ROOM+3

Hi!

 My name is Jenny and I teach a class of 22 energetic year 2's! The whole wiki concept is rather foreign to me and I am looking forward to learning how to use this tool.

**I wish to investigate:** Ways in which to strengthen the application of knowledge within Literacy. Eg: letter sounds, letter formations and the use of high frequency words. Students particularly have difficulty in transferring reading skills to writing skills.

 **The Concern:** The application of knowledge towards Literacy tasks.

**What will I do?** Vary teaching to motivate students learning. The use of the projector may motivate students learning, this may be whole class teaching or an independent task. Students need to value their work so we could use the projector to share and display student work. Eg: work with student’s to make a class ‘e book’ slide show using Kids Pix and Word. Students may publish a piece of writing and present it to the class. Students may edit each others work giving constructive critisism. Questions and teaching points can be formed around students work.

Term 2: Introduce and experiment with Kid Pix. (Drawing and Writing). Term 3: Begin sharing student work with the class on the projector. Students start to edit and assess each others own work.  Term 4: Students begin to create their own “e-book” and present to peers.
 * Timeline: ** 


 * Reflections **

__Term 2 __ Introduced the laptops / computers to the students. We experimented with drawing on Kid Pix. Students found it hard to manipulate the mouse pad, which obviously made drawing with the pencil rather difficult. Would quite like to buy some hand-held 'mice' for the younger children to use. Persisted with this activity. As I didn't know what to expect or how to establish an ICT programme in my timetable I only timetabled myself for 1 pod once a week. As I became more familiar with the programme myself and being able to teach it to the children, this one time slot was not working as children were getting 1 turn every fortnight.

__Term 3__ Persevered with Kid Pix but was not comfortable that I had done it justice so decided to continue using Kid Pix this term. This term we were timetabled for the laptops everyday which was great to a certain extent. Students became confident and familiar with this programme so it was time to step it up. After talking with Steven, I decided to teach the students how to use animations. Students wrote their names using the alphabet animations. Students then experimented with the different animated pictures. Our next learning step was adding sound to our picture. Once students were able to do this I then showed them how to put it into a slide show.

I tried to use it in my reading tumble, where students would record themselves reading their guided reader and drawing a picture to match. After running this through with a few groups I then realised that the voice recorder on Kid Pix cannot record for very long and cut the students off - oops.

This term I really found that the laptop timetable doesn't work with my classroom timetable as I get the laptops at various times each day throughout the week. I tried to work my classroom timetable around the laptop timetable but proved to be challenging for both myself and the students.

Lastly I received a phone call from another Year 2 teacher at another school who was interested in setting up an email buddy system between her children and my children. At the time I was really excited but sad to say it became unmanageable for me. I find that the students are not able to work on the laptops completing a task independently, however I lack the time to work with them as I am obviously trying to run my guided groups and it just causes constant interruptions.

__Term 4__ I have totally veered off track from my original Teacher Inquiry! The thought of trying to use the projector at the moment is daunting! This term I will 'attempt' to get the projector up and running where the students can start sharing their work on the big screen.