How was it used?

NGfL Cymru thinking tools resources were used to support the work we did on blogging.

I thought starting a BLOG with the children would be the ideal way of using their enthusiasm and training children to write for an audience. We also used tagxedo, PPT

Impact and Outcomes

• Children’s understanding of audience and purpose has quite obviously been improved. This can be seen by the quality of the writing produced on the blog. For my children who struggle with audience and purpose when speaking also, they have made great strides. Through using the success criteria the children’s understanding of the genre and the important features of a chapter summary have improved, seen through the fact many of them didn’t need the PP as an aid by the end of the project. Looking at the National Curriculum and Skills Framework targets covered by the project, the children have moved towards achieving them all (at Level 3 and 4).
• Children’s attitude to writing has improved beyond recognition. One boy who looked particularly down when asked to do a chapter summary, now can’t wait to do a chapter summary on the blog. Therefore the project has also made learning personalised. My enthusiasm for teaching has improved massively as the activities are successful and engaging. When you have engaged children, learning can be taken so much further. Children regularly ask to use the Microsoft tools of PP and Tagxedo, as well as asking to use the Living graph and PP. For me, this is the key to raising standards, as when you have children ‘wanting’ to use tools that support and enhance learning; their attainment will rise and children will develop a positive attitude to education. My children love using the blog and the tools mentioned to enhance their learning.

Learner Feedback

See Video attached to PP slides. The only phrase I hang on to is by a girl called Loanna: ‘Mr Elliott, I never used to like this, but I love it now!’ – regarding using all these tools to support writing.

Other Resources

NGfL Pyramid Ranking (adapted from 10 things), PowerPoint for the Pyramid ranking, Tagxedo (powered by Microsoft Silverlight), Literacy Evolve, Oranges in No Man’s Land (Book), Internet explorer and Primary Blogger.

Lesson Learnt

I have learnt that truly engaged and enthused children are easier to develop than those disengaged and unenthused. I used to think I engaged and enthused my pupils, but now they become open, ready, willing and active learners who desire to improve what they do. Through using these tools and completing the project I have decided to do all my afternoon teaching in this way.

The activities could be used in so many ways. The nature of the tools is that they are generic and aimed at improving the skills of the skills framework. Therefore the context in a way is irrelevant, as it’s the skills the children are learning that matter. These skills will allow the children to acquire their own knowledge.

If I was do things differently, I would teach the children the ICT skills more separately, to allow them to upload blogs, create the living graphs and use the axis graphs more easily. For example: they are fantastic at using them now, however, if I had done a session on the tools before hand, during the completion of the activities we wouldn’t have had to stop as much to discuss the steps to uploading a blog.