Blog Task 10/11

Visiting Shirley Warren and working with the children bridged the gap between us learning to use different Apps in seminars to putting it into practice with the children. As a group, we were able to plan an idea to make videos based on a chosen right. However, we did not take in to account any problems that may occur. Our aims for the children were to understand the right chosen and to be able to maneuver images and text on the Ipad. 

During our planning, we thought the children would give us ideas to use in the video. Even though they were good at identifying what to say to promote being safe, we felt that us adults were directing them. This resulted in the question of were the children learning? As the tasks continued, the children became more confident in their roles and found meaning of the activities. Due to working with the children for such a small amount of time, I did not feel we got 'the best' out of them, not knowing their strengths, but they still produced great work that they were proud of. This compares to their teacher knowing them really well individually and knowing what their skills are, to use them to their advantage in videos. The children carried great enthusiasm and excitement of using technology. 

We found it challenging to incorporate teaching the children how to use the different Apps on the Ipod due to the amount of time we had. However, the children learnt how to create their own avatar and took it in turns to change the different features and to input text in Tellagami. 

A technical problem occurred when we wanted to show the videos on the board, to point out how to create an avatar, as the air play feature would not work. We overcame this by passing round the Ipad to the children to explore themselves with a little input as a group. This included the children huddling around the Ipad to hear and see the instructions on how to use the Apps. This was very time consuming and some children lost interest as they could not see properly. Technical issues can be overcome through teachers being trained to fix any problems and being organised to ensure the Ipads have enough battery. During planning, it is vital that when using technology, there is always a plan B to overcome any problems found in lessons, as teachers need to be flexible to not waste children's learning time.

We shared our work with the children which they were excited to watch and were proud of themselves. This experience helped them understand and learn children's rights in a fun and interactive way, learning new skills with cross curricular links.