satwant.bance

Had a great time with our P7 class over the last few months. We have been looking at the parables of Christ in R.E. recently and I wanted to enthuse the children to think about them a little more. Therefore, I set them a task in groups to write a script for a modern day parable. With the motivation that they would then be able to direct their own parable the children produced some excellent, thoughtful work. Winners were chosen and there scripts were then adapted to the big screen. After filming the parables we edited the film as a class using iMovie and produced a DVD to show off what we had achieved. The children really enjoyed the project and we had a great time watching it together when it was all completed.

The burdens of a long teaching day were thankfully relieved by the presentation of my new shiny slim Glow MacBook Pro. It has some great new features such as a built in camera,and light sensors that illuminate the keyboard automatically when it gets dark. I also like some of the new software such as Photobooth that works with the camera, Front Row (that comes with a remote control),and the new version of iMovie. This has great new ‘Themes’ that make you digital video editing look really professional!

On the down side, I have spent quite a while trying to get the laptop to communicate with my projector and Promethean board. It has been a bit of hassle and made me think that many teachers are faced with technical problems that could and do put them off. Fortunately I see these issues as a challenge, and I guess we have to support other teachers as much as possible to get through technical issues…if only we had 36 hours to every day!

Finally have my Promethean interactive whiteboard up and it’s looking good and working well. I have spent a lot of this week playing around with the various resources and so far I am impressed.

I found the board to be a real help with a maths lesson where I was teaching about area. In particular the children had to divide a large shape into smaller rectangles and work out the area of each of these, to find out the total area. Instead of having to draw out the shape by hand, I created a table in MS Word. Then I erased some of the squares to make an irregular shape.

The children then used the interactive whiteboard to divide the shape into smaller rectangles, and showed their calculations on the board. Having the ability to annotate over the document meant that I was able to show various ways of dividing up the shape, without having to redraw it.

The lesson was a real success and the children love using the Promethean board themselves. I am very much looking forward to making new resources and I also have the new Promethean wand to play with!

November 1st: leading my first full day course at Inverary Conference Centre.

A nervous start to the month! This was the first day course I have lead for Argyll and Bute authority but all went very well. It was aimed at beginners, and they seemed to be much more confident in their use of a DV camera by the end of the day. Fortunately the weather was excellent, so they were able to go outdoors to film the various sights of Inverary.

I was keen to put the course into a teaching context, so the final activity was for each of the teachers to work in groups and plan out their filming sequence by using a storyboard and organising a shotlist. I used the same methods when I challenged my P7 class to dramatise a parable by using the storyboard technique. I find it really enthuses children and the idea of having work that they have produced filmed seems to raise the standard of their work. Filming is also a fun activity that can be used in all areas of the curriculum.

Overall, the feedback was very good, and I am hoping the budding camera people will return for my iMovie course, which I think is more fun than the filming itself!

This week I organised an after school informal session where teachers in the local Helensburgh and Cardross area were invited to come along and share ideas for Interactive whiteboards. It went really well, despite most of the attendees choosing not to demonstrate their ideas in front of the rest of the group. About 15 people turned up and the only requirement was that each person bring along an idea. Fortunately this didn’t put everyone off, and most people engaged in conversation about how they had found the whiteboard useful. I was encouraged by the numbers of our own staff (Cardross Primary) who attended, some of whom didn’t have an idea to share (tut tut!), because they were yet to use a whiteboard. Despite this, they stepped out and were willing to try and pick up a few ideas. Many of the teachers seemed to be encouraged by observing how easy it was to actually make resources, and also by hearing how there are many useful sites that provide ready made whiteboard lessons. Happy Interactive whiteboarding!

Have organised an interactive whiteboard session next Tuesday for staff in the local area (Helensburgh and Cardross) at Cardross Primary School. The plan is for staff to come along with one basic idea that they have created for use with the white board. Each teacher is given 5 minutes or less to share their idea on an interactive white board on an informal basis.

Staff are only allowed to come along if they bring along one idea – that way, we don’t have lots of teachers and no ideas! It’s an informal session and I’m hoping the ideas will be basic enough for the less confident teacher to go away thinking they could create something, not go away thinking that’s too fancy for me!

We’ll see how it goes, but if teachers in the local area read this, please come and join us…but bring along one idea please.

As an extra note – how cool are the glow mugs!

Thoroughlly enjoyed SETT last week and managed to get quite a few ideas for projects that I’d like to start up. One of them is to use i Can Animate – software used for animation (as the more discerning reader may have surmised). I have a few ideas about developing the idea of a storyboard within our school topic. Just wondering if anyone has ever used this software before, or if anyone would be interested in working together to have a go or share ideas? I am excited about the prospect of using it, I just need to go and try to convince my headteacher it is a good idea now!

I mentioned in a recent blog that I teach ICT one day per week at Rhu Primary school and this is to cover Mcrone time. Currently I am teaching Appleworks to pupils in P3,4,5,and P7. There is quite a range of abilities, so I am teaching basic word processing to the younger children, and I have moved on to using the Drawing programme within Appleworks with the P7s.
We will be making crosswords and wordsearches within this programme, and I am also planning to make newsletters with inserted images. However, I am sure there are plenty of people out there who have been creative with Appleworks and I was hoping that a few of you might be able to share any ideas you had about how you have used the programme.

Hi folks

here is a brief outline of one of the major ICT projects I was invloved in last year – I hope it might inspire some of you to get involved in using iMovie

During our P7 camp last year I did quite a bit of filming on our new(ish) school digital video camera. On our return I decided to use iMovie to put together a DVD for the children to take home. However, this was just the beginning of quite a big project. Having secured half a day a week to work with groups on iMovie, I would initially spend an hour per week teaching the whole class about iMovie on an interactive whiteboard, and then take out small groups to work on actually editing the film and adding effects. These included quite specific effects such as transitions and adding audio. After approximately 6 weeks we burned off our first copy onto DVD and the children designed a cover.

After this, the children then worked in groups to plan a high profile film premiere that included red carpets, canapes, a celebrity DJ and the local press. The children organised the whole evening including designing the programme using MS Publisher, designing the invitations using Appleworks, and actually going out and purchasing all of the resources required themselves. The DVD was shown on the big screen, and the copies (sold at £5 each) managed to cover the cost of the evening.

It was a great evening regularly spoken of by children and parents, and it all started with a bit of filming at the P7 camp. iMovie – I think it’s great!

Welcome to my blog. My name is Satwant Bance and I am a Primary School teacher working in the Argyll and Bute area. As you may have guessed, my name is not Scottish – I was born in India but have lived most of my life in England, moving to Scotland only 3 years ago.

I currently work at Cardross Primary School, teaching a P6 class for 3 days per week, and also at Rhu Primary School where I teach ICT one day a week. Thus the sharper mind will have deduced that I only work 4 days per week. I generally leave this final day for supply teaching or sleeping in!

I have a keen interest in teaching ICT, and hope you’ll enjoy reading about how I use ICT in my teaching and learning.