Yesterday I wrote about my experience at Institute, reflecting on the ADE community as a whole, the theme of the week and how I benefit from being a part of this group. Today I want to share 5 of my greatest learning moments.
leadership and management
Lessons for the Classroom – a reflection on the Apple Distinguished Educator Institute 2015 #ADE2015
This July I travelled to my third Apple Distinguished Educator Institute. It has been two years since I was invited to join this global community of innovative educators and it still stands as my most valued CPD experience. Being a part of this community is so important to me, it is a place that I can take time for myself and my professional growth.
After the Institute I stayed in Amsterdam with a few of my ADE friends and we visited Bodyworlds. An exhibition about the human body and the role happiness plays on your body. It was during this exhibition, 2 days after the Institute, where I began to draw up my reflections on the week. This post is punctuated with a few photographs of collages from Bodyworlds, ones that helped me knit those special moments at Institute together.
E-Safety and the Foundation Stage.
Toward the end of the summer term 2014, I presented at the Nottinghamshire County Council ICT Subject Leader’s network. The focus of my presentation was on the successes of our school blogs and social media presence, and the road ahead. The network meeting had a wider theme of e-safety and I discussed how a blogging system and social media presence that is embedded in a school models acceptable use of the internet to pupils on a daily basis. You can read more about the launch of our school blogs and social media tools here. There are parents who regularly tweet and use Instagram with us, which models acceptable use at home.
Including Early Years and ELGs in a computing curriculum (UPDATED September 2014)
The autumn term has been a long but rewarding one for me. A new job has been the challenge that I was looking for and I am settled in to a new school and a new role. Each week has passed with a new set of achievements and the role has been fast paced, but progress is being made at an astonishing rate!
One focus for me, as for many of us, is implementing a new computing curriculum for the school. As an early years teacher I am keen to include the foundation stage within the primary curriculum planning phase and make stronger links between the two curriculums.
This may be an easier process for other curriculum areas, but within the ‘technology’ strand in Early Years Outcomes and the new computing curriculum for key stage 1, it seems to be a little more vague.
Technology in the new Early Years Foundation Stage: What do you need to prepare?
During the Summer Term I have been working in a variety of counties discussing my use of iPad and how I believe this tool has a strong place within the new Technologies strand.So what is happening in Development Matters?
It seems that the use of a BeeBot, or other programmable toys, is now part of a much wider vision for ICT learning and assessment. The emphasis on using technology in the new curriculum is on children creating their own content. This content creation is embedded in the other areas of learning, using technology to enhance communication, language, arts, maths and literacy. Therefore, the skills of the specific area of learning ‘Understanding the World’ can be practised through prime area strands such as speaking, listening and social development.
By using an app like Puppet Pals, children are creating and saving their own content on iPad but are also working in a group, taking turns and talking about the story they are retelling.
The new technologies strand is still very limited in what you are assessing, and this is probably is probably due to the digital divide between settings and homes. With an upcoming review of the National Curriculum, it may be useful to look at skills that can be taught in Year 1 and bring these in to planning for the foundation stage too.
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Enabling Environments: A Computing Curriculum Beginning in Early Years
This book has been written for the Early Years practitioner or Computing Coordinator of a school looking to further embed the use of technology in their Foundation 1 and Foundation 2 settings. Marc Faulder, an Early Years teacher and Apple Distinguished Educator, provides a complete skills curriculum from 30 months to the Early Learning Goal in this book. Chapters introduce a skills curriculum, the assessment and progression of the skills and a thorough planning document to show how technology enhances learning in all Early Learning Goals.
How to organise apps and set restrictions for a primary or early years iPad
Please note that images on this blog reflect iOS 5, however the processes remain the same.
For the Summer Term I am planning to support staff at the primary school I work at with understanding the basics of using an iPad in a primary classroom. This blog post is going to act as a base for all of my advice, so it will probably change over the coming weeks.
For information on managing multiple devices and purchasing app licenses, see my blog post here: https://enablingenvironments.wordpress.com/wp-admin/post.php?post=728&action=edit
I saw a blog post at EdTechLoung.com this Easter holiday which gave a huge bank of recommended Apps for Early Years and Primary Education. The blog post also provided information on how to group these Apps into folders to make the iPad more accessible for primary aged pupils. This reminded me of a very early blog post I wrote when I first launched ‘Enabling Environments’. I shared the challenges and solutions to using 1 iPad in a class of 30 children, and now I feel I have so much more to say about it. If you want to read about deploying multiple iPads in a classroom or school, read this blog post about the Volume Purchase Program and mobile device management.