Using Minecraft To Teach Children About The Pyramids.

I am really enjoying my new role at school, teaching the new computing curriculum across Key Stage  2. This has provided me with lots of opportunities to deliver cross-curricular work as despite what some people may think, the new computing curriculum isn't just about coding. The sessions I deliver are part of teachers' PPA time. This means that they usually give me a concept/topic from one of their foundation subject topics that they would like me to cover. This is great as it has given me lots of freedom to teach these concepts in an engaging way while covering the computing curriculum (digital literacy and computer science aspects).

One of my favourite of these 'mini-projects' has been work I have been doing with Year 5 based on the pyramids of Ancient Egypt. This covered the following aspects of the history and computing programmes of study for Key Stage 2

History - the achievements of the earliest civilisations.
Computing - use and combine a variety of software to design and create a range of content that accomplish given goals.

We started by watching an National Geographic video which was 'touristy' in style and provided a brief overview of the pyramids. This grabbed the children's interest. We then visited a website that had 360 degree views of the pyramids plus virtual tours inside. These resources and the ensuing discussion provided the children with enough information for the next part of the project.

The Year 5 group I was working with is boy heavy and can be challenging. Therefore, I opted for a guaranteed 'win'. I decided to let them design and build their pyramids on Minecraft which they all played obsessively at home. The idea for using Minecraft in lessons came from Lee Parkinson (@ICT_MrP) .Well, I had hoped that it would engage them but the results were amazing. They were engrossed in the process and could readily explain their designs demonstrating that they understood the features of the pyramids and why they were there.

In an attempt to embed their learning further, when they had finished building their pyramids, they took screenshots and imported them into the Thinglink app. Thinglink is another app I have been introduced to by Lee Parkinson. They then labelled their designs with text, further images and videos of themselves talking about their knowledge of the pyramids. There are a few examples of the pyramids the children designed on our school website

http://www.moorside.tameside.sch.uk/ks-2-1/year-5

Ten Book Challenge

Thank you to Alan Peat (@alanpeat) for nominating me for this challenge. The challenge is to think of 10 books that have stayed with you during your life because they mean something to you. I found this very tricky as there are so many books that I have enjoyed. Narrowing the list down to just ten was difficult. Anyway, here goes.

1.  1984 by George Orwell - I first read this book when I was about 12 or 13. It was the first book that I have read that oft me thinking about it long after I had finished reading it. Strangely enough, I think it was in 1984 that I read it which lead me to compare the reality of 1984 to the portrayal of 1984 in the book. Since then I have often been reminded of the book through Tv shows such as Room 101 and of course, Big Brother.

2. Charlie And The Great Glass Elevator by Roald Dahl - this book reminds me of happy times with my dad as he would read it to me when I was a young boy. I remember cowering in fear of the Vermicious Knids! I have loved Roald Dahl books all my life, especially now that I am a primary teacher.

3. Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen - this was a book I had to study for GCSE English and as a teenage boy I hated it. When I read it later as an adult, I absolutely loved it as I was able to fully appreciate the wonderful wit of Jane Austen which shone through her characters.

4. Any Myron Bolitar book by Harlan Coben - I was introduced to this character by my mum who had already read some of this series of books. I instantly engaged with the wise-cracking Myron and enjoyed the adventures he and his friend, the somewhat psychotic Win, got up to.

5. Needful Things by Stephen King - When I had read this book, it made me want to read any Stephen King book I was able to get my hands on. In my opinion he is a master story-teller with many of his books crossing the bridge from reality to the supernatural and back again.

6. Steve Jobs - Walter Isaacson - I read this book about a year ago. I had been interested for a while in finding out about the motivations of this fascinating character. Having read the book, I was impressed with his vision and his philosophy of aiming to design the very best products, unconcerned with the lengths he and his employees had to go to.

7. Notes From A Small Island by Bill Bryson - I really like the style of Bill's writing. The places he described came to life for me as I read his books.

8. Diary of Adrian Mole by Sue Townsend - I read this book when I was a teenager myself and shared some of the feelings that Adrian describes. I had never read a 'diary' style book before.

9. One Hundred Days by Admiral Sandy Woodward - I became interested in military history when I was at University. This book is an excellent account of a very difficult military campaign as it happened. It inspired me to apply for Royal Navy officer selection.

10. Harry Potter and The Goblet of Fire - I started reading the Harry Potter books when I was training to be a teacher and loved them straight away. The Goblet of Fire sticks in my mind as I was reading it when I met my wife and coincidentally so was she at the time.

Tale of Two Staffrooms

Having spent quite a lot of time on Twitter this summer, I have come to realise that I now effectively work in two staff rooms. There is the staffroom at the school where I teach and there is the virtual staffroom that I step into when I interact on Twitter.

I use these two staff rooms in very different ways. The staffroom at my school is generally used for grabbing quick brew while trying not to suffer 3rd degree burns on the geezer or throwing down sandwiches containing dubious meat from the local sandwich shop. I may even occasionally check the notice board to remind myself of anything I need to do that day. Any conversations I have in my 'real' staffroom are generally fairly uninspiring - relating to football results or TV programmes. Sometimes, I may even try to avoid talking to someone if I am too busy and/or they are not my cup of  tea.

This is very different from how I interact in my Twitter staffroom. When I am in that staffroom, the conversations more often than not are professional in nature. Partly because the people in my Twitter staffroom are people I have chosen to interact with. People whose opinion I value. Also, I am aware that any conversation that I have in my Twitter staffroom is in the public eye. Another difference is that I can access my Twitter staffroom at any time of the day (or even night). If there is a question that I have about my practice, I can get answers almost immediately. Occasionally, I will have conversations about more social topics but the majority of my time spent in my Twitter staffroom is for professional activities.

There is an old saying 'You can choose your friends but you can't choose your family'. A similar idea applies to the two staff rooms. I can't choose who is in my real staffroom but I can choose who I wish to interact with in my Twitter staffroom. As it happens, I am lucky enough to work with a very supportive and pleasant bunch of colleagues although I know some people aren't that lucky.

I just hope that when terms begins again, with all the madness that comes along with it, I still am able to find time to pop into my Twitter from time to time to interact with the people I choose to interact with.

What I have learnt from Twitter this Summer.

As the summer comes to and end, I have started to reflect about how I have used Twitter this summer and what I have learnt from using it.

This summer I have been the most active on Twitter that I have ever been. I have taken parts in chats such as #ukedchat and #aussieED chat. I have had discussions with people, not always agreeing but, hey, that's sometimes the nature of discussions. I have followed links people have posted, I have read blogs that interest me. Also, I have built up my network of followers and followees. So what have I learnt?

1. What a great source of CPD Twitter can be.
Twitter has helped to bring me bang up to date with what is happening in Education at the moment. This includes new practices that are popular and/or becoming so. Through helpful folk, I have been able to deepen my understanding of some of these practices. The major change (and challenge) presented by the new curriculum is one that I will admit, I am a little apprehensive about. I found lots of useful information and resources out there in the Twitterverse. For example, the excellent bank of resources produced by @MichealT1979. For my own role especially I have found schemes of work that other people have worked hard to produce and then shared for free. Obviously, Twitter comes with a health warning - not all the CPD advice on Twitter is sound, it is important to reflect on what you are told to decide whether you will find it useful.

2. You can find an answer to pretty much any questions you have.
As I have built up my personal learning network (PLN) on Twitter, I have been able to tweet a question or ask for advice on a particular teaching issue. Very quickly, reposes come in from experienced teachers, sometimes with links to useful resources or suggestions for people to contact or follow. This works both ways of course. If a person I follow tweets a questions then I will endeavour to answer if I am able. If you are teaching any concept, there will be most likely be someone in your PLN who can suggest a resources or website or person to follow to help you deliver that concept.

3. Twitter Chats are a great way to quickly learn about how other teachers operate.
The first chat I joined was #aussieEd chat on the recommendation of @grahamandre. This is a chat organised by Australian teachers that involves teachers from all over the world. At first, the pace of the chat was a bit too manic for me and I found myself wondering whether I could keep up. Using Tweetdeck helped. Through these chats I have discovered some excellent ideas that I can use in the classroom. It is also interesting to see other teachers' viewpoints on ideas that you have, to see whether others think they will work! Finally, chats are a good way to build up your PLNand make connections that could be very useful in the future.

4. Teachers' Blogs are a good way to challenge your thinking and read informed thinking on a range of education issues.
I once went on a training course where they suggested (nay, insisted) that we blogged. At the time, I wasn't sure I liked the idea of sharing my personal thoughts in the public domain. However, as I began my journey into Twitter, I soon realised that blogging could be very useful both for me to gather my musings and to read about the thoughts and ideas of others. This summer I have read many thought-provoking blogs such as @LearningSpy by the excellent David Didau, the blog of secondary English teacher, @JamesTheo (James Theobald), @webofsubstance (Harry Webb) and @WatsEd which is a blog full of very useful ideas. Through these you will probably find links or references to other useful blogs.

I have enjoyed using Twitter this summer and just hope that I have time to use it in the same way once the pressures of work increase from September.

Using 'Socrative' In The Classroom

Having been asked on Twitter tonight whether I had used a piece of software called Socrative by @grahamandre, I thought it might be useful to write a post about the different ways I have used it.

I was first introduced to Socrative in a staff meeting by our then ICT Lead. I was then given further ideas about how to use it from the excellent Lee Parkinson (@ICT_MrP) on his training course. To register as a teacher for Socrative, you need to go www.socrative.com and sign up as a teacher. You will be given a room number. The children will use this room number to access the activities you design. The activities come in the form of 'quizzes' that you design which is a very easy process.

Your children access the room either using the Socrative app or by going through the student section of the website. They enter the room number and access the 'quizzes' that you have created using your teacher account. Their responses are then displayed on your teacher account screen which I have on my laptop connected to the IWB.

Ways that I have used Socrative in the classroom:
1. Sentence activity (similar to slow writing which was developed by David Didau @learningspy). Ask the children to write a sentence with given criteria e.g. a Noun, who/which/where sentence (One of Alan Peat's Exciting Sentences). The children respond on their iPad/laptops and all their reposes are then displayed on the IWB together. This can then generate discussion about which is the most effective sentence and why.

2. This was an idea from Lee Parkinson. You can add pictures to a quiz you create. Then you can ask the children to write short descriptions of the setting. Again all their responses are displayed together. This means you ca then ask them to pick things out from each other's descriptions or discuss improvements etc.

3. In Maths (another of Lee's ideas) I have used the multiple choice quizzes. When the children respond to these , the results are displayed as a bar chart allowing for instant data-handling work.

4. In geography, my class were debating whether the Metrolink line being built near school was a good idea or not. The children submitted through Socrative their reasons for/against. The responses were displayed automatically. I then asked the children to look for common threads in their reasoning and which reasons they thought were the most persuasive. Finally, we used each other's responses to write persuasively about the issue.

There are different types of quizzes you can set up for your children to answer depending on what kind of outcome/response you want. Quizzes can be saved for future use within your teacher account.

I found it useful to display the room number I use on the wall in the classroom to save having to remind the children. I also found that having something else for the children to do once they had responded helped to keep them engaged e.g. looking for patterns in the responses.

Using Character Mash-ups To Improve Character Development in Writing

Once again a Twitter discussion has led to some interesting ideas that could be used in the classroom. From a post by @gazneedle there came the idea of mixing characters from different stories. Initially, we discussed mixing characters from different fairytales e.g. Snow White and The Three Bears. This is a similar idea to the idea of 'flipping' story genres that the always excellent Lee Parkinson talks about in his blog. To read about this  - go to ICT Mr P's Blog.

The idea of mixing characters from different stories means that young writers can add new twists to the personality of these characters. Also they can write about how characters might react in unfamiliar situations e.g. How would Snow White keep the three bears on task! The idea of putting characters in different situations and describing how they would react comes from Mat Sullivan who talks about it in detail in his excellent book 'Developing Writing Through Comics'. However, mixing characters from different stories is an extension of this.

A next step from this would be to 'mash-up' characters from different narrative genres rather than just within the same genre. For example ' Harry Potter and The Minotaur'. This could lead to exciting new twists on well-known stories.  Also, characters would definitely be placed in situations that are outside their comfort zones. Thus leading to deeper character development.

An idea from @gazneedle is to mash-up characters from famous films e.g. Harry Potter is tutored by Obi Wan Kenobi. This would open up opportunities for using digital media, many examples of which can be found on The Literacy Shed by Rob Smith.

@WatsEd suggested some fantastic ideas that character mash-ups could provide for comprehension and discussion prior to writing. For example :
Using a well-known story such as Little Red Riding Hood, ask 'What if...?' questions such as:
1. What if it was 3 bears, not a wolf?
2. What if Hermione was going to grandma's house?
3. What if Wolverine was at Grandma's house instead?

At a later date, we started to discuss images of mash-ups that could be used to inspire writing. A range of images such as the ones below was found by @grahamadnre, @redgierob, @gazneedle and @WatsEd.

This video is a mash-up of many superheroes.

How about Batman/C3PO

There are many more examples of images of character mash-ups on the internet. Visit Lee Parkinson's blog (link further up the post) to see an example of a brilliant app that could be used for character mash-ups.

Fantasy Football Maths

Many teachers I know used the World Cup as a context for learning in the summer term of the last academic year. There were lots of resources around to help on websites such as www.literacyshed.com and www.mathematicshed.com. Lee Parkinson also produced an ebook of iPad lessons which was a very useful guide to help teachers incorporate the context of the World Cup into their children's learning.

Now that the World Cup has ended, there is the new football season nearly upon us. Every season, many of the daily newspapers organise a Fantasy Football competition. For the uninitiated, the idea is that you pick a team of 11 players who all have different valuations. You have a given budget to work with. Each player then earns points for your team for things they do in real-life matches such as score a goal, keep a clean sheet etc.

The data provided for the game provides lots of maths opportunities.

1. Addition and subtraction of numbers involving decimals.
2. Money problems - working within a given budget and working out change.
3. Data-handling. For example, pupils could generate questions for other pupils to answer about the players in the goalkeepers section. Drawing bar charts, Venn Diagrams, Carroll Diagrams of player information.
4. Investigating all possibilities through different formations of 11 eleven players e.g. 4-4-2, 4-3-3 etc. Could also work out all the different ways that a team could score a given number of points.
5. Percentages - if all player values were reduced by 10%, which players would you pick now?
6. Investigating truth of a given statement e.g. Liverpool has the highest total value of players.
7. Ordering decimals - For example, pick 8 players at random and order their values.

These are just a few ideas that I came up with quickly, I am sure there are many more. The good thing about the Daily Telegraph Fantasy Football is that you don't need to log in/register to pick a team or see the player information so the children can work on it using laptops/ipads.