This idea has been bubbling around me for a while now.

I’ve been reading a lot about ICT in the classroom with a particular interest in games based learning and then Adam Stevens, (@ahstevens) a contact I have made through Twitter mentioned that he had dabbled with Mario Kart and other racing games in the classroom to present some basics of distance/speed/time theory in physics.  Derek Robertson (@derekrobertson) and Ollie Bray (@olliebray) have provided further inspiration by sharing their own experiences of games based learning success.  Both are now working to spread good practice and I am pleased that they have offered me their support, albeit from the back of the car on the way home from the first Edu2020 (@edu2020) meeting in Duffies!

The pedagogy behind games based learning must lie in motivating pupils to learn by engaging them in the work being done through ensuring a common interest is found and utilised.   A great opportunity has presented itself for the new school year. I will be working with a Foundation Level maths class through 3rd and 4th year to formal assessment in May 2011.

The Standard Grade course will offer plenty of challenges to the pupils with the work covered but also many opportunities to relate work to real life scenarios and situations.  In addition it will allow me time to incorporate games based learning and the curriculum for excellence principles into our lessons.  My main learning intentions will focus on time problems, number, organisation, simple statistics and problem solving.  In addition the project will be designed to meet the 4 capacities of Curriculum for Excellence.  Although not strictly necessary for pupils at this age and stage in secondary school it will provide a richer learning experience at this level of work and anyway, it’s good practice for what’s coming!  Having had a quick glance through the arrangements these are the current outcomes I believe I can meet with Mario Kart.

• reading tables, graphs and charts
• line graph trends
• communication of data through tables, graphs and charts
• numeracy – add/subtract/multiply/divide calculations in context
• mean, median, mode
• check solutions
• experiment
• draw conclusions and explain them from data
• take an organised approach to solving problems

At this point I need to put out a prezi alert.  My planning has been done on a Prezi following a comment on Twitter from John Johnston (@johnjohnston) who mentioned that he had never considered using it as a planning tool until he saw a previous post by me – well, I had never considered it either until he said it!  I had been waiting for a flash of motivation and 10 minutes in front of my SMARTboard to plot my ideas into writing – indeed I had even started the Notebook file.

Anyway, the prezi is attached here.

So far, this project is a triumph of Twitter and my new and ever reliable personal learning network.  Since joining Twitter and joining in the chat I have found contacts, received support and criticism and, perhaps most importantly, been provided the ideas and reading which will realise this project in my classroom.

As the title of the post suggests, this is just the beginning – I have a long track to get around to see this project through with many questions about management, ownership, assessment and evaluation still to answer.  But I’m excited about pitching this idea to the class and hearing their ideas about how to proceed – am I already half way to a good outcome?

We have known from school records across the country, for a long time now that pupils can falter as they enter S1 from primary school.  Of course the kids are all different; some thrive on the new challenges of a large comprehensive secondary school, some simply don’t manage to progress much in the first few months and some unfortunate souls find the transition so hard that they can fall behind in their classwork because every ounce of effort they can muster goes into survival.

As a school we have certainly not been sitting back and watching this happen.  We have, and many of you will be familiar with these strategies I’m sure, tried to ease the transition process in ways which I have blogged about before.

This year we are trialling a project which all of our P7 catchment pupils will start in primary and continue in secondary school.  To get us started we held meetings with primary and secondary school teachers to discuss a suitable topic which could be used.

Time and measure was chosen in relation to the pupils’ journeys to school.  We are situated in a large rural area covering approximately 100 square miles.  Up to 10 primary schools feed into Thurso High School.  These primaries range fr0m large town schools to very small country schools.  The majority of the pupils attend their most local school and experience very similar journeys as their peers.  On arrival at secondary the pupils are set into maths classes according to the 5-14 Level which they have achieved (or are working towards) with pupils from all primaries.

View Thurso High School Feeder Primaries in a larger map

We have chosen to maintain flexibility for teaching staff to approach the topic in a way which suits individual classes at this very busy time.  It is, therefore, inevitable that the pupils coming will all have different learning experiences in primary school and will have varied prior knowledge and skills. The only set criteria for each pupil’s portfolio is that it should contain the following information:

1. What their mode of transport will be.
2. The distance of the new journey.
3. The time the new journey will take.

At primary school today I enjoyed the first half of this project being put into action.  Pupils have all been given a cover sheet, designed at the secondary school and including all of the school logos, which will be attached to the work they are currently completing.  They will bring this with them to high school when they attend transition days next week.  During their visit to secondary the pupils will follow their new timetables with their new classmates for 2 days.

While the pupils are with us in the maths department we will look at the question:

How does my journey to school compare to my new classmates?

We have designed a single class chart to show all pupils’ modes of transport – every pupil will make a contribution to this and it will then be displayed on the classroom wall.  Once again, individual class teachers are left the option of what other information to help them answer the question above with their classes.  As all classes are set by ability it will allow us to choose appropriate topics within the CfE experiences and outcomes to suit the learning needs of our new pupils.  Some classes may focus on collecting and displaying data about  distance and time of journeys whilst others may progress to consider the relationship of speed, distance and time.  Any work completed will be kept for them to continue after the summer.

With this project we hope to create an immediate sense of belonging within each class, an ethos of contribution, team work and relevance.  We must remember that the transition process is the main focus and not the mathematical knowledge at this stage.  Our aim is to provide a continuous learning experience to minimise, or at least reduce, any anxiety about secondary school maths.

The pupils are visiting next week – watch this space and I’ll try to let you know how it goes.

PS – at the beginning of all this I wrote a Prezi to try to piece my thoughts together.  Please feel free to have a look if it doesn’t make you queasy!

http://prezi.com/69297/

www.prezi.com takes you to a new era in presentation software.

At last there is a user-friendly, aesthetically pleasing and very different alternative to power point.

Now I have been a fan of PPT since I could open Windows so I was a little skeptical that anything else could offer all of the above and I’m not ready to throw Office out just yet – regardless of which version is enforced upon me.

Any application that does not have standard microsoft protocols unnerves me a little – I like to know that I can always right click for options or cut and paste using the ctrl key.  So Prezi took a little bit of time to get the hang of.  That said, although I did manage to complete the tutorial before I got started I never looked at the help file.

The software is very intuitive – click once – if it didn’t do what you expected, click somewhere else until it does.  The themes are straightforward and uncomplicated and although there may not be enough variety to keep everyone amused for too long there is plenty for now.  No doubt the developers will add more as time allows.  The current options keep presentations clear and uncluttered of unnecessary formatting.  Having created and seen some very colourful disasters in the past I like being forced to focus on content instead of format.

Moving around Prezi presentations is very flexible.  Either use the arrows to follow a preset order or zoom out and jump around at will.  This will be incredibly useful in the classroom – instead of directing classes I will be able to follow their path through topics, ensuring that all learning outcomes are met but in an order that the class choose.  This allows the pupils to take more control (feel more in control??) of their own lesson without me jeopardising the learning intentions.  I like to be able to build upon pupil responses in class discussions and Prezi allows me to do this without suggesting “we’ll come back to that later”.

In a similar way Prezi will be a very useful tool for brainstorming topics.  I can’t wait to try this out on the whiteboard tomorrow – the simplicity of the construction may make it viable to use as a tool which the pupils can interact with in the classroom.  The application window has no toolbars so I’m unsure how it will interact with tools such as the whiteboard keyboard  – will post a wee update as soon as I get a chance.

Prezi won’t replace Power Point in my classroom but I can see it playing an important role in the future.  I am delighted that I have found this software and look forward to playing more with it!

See my first presentation about vocabulary for Int II at http://prezi.com/9412/