroom is MS Word. Along with other generic software used in schools it presents you as a teacher with a fantastic opportunity to develop student ICT capability. Each program allows students to practice techniques which is part but not all of what makes up ICT capability. The good news is when it comes to facing technical problems in the classroom is that students don’t need to be sitting at a computer to be able to develop their capabilities. Having a contingency plan is essential in this circumstance. Here is what you can do. Firstly, it is important to plan and seek every opportunity to develop each component of ICT capability and there are five of them.

Secondly, as the generic software mentioned earlier comes with many different concepts and techniques, you can plan a whole class or group discussion about the concepts behind the skills. Ensure that you challenge any inappropriate and naïve ideas about using ICT tools. It would also involve planning questions that will help develop their higher order skills. Finally, provide students with the opportunity to reflect on their ICT learning.

ORGANISING THE CLASSROOM

As every school and classroom is different in terms of classroom ICT resources there are a number of ways for you to organise your classroom in order to continue student learning in literacy and language.

Low Resource Settings

I will begin with discussing the best practices of you to use in the weakest of the settings – low resource.

With more and more schools enjoying their rollout of technology in the classroom, this type of setting is becoming far less common. However, they still exist and can also pertain in a school when a network room or set of laptops is out of use or block booked by another teacher!

If your classroom has a single computer in it that is shared by at least 30 students (hopefully not that big!), here is the first strategy you will need to implement. It is a good idea if you can to bring the computer in an area where it can be seen by everyone. Of course, this may not be physically possible and so you can overcome this barrier by borrowing areas big enough to do so elsewhere in the school. Using a whole-class demonstration of the software is essential at this point and it would help if you spend time the software to fully understand it yourself as the students may not have encountered it before.

What you are aiming for here is to allow the computer to become part of the general resource provision.

Research shows that a “question-and-answer” style of teaching lends itself to this type of circumstance.

Students need to be able to contribute in these discussions even if they are providing tips to their peers. As a teacher, discuss with them the difficulties that they may experience with familiarising themselves with the onscreen layout of the particular software. To enhance your whole-class sessions, follow this advice provided by Allen et al. (2012) 18-31: • Ask the children to discover during the session, and then report back on, different ways of doing the same thing. In a writing program for example, how can they make text appear in a different font size or colour?

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• • •

• • •

print’, in order to avoid the inevitable heartache which arises when a document gets lost; As is the case with all good primary practice, and down with the answer (don’t favour the loud over the quiet); Do not allow one gender or group of children to dominate; Stress the team-building aspects of sharing strategies so that they/we can all use the computer efficiently and safely. Involve children in a discussion about safety – monitor position, length of time, seating and so on; Value what children contribute even when it is patently wrong. Help them to discover a better way constructively (e.g. ‘That’s a good suggestion but …’); Draw on children’s experience of ICT at home or in other community settings; Along with this you need to ensure that students learn how to take responsibility for their electronic forms of work. Show them how to save and retrieve their work and the importance of backing up their work. This is a significant concept that students make remember and it needs to be done as children progress through school. A strategy like this can be taught from the early age.

Lastly, in a low resource setting establishing and maintaining a rota can be crucial to ensure equality of access and of opportunity in the classroom. Rotas should not be set in stone as the acquisition of ICT skills is a dynamic process that is always changing.

High Resource Settings

High resource settings in schools means of course a lot more ICT tools and resources to choose from. Despite this, it is not surprising that many of the strategies used in low resource settings can be applied here too. So the following is a list of extra strategies to ponder about if needed.

If your school falls within this setting then it is likely that you will able to share the experience of the lesson using a large screen display with children. It could be either in the form of a large monitor, projector, screen or even what most schools double up its use of is interactive whiteboards. However, if your school doesn’t have a display like this then children can sit in front of the monitors. By observing fellow teachers, you may be able to pick up other strategies to overcome any difficulties encountered.

The availability of many computers in a room can also sometimes create problems. To avoid any pushing and shoving in the classroom when children are deciding on where to sit, remind them that they don’t have to sit at the same computer every week. It is great plan of action to proactively do the same about the importance of their passwords. Allen et al. (2012) outlines some other classroom practices: • Whole-class logon with the same username and password into a general area on the network for that class.

• Children with a unique username and password.

• Children with group logon names and passwords.

• Logging into and out of computers is a very important process and children should be taught to do so by themselves. Index cards can contain all the passwords and usernames and it can be handed to children at the beginning of lessons and collected at the end.

Whole-class demonstrations as I stated earlier in this course is an excellent way to assess student capabilities. So it should always take place and be for a sensible length of time. By doing this it allows the children to make the best use of time available. Children make a significant contribution to the whole-class understanding of ICT skills and its development. © ICTE Solutions Australia 2018

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Mobile learning is becoming common these days and so you need to take into account things like battery life, ownership, sharing and storing as some examples. Integrating technology into classroom work can be much simpler in these circumstances.

Regardless of the level of resource you have available at your school it is important that you make the most out of every opportunity. Being a role model in the use of technology in the classroom is vital in primary education in particular as it sets the experience of learning with technology throughout their education.

Remember that the effectiveness of a technology-based unit of work depends on how well you plan.

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Routine – how was the technique executed Hesitant Steady Fluent

Useful to plan opportunities for a child to, say, move from inserting a picture hesitantly to doing fluently.

Click the drop down menu

Move the mouse wheel to scroll

Click and drag the scroll bar

Move the mouse to the appropriate location Selecting an icon with a mouse

Type letters and/or words

Locate keys on keyboard

ICT Technique

Student Name: Activity:

APPENDICES

ICT Techniques Execution sheet sample

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WORKS CITED Australian Curriculum. (2018, May 15). Australian Curriculum. Retrieved from English Year 1: https:// www.australiancurriculum.edu.au/f-10-curriculum/english/?year=11574&strand=Language&strand=Literature&strand=Literacy&capability=Information+and+Communication+Technology+%28ICT%29+Capability&elaborations=true&elaborations=false&scotterms=false&isF Beauchamp, G. (2012). ICT in Cross Curricular Teaching. In G. Beauchamp, ICT in the Primary School, from Pedagogy to Practice (pp. 155-156). Routledge.

Howell, J. (2012). Developing digital fluency in learners. In J. Howell, Teaching with ICT: Digital Pedagogies for Collaboration and Creativity (pp. 147 - 181). Oxford University Press.

Kennewell, S. (2004). Developing ICT Capability. In S. Kennewell, Meeting the standards in Using ICT for secondary teaching (pp. 111-114). New York: Routledge Falmer.

Kennewell, S., Parkinson, J., & Tanner, H. (2000). Developing ICT capability. In S. Kennewell, J. Parkinson, & H. Tanner, Developing the ICT Capable School (pp. 36-55). London: Routledge Falmer.

Potter, F., & Darbyshire, C. (2005). Assessing ICT capability. In F. Potter, & C. Darbyshire, Understanding and Teaching the ICT National Curriculum (pp. 186-200). New York : Routledge.

Potter, F., & Darbyshire, C. (2005). The Nature of ICT capability. In F. Potter, & C. Darbyshire, Understanding and Teaching the ICT National Curriculum (pp. 17-24). New York: Routledge.

Potter, J., Sharp, J., Turvey, K., & Allen, J. (2012). Planning for ICT in other subjects. In J. Potter, J. Sharp, K. Turvey, & J. Allen, Primary ICT: Knowledge, Understanding and Practice (pp. 44-63). London: Learning Matters Ltd. Semenov, A. (2005). Information and Communication Techonologies: A Handbook for Teachers. UNESCO.

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