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The Climate Detectives question planner is very good. I like involving family in the child’s education, I find children work a little harder to achieve the goal and are proud of their accomplishments that they make with their family. For example, the research question could be something similar to “How does litter effect the local minibeast population?”. I taught a class a few years ago that took part in the “Litter Pickers” programme. It was good as it involved a family member to help the child to collect litter in their locality over the weekend and each child got the opportunity to take part. I think the Climate Detectives programme would be a good follow on activity for the class to take part in. They could involve the family member that helped them originally with the litter picking. Together they could come up with a question to plan the research for the Climate Detectives. They could work together with this and present their work to the class.
I like the idea of linking in with local environmentalists. It helps foster a holistic learning experience for the children.
I really liked the EO browser. I think it is great as an additional resource to find satellite images. The children would love this and could find their own homes, their school and other local amenities. It would be a good tool to use when researching for projects on the locality. I especially like that it can track things over time. It would be great to explore the change of cities over time. The expansion and change to the natural environments can emphasise the need for us to take action against climate change. It can visually show the destruction in the area with regard to nature. It can also show the expansion and progress made through industry, providing more jobs and socio economical stability. This would be a good basis for a debate. Showing the proof on both sides can be provided from the satellite images for the EO browser tool.
The video “HOME” was inspirational. There were some lovely shots in it that makes one wonder why we so under appreciate our amazing planet. The aerial shots were pretty cool and I think no matter what age, a young child or older adult would appreciate them.
Prior to showing the class the video ‘Home’, I would make four groups. Each group would get a topic, for example deforestation, ecosystems, over-fishing and pollution. Each group would pose a question and the pupils will endeavour to find the answer. They can present their work at the end of the lesson.
Making comparisons with information that was shown in the video can be achieved with integration. Using data handling skills to present the information as a graph can visually display the key information from the video. This would be good for project work and can be displayed for other classes to view also.I think showing some of the Ted Talks to older classes in primary is a good idea. It can spur on the debate.
The Paxi video is very good for educational purposes. I can see both younger and more senior primary school children enjoying it. It is child friendly in it’s approach to teaching about the effects of greenhouse gases. I would use this as an introduction to the lesson. Afterwards, I would do a think, pair, square about what they learned that was new. I would then show the pupils the TEAL tool. The TEAL tool is great, it is a visual tool that can help aid in learning. This in my opinion this is important when trying to accommodate all types of learners in our classrooms. This tool can be used in group work also. I think it would be an appropriate tool to use both in class and for a homework assignment. I especially like that the temperatures can be predicted with this tool. After a wash out of a summer, this would make for an interesting topic debate. It provides the opportunity in class for critical thinking skills in regard to what would happen with rising temperatures and more rain in our climate.
I think integrating these is great. We are time poor when it comes to fitting everything needed into the 5 day school week.
Stem in my classroom is very much science based. I use discover science a lot and I find it a good tool as it is levelled for junior, middle or senior classes.
The Weather and Climate resource provided in this module is great. These are very easy to use with a class and the kids will be actively involved in their own learning. It provides a very good opportunity for team work within the class and provides kids with the opportunity to use their prior knowledge skills and put them into action. For example using a scale at the side of the weather apparatus. Climate change is a hot topic and these activities give the children an opportunity to play a part in recording any change in the weather and gives a feeling of active participation, it is a precursor for the next step of fighting and reversing climate change.The 21st century skill I have chosen to focus on is collaboration. I have chosen this as it is an integral learning and innovation skill as set out by the P21 framework. I will attempt to develop this skill within the classroom by challenging the pupils to create digital videos in the classroom.
The pupils will undertake the project in groups. This will help to foster collaboration as this task will require the pupils to:
• Work together
• Share responsibility
• Make substantive decisions
• Be interdependent
Creating digital video requires pupils to take up roles within the group i.e. script writers, editors, cameramen, set designers, actors. The number of different roles within the process ensures that the work must be shared within the group and each pupil feels a sense of responsibility and ownership. The role of the teacher in this process is to facilitate the pupil’s collaborations and empower them to complete their tasks.. Their collaborative learning can then be assessed through the collaborative rubric.
I have found Digital technologies to be a great tool to motivate and engage pupils in my class. In the classroom we use digital technology to create short movies. The process of creating movies incorporates many different strands and skills from the primary school curriculum. The pupils engage in creative writing, construction of props, drama, creating the music for the movies, editing, peer evaluation to name but a few. They pupils love the opportunity to use the different digital technologies.
The School Self Evaluation guidelines have helped me to reflect on my practice and how I can more effectively use technology in my classroom. I think it is important to start out with attainable targets through picking Statements of Effective Practice. Over the course of a year if I feel I have achieved these targets I will try to move on the Statements of Highly Effective Practice.
At a school level we try come together regularly during Croke Park hours to share approaches that have worked well for us. In the past I have shared the process of how we make movies in the classroom. I have benefitted greatly from discussing the approaches I have used and learning from what other teachers have found effective. This collaboration is an invaluable opportunity to share and improve teaching and learning in a school.
Onenote is not an app I have used before in the classroom but this module outlines a number of ways I can use it to support learning going forward. I like the way that the app allows you to create a digital notebook. This would be very useful for creating useful information booklets for the pupils. Each year I get my pupils to take down a brief notes on new concepts we have learned in maths. The OneNote app would allow me to do this and save valuable class time. OneNote would allow me to organise this information into chapters and to colour code and highlight important information. Another advantage of creating the notebook digitally is that I could create hyperlinks to relevant websites or to YouTube or Microsoft Stream. The annotation tool is also very beneficial as it allows me to label pictures and highlight important information from a particular page.
Once the pupils are familiar with OneNote they could begin to make their own digital notebooks. These could be created in any number of curricular areas.
Microsoft Teams is a fantastic educational tool with a plethora of useful functions that can be used by a staff or with pupils in a class. I particularly like the ability to have online conversations while using it. The opportunity to share resources within the app also cuts down the need to navigate between different apps.
I think the main challenge is that the app can be a little intimidating for the less digitally literate. As a staff we had planned on using an app for distance learning during the first lockdown. We ended up abandoning the plan as many staff were reluctant to use an app that they felt wasn’t very user friendly. I would consider myself relatively digitally literate but it did take me time to become comfortable using its features. As mentioned by other posters people did not check their notifications frequently enough which led to broken lines of communication within the staff. I think that for any school planning on introducing Teams, training for the whole staff in advance would help to alleviate some of the challenges we encountered.We have been using Microsoft 365 in our school as a portal for communication and sharing resources over the past three years. It is used effectively for teacher planning and the sharing of school policies and resources. I had not considered the educational value of Sway and Forms.
After engaging with Sway and Forms in this module I now see the value of these in the classroom. I regularly download powerpoints from Twinkl. Sway will allow me to customise these powerpoints to better suit the needs of the pupils in the class.Forms can also be a useful assessment tool. The feature which allows anybody with a link to fill in the form would make it easier to share the forms with colleagues and teachers in other schools. One Drive will also allow me to share these Forms with other staff members and build up a store of assessments for that can be used in the future.
