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Teaching Programming with Alice on an Activboard

If you want to teach computer science principles to kids – do try and check this out…

http://www.alice.org

From here you can download a free program from Carnegie Mellon Uni. that lets you create and control objects and characters in 3D worlds.

It is clearly very powerful for teaching the fundamental basics of computer programming (if you do not know about geeky, programmer type things like classes, events, properties, variables, parameters, functions and methods – you will after an hour or so with Alice). Being completely visual it helps make complete sense of the basics of programming – and is stunning on the Activboard – it really make kids want to jump up, interact with it and make it all work….

For example, in one scenario there are characters such as a Pharoah (such an object is called a Class) and in that class are all the bits that make him up – e.g. Head, Body Limbs, Crown, etc. With a combination of drag and drop and pull down menus, all operated easily on the Promethean Activboard we could program the Pharoah to do almost anything…

There are even special ‘methods’ such as ‘think’ or ‘talk’… so that it can be used to create an interactive storyboard like a movie.

Within minutes, seven year olds had mastered the basics and created their first adventure. The software even lets you save your work as a webpage so others can see it and see the code that was used. Here is the first attempt (for some reason the speech and thought bubbles are not working as we expected online – but they will in your class). You can also see the programming used on the web page

http://www.zen57329.zen.co.uk/Pyramid_Adventure/Pyramid_Adventure.html

You may need some extra plugins to download to view it, but the webpage has all the details and they are fairly straightforward.

Handheld Learning 2007

One of the key events of recent years has been the Handheld Learning event. Focusing on mobile learning with devices and the opportunities presented by ubiquitous access to the internet, it raises and explores many issues that educators will have to deal with in coming years.

I was lucky to be able to present at this event with a Promethean colleague and we ran a workshop that covered all the ways that the Promethean Activboard could work with devices. Many of the ideas in the blog made it to the presentation – using images from phones to using the Activsoftware on Ultra-Mobile PCs (UMPCs)

As well as the technical tricks and techniques some other interesting Promethean technology was presented – incuding the ‘VR’ versions of Activote – basically Activate that floats on the screen of a laptop, PC, UMPC or Nova5000 student computer.

Flipcharting on a Samsung Q1 UMPC

A Q1 is an ‘ultra mobile PC’ – basically a tablet PC that is slightly smaller and that runs a full version of Windows XP…

With a battery life of around 2 hours it has not quite got the stamina for a whole day out of the class – but for a focussed hour or two it is perfect.

Because the Q1 runs a full version of Windows that means it can run the full version of Activstudio and Activprimary – creating what is perhaps the ultimate PC based student creativity tool imaginable for your Activclassroom. Better still, everything the kids make is completely compatible with your class based setup and ready for sharing with the class as soon as you get back – saving hours in managing files and file formats to make a class display.

Here’s what we did – we created a ‘digital worksheet’ as a group activity on the Activboard for our field trip to the River Lune.

Task 1) We used Google maps and the Activstudio camera tool to snap an aerial view of the bridge where we would be starting our trip into the flipchart. A quick note asked the children to draw the bridge using Activstudio’s pens and drawing tools and mark the location where they made the drawing on the map.

Task 2) Invited the children to explore the use of the Activstudio sound recorder and digital camera (the Q1 does not have a camera – but pics were easily bluetoothed to it from a mobile phone and a Fujitsu Siemens EDA) to describe what they found at the riverbank.

Task 3) Involved visiting Ruskin’s view in Kirkby Lonsdale and reading the plaque there. Acting in role – they had to pretend to be John Ruskin, declaring, at the end of the 19th Century the view to be “the greatest in England – and therefore the world!” using the information on the plaque to add detail to the characterisation.

Finally the children were asked to list what they liked about taking the mobile computer on the fieldtrip… It was clear that the full range of tools and multimedia organisation features of the Activ software made a big difference to the speed and range that work could be done – the simple to use sound recorder being particularly noted but one final comment was – “Paper has no batteries to run out!”

Highly recommended… and extremely motivating for the children. Their capability with the technology is astounding.

If you can use Activstudio – then this is an easy way to get kids working independently with mobile learning technology. It only takes a few minutes to mark up flipchart pages with tasks and ideas on the Activboard and transfer them (using Bluetooth, a VLE a USB stick or something like RedHalo) to the Q1s

EDAs and ‘Beaming’ files in class… blending personalised and group learning

I have been having a great few weeks since my last post…

We have immersed ourselves in the ‘mobile learning’ agenda over the Summer break – and armed with two Fujitsu-Siemens EDAs, and a mobile phone with a camera we set out to see what approaches and ideas we could discover that we could apply with the Activboard for when term time came round.

In a previous post we had been discovering ideas for student phones.. but these EDAs really take it to a different level.Some of things we have been doing…

• Setting a series of tasks to do ‘in the field’ – the kids tick ‘em off as they complete them (they loved this and have not tired of it yet!) – and it beats a clipboard and soggy, ripped photocopy sheet anytime in the coolness stakes.
• Interviewing people (audio or video).. default 30 second time limits really focussed the conversation
• Photographing specific things in ‘photo scavenger hunts’,
• Drawing maps and diagrams of ‘real things’!,
• Setting waypoints and points of interest using GPS then estimating and working out distances between places,
• If we were near home or a WiFi hotspot – getting online to use Google maps or to answer questions as they arise… (we now know that Quinine comes from the bark of a tree – courtesy of Wikipedia – as we sat in a restaurant pondering what was it in tonic water that apparently had something to do with preventing malaria and my son says – why not find out now!)

All I would add though – is that the device itself does not magically make them start thinking of things to do with it… It was clear that without guidance and set tasks – kids see little use other than playing ‘Bubble Breaker’… The role of the teacher is most definitely safe! But what was surprising though was how often they were the ones who prompted us when we should use it to solve problems and questions as they arose as we travelled around…. ‘Why not use Google maps’ (when I got lost in the car), ‘why not go online’ – when we were intrigued by a rather bright and colourful caterpillar we found (apparently it was a tussock moth) – The kids were thinking ‘mobile connectivity’ as the norm – I was still having to remind myself!

So back to the Activboard – armed with a memory card full of stuff!

Wow… Bluetooth rocks… if used appropriately!

I have used a Bluetooth slate in the past and was pretty unimpressed with the performance in the classroom - it would suddenly decide to stop working or would have seconds where it would just go really sloooooowwwwww – but clearly the real benefit with Bluetooth is quickly and easily transferring files between devices. Pairing the EDAs to the laptop connected to the activboard was effortless.. and a simple click would see a file beaming its way to the screen.

What really made this so great was sending the incoming files straight to the Promethean Collections folders… When an incoming beam was detected – you are prompted to choose a location – just choose the Documents > Promethean > Activstudio3 > Shared Collections – and everything beamed to the PC can be found in the AS resource library for instant use in flipcharts – neat! The pocket painter app was particularly powerful – kids can create their own drawings, images, concept maps, etc. and simply beam them to the board as images… ready to drag and drop into the lesson.

Of course – with the Activboard working with devices that allows kids to contribute content – a whole new pedagogy is revealed… by beaming work to the board – THEIR work becomes the focus of discussion, group tasks such as making a flipchart magazine become easy – EDAs can get all the image and text work done independently and a few minutes beaming files – and you can organise all the content in a flipchart!

All those Export options in Activstudio suddently come into their own too… save the flipcharts as a powerpoint or PDF and you can view it in alls its glory on the EDA.. Go to Google Maps and focus on an area for a fieldtrip.. annotate a path on it using the activpen in desktop mode and save the combined page as an image – beam it – and on the EDA the kids have a simple map to follow!

The future is not personalised learning, with no class or group work – it has to be a clever blend of these amazing technologies!

Mothergooserocks – ‘Kids at the speed of creativity’

I found this and just had to post it… Nursery Rhymes done in the style of Sting (Stung), U2 (Me2), Madonna (Mad Donna), etc.   The site has a few online examples you might want to bring up on the Activboard for a different take on ‘music time’…

http://www.mothergooserocks.com/contest/mad_donna.htm

http://www.mothergooserocks.com/animations/head_and_shoulders.html

The Heads Shoulder’s knees and toes – is possibly the funniest thing I have seen this month…. watch out when George Bush joins in!

Interview with Robert Powell on delivering personalised, formative assessment

  

Your team is trapped! - Your next answer will determine if you are entombed in the sunken ship or make it to the Helicopter!

Robert Powell, a leading authority on assessment in the UK has used a ’developer kit for Activote’ from Promethean to make a new range of software that lets every learner in a class take an active role in an on-screen adventure.  He says…

“The big challenge with assessment is to gather information and data to help both teachers and learners to identify strengths, weaknesses and next steps for progress. There is a lot of evidence that ‘over-testing’ can damage both the curriculum and the level of learning, and we have tried to develop software that motivates and engages children while at the same time providing important information for evaluating progress and identifying needs.”

On the software…

“The feedback we get from teachers and learners has been excellent. Some classes arrive in the room and ask for a test using the software; not a request you normally get from young people!”

Called ‘Quest Mathematics – AfL’ it blends the appeal of computer animation & video games with differentiated assessment and a team based approach. Students can battle their way through the Jungle or an Underwater landscape or brave the Haunted House. They have to answer questions selected from a vast database to get through each stage. Each quest is full of very high quality animated movies and themed music to keep the kids focussed and engaged. Just see the pics!

The teacher can organise their class into an assortment of mixed ability or levelled teams and assign differentiated questions sets to each. With over 18,000 questions covering the complete Maths curriculum and the ability to differentiate by NC Levels – each learner can operate and progress at their own level even when being taught in a whole class situation with an Activboard and Activotes.

For fully ‘personalised learning’ or if the school does not yet have Promethean Activote’s – the software also support network deployment where students can take part in the Quest alone or with a group of friends.

Even though the students enjoy the activity as teams and can be encouraged to debate and solve problems together – each individual’s performance is tracked automatically and is exportable as Excel for further analysis.  

It really is a complete ‘plug and play’ system for fully differentiated and personalised assessment for learning.

 

Find out more about the Robert Powell products on Prometheanworld

Art Rage… awesome ‘natural media’ painting

Turn an Activpen into a sable hair brush or a tub of glitter… and if you ever needed an excuse to buy a graphics tablet for all the PCs in the computer suite – then this might be it!

There are a few natural media programs out there – but many look like modified versions of more sophisticated computer drawing programs. Art Rage is different… from the novel user interface to the natural behaviour of the tools – this program has been designed exclusively to recreate the look and behaviour of natural art materials on screen.

Having used programs such as Corel Painter a lot with kids in the past, it is clear the range of oils, pastels, crayons, airbrushes and glitter will keep them engaged and exploring. Don’t get me wrong – I am all for ‘real’ materials in lessons – but the ability to model and re-draft/re-work ideas in a rich and creative way on the whiteboard is very useful and it is a simple fact that most career illustrators and designers these days use computer applications for much of their work.

You can download a free version (with limited number of tools) from www.artrage.com for both MAC and PC.

Bluetooth headphones… get high quality recordings with Activ software

Just had to post again… After discovering the power of bluetooth for moving multimedia files around it seems obvious that we can easily use other Bluetooth devices in novel ways.

Connect your bluetooth headset to the PC or MAC connected to the Activboard and you can use it as a microphone when using the Video or Sound recorder functions of the software. No more hovering near the laptop or voice projection tricks.

If you are serious about using sound then something like a sound field system from Audio Enhancements can really sort things.

Mobile Phones – multimedia power in every student’s hand!

I got a new Nokia mobile phone recently – nothing fancy – just a standard model. After years of owning one I had simply got in the habit of thinking that its only pupose was for making calls and the very occasional text message (communication for people who do not really want to talk to someone!) and that all the rest was ‘fancy extras’ that were bundled in with no real thought or design other than make me pay more!

After actually reading the manual… I was amazed to find in my hand a device that can capture high quality images at a perfectly reasonable and instantly usable 1-Megapixel resolution, a video recorder and a sound recorder that ALL save in formats that can embed straight into an Activprimary or Activstudio software. JPEGS, WAV and AVI…

Then to discover that the in-built Bluetooth capability meant that I could transfer the files to the computer connected to the Activboard for NOTHING!!!!! – well – my mind was spinning!

Virtually all the ‘digital natives‘ we teach are surgically attached to their mobiles – yet we are bent on banning them in schools. Perhaps if teachers respected the kids mastery of their devices and showed that there were more creative uses of a video recorder than ‘happy slapping‘ then we can perhaps help bridge the divide between modern educators and modern learners who are all challenged in their own way with keeping on top of new and emerging technology.

Getting going:

1. Set up a bluetooth connection between the phone and the PC or MAC… This was effortless on my MAC. Just switch on Bluetooth on the Phone and MAC and ask the MAc to find the device. That was it.
2. Take your pictures and videos then choose ‘Send’ (that is what the Nokia says) then choose ‘Via Bluetooth’ – a pop up appears on the MAC to let you accept the file – and moments later it is in the documents folder ready for use on the Activboard. Amazing!

I now have at my disposal:

• a Star Trek tricorder device that I can use for a Science Fiction themed lesson…
• a personal multimedia contribution system for the Activclassroom – ‘you have all got to do a 10 second ‘TV news style’ video report on a topical issue of your choice and Bluetooth it to the Activboard…’
• a data recording tool we can take out into the field to engage every child in capturing digital images, audio and video to use in their own flipcharts

First stop though – revisit the rule about mobiles not being allowed in school!