Laptops as key learning tools

School:St Frances de Sales

Year Level: Whole School Focus

Teacher: Joan, Lisa, Louise

Focus area: Managing Self

Research Questions:

Question 1. Implementation: How effective is an interactive book as a tool for presenting students' knowledge?

Question 2. Engagement: How engaged are students when interacting with classroom laptops?

Question 3. Knowledge: (only at junior level) What makes a good park?

Question 4. Competency: How effective was the unit in developing student competency to create interactive books?

Success Criteria for Knowledge

Expert: An expert can recall, describe, retrieve, create, learn and explore through another learning area using the knowledge they have gained. They are aware of their strengths and weaknesses.
Practitioner: A practitioner can recall, describe, retrieve and create from their knowledge.
Apprentice: An apprentice can recall and describe the experience and give some detailed information that elaborates on its characteristics from one of the domains .
Novice: A novice can name, recall and label their experience with some clarity.

Learning Story:

COWS FOR RESEARCH

With the arrival of two COWS (computers on wheels) we took the opportunity to investigate the best ways we could integrate ICT and the use of these twenty laptops, into our school wide inquiry practice. A major component of this was our focus on Managing Self as our Key Competency. 'Student awareness of and ability to use key learning tools for their achievement level (eg organisation tools, process tools, thinking tools, learning habits, technology, presentation tools, etc)'

The school has also employed a digital media facilitator, who is experienced in using ICT with children, to work in the school two days per week.

During Term 1, all syndicates were involved in EOTC experiences. The students were asked to identify an area of personal interest or curiosity that resulted from their experiences during EOTC exploration. Success criteria was developed with the students so that they were aware of the ways that they could present their findings. A student rubric for creating an interactive book was then developed.

To measure student knowledge and competency at the middle and senior level, students were asked to identify themselves on this rubric. Children at these levels had a range of abilities within the four aspects (text, sound, toolbars, content) of an interactive book that we choose to focus on. At middle and senior level, all students retained their rubric so they could refer to it as success criteria and to help them identify their next steps.

At junior level, data on individual student ability was gathered using teacher observation. This identification of student abilities gave teachers data to work from and to be able to deliver a targeted digital media facilitated programme.

As part of self management and self regulative learning, the rubric and observation allowed students to select skills they needed to develop to be successful and achieve against the set levels in the rubric.

Year 2 Class

The year 2 class were studying "Our Community" and used a visit to the local park as a context for this unit. The unit involved the following sessions

• Session 1
  Discuss with students what they know about Shorland Park
  Introduce flash cards with - who what when where why how
  Gather baseline information on children’s knowledge of the park Children draw or write their own ideas about what they know about Shorland Park.
  On the back of the page teacher records child’s ideas
  Create class chart of ideas about Shorland Park before visit
  Create wall display with class chart and word cards
  
• Session 2 Visit to park
  Prior to visit tell children that they will need to visit all areas of the park and find out the names of things they do not know
  At park divide class into small groups – each group lead by an adult will visit all activities at the park
  
• Session 3
  Using photos from park visit classify into different areas of the park
  Children choose a photo that represents the park and write a caption for the photo
  
• Session 4
  Show children how to insert a photo into PowerPoint page and add text
  Support children in finding a photo and inserting it into their page
  Children add text to the photo
  
• Session 5 (assess competency)
  children find their photo
  add their text to their photo
  share the presentation with others
  
• Session 6 (knowledge assessment task)
  Recall what children remember about the Park
  Children design their own ideal park
  Provide art resources for children to create their own ideal park or park activity
  
• Session 7
  Children share their designs with other students in the school.

At the Year 2 level children were scaffolded by creating a template page for students to place their picture and text into, allowing time for them to explore finding and inserting pictures, and allowing time for them to explore working with text. A high adult to student ratio of 1:8
was used. At this level one presentation was created by the whole class with individual students contributing one page each.

Results:

Outcome 1. Engagement:

SCALE: 1 = never, 2 = not very often, 3 = about half the time, 4 = often, 5 = always

Junior

Mean level of engagement of students ...

Offered ideas - 3.3
Asked questions - 3.2
Listened to and thought about other's ideas and responded respectfully - 3.3
Used positive body language related to task - 3.7
Persevered in order to enact related task - 3.8
Showed evidence of being active learners outside school time - 3.0
Showed interest in directing their own learning - 2.3
Had behavioural issues that impacted on their learning - 1.2
Showed evidence of using what they have learnt - 2.3

Overall mean level of engagement of students = 3.3

Year 5 /6

Mean level of engagement of students ...

Offered ideas - 3.0
Asked questions - 2.9
Listened to and thought about other's ideas and responded respectfully - 3.4
Used positive body language related to task - 4.5
Persevered in order to enact related task - 4.9
Showed evidence of being active learners outside school time - 3.8
Showed interest in directing their own learning - 4.1
Had behavioural issues that impacted on their learning - 1.7
Showed evidence of using what they have learnt -4.9

Overall mean level of engagement of students = 4

Year 7/8

Mean level of engagement of students ...

Offered ideas - 3.4
Asked questions - 2.6
Listened to and thought about other's ideas and responded respectfully - 4.0
Used positive body language related to task -4.8

Persevered in order to enact related task - 4.1
Showed evidence of being active learners outside school time -2.9
Showed interest in directing their own learning -3.3
Had behavioural issues that impacted on their learning - 1.4
Showed evidence of using what they have learnt - 4.0

Overall mean level of engagement of students = 3.8

Overall school mean level of engagement of students = 3.7

Outcome 2. Knowledge

24 year 2 students were assessed against knowledge.

Number of students who were ...

8. Proficient experts - at start 0; at end 0
7. Beginning experts - at start 0; at end 0
6. Proficient practitioners - at start 0; at end 3
5. Beginning practitioners - at start 0; at end 2
4. Proficient apprentices - at start 0; at end 17
3. Beginning apprentices - at start 0; at end 2
2. Proficient novices - at start 7; at end 0
1. Beginning novices - at start 17; at end 0

Knowledge effect size = 1.48

Standard error = 0.09

Outcome 3. Competency:

Year 7/8 students

Number of students who were ...

8. Proficient experts - at start [1]; at end [1]
7. Beginning experts - at start [0; at end [0]
6. Proficient practitioners - at start [0; at end [4]
5. Beginning practitioners - at start [2]; at end [11]
4. Proficient apprentices - at start [4; at end [4]
3. Beginning apprentices - at start [4]; at end [3]
2. Proficient novices - at start [11]; at end [3]
1. Beginning novices - at start [6]; at end [2]

Competency effect size = 0.79

Standard error = 0.15

Year 5/6 students

Number of students who were ...

8. Proficient experts - at start [0; at end [0]

7. Beginning experts - at start [0]; at end [0]

6.Proficient practitioners - at start [0]; at end [3]

5. Beginning practitioners - at start [3]; at end [13]

4. Proficient apprentices - at start [4]; at end [7]

3. Beginning apprentices - at start [7]; at end [6]

2. Proficient novices - at start [16]; at end [1]

1. Beginning novices - at start [0]; at end [0]

Competency effect size = 0.8

Standard error = o.09

Conclusions:

Question 1. Implementation: How effective is an interactive book as a tool for presenting students' knowledge?

All students successfully shared their work with peers and with an audience. The school held an open morning where parents and caregivers along with classes were invited to come along and view the students final pieces of work. It was observed that this opportunity gave children who were reluctant to speak in front of an audience a positive experience in sharing their newly acquired knowledge and work. Having the opportunity to present visually meant that the audience was captured immediately with sound, graphics, moving images etc.

Question 2. Engagement: How engaged are students when interacting with classroom laptops?

Effect size shows that this was an effective tool in all areas of the school. Student engagement was very high throughout all levels. An observer could walk into any level of classroom that was using laptops and see all students fully engaged with their inquiry. Other factors that contributed to the effectiveness were:

• a new technology in the school


• an ICT facilitator


• easy and immediate access to instant research through www

Question 3. Knowledge: (only at junior level) What makes a good park?

At this level, student knowledge was enhanced by visiting and taking photos at a local park. The experience of viewing photos and working to create a page on a PowerPoint proved to be a powerful tool in helping to make students aware of the elements that could be found in parks. This then provided them with the motivation to design their own ideal park.

Question 4. Competency: How effective was the unit in developing student competency to create interactive books?

Data from students' self assessment sheets and teacher observation showed a notable increase in student competency in creating an interactive book. The level of ability changed at the different levels of the school. The junior students still required support but were able to carry out some steps independently.

At year 5/6 the children put a lot of time into researching their chosen area. This meant that there was time spent learning how to research and the time spent in developing skills for the interactive book was limited. In future leaning experiences more time would be allocated to developing the knowledge on how to create an interactive book.

Students in year 7/8 had a higher level of knowledge when using both ICT and research skills. This meant that they had the opportunity to explore more of the components in the student rubric either independently or with the support of the ICT facilitator. Some students chose to develop their competency in one specific area eg: text, sound, tool bars or content while others worked across a number of areas in the rubric.

Managing Self

The use of ICT proved to be an effective tool for teachers to observe students self managing. It was easy to see that children were engaged in their learning, for example, questioning each other and discussing how they could take their next step.