We are Edurne Lafuente, Joan Domènech and Marta Jaumot. You might know us from the other projects that we have done in the past such as the one about Roman Civilization. Now we are going to present you another activity which involves using the tablet in class with your students.
As we have said before, tablets are a great tool to engage students in the learning process. Of course, the activity discussed here can also be used with a different topic.
The activity that we have designed is suitable for all ages in primary, as long as you adapt the topic and aims to the age group that you are working with.
During this term in the ICT classes
we have learnt a lot of resources and different programs and apps that can be
really interesting for the English classroom. One of the programmes that I
enjoyed the most in the masters’ is Pixton.
What is Pixton?
It is a website that allows you to
create beautiful comics in just a few minutes. You can something simple or
really elaborated. People can use it to:
- Write a book
report or other school project in the style of a graphic novel
- Explain a concept
or idea in a concise format
- Tell a story
with words and pictures
- Depict nuanced
emotions with customizable characters
- Make a joke as
a comic strip or cartoon
- Storyboard a
movie script
Key features:
- Fully possible,
expressive characters
- Searchable prop
library with 2,000+ objects
- Preset
backgrounds grouped by theme
- Stylable text,
captions, and speech bubbles
- Flexible
layouts with variable panel width and height
Here you have a video that explains
how to use it.
Activity:
I found this website so interesting that I have used it in 5th grade with a science project. The project consists in create a comic explaining the Prehistory and the Roman Times. In the first two sessions the students in groups have to search information about Prehistory or Roman times, depending on the group. Once they have the information they have to summarize it in order to use it for the creation of a comic. In the third and forth session they learn to use the Pixton with laptops and they start doing a brainstorming for the comic: What to write (content), the number of characters, the background they want to use, among others. During the fifth and sixth session they create the comic and finally in the seventh session they present it to the class.
As I was using it I discovered some advantages and disadvantages. For example, that it is only free during a short period of time. Besides, with this trial period, you cannot print or download the comic. If you need to use it more you can create an account for the school or pay for it. I decided to create a school account and I have discovered the following advantages:
Control the comics the students are creating. They can’t
publish them without permission.
Add comments to my students’ comics so they can make
improvements.
Print and download the comics.
Unlimited time using Pixton
The school can create 50 different accounts for the
students.
The student and the teacher can grade the comic.
In the following
PDF that I have created you can see step by step how to use it and the
classroom options when you have a school account. Finally in the
following picture you can see an example of a Pixton comic created by some
students.
-
Target
audience: Second Key stage
-Placement
in curriculum: ICT, Science and English
-Aims:
·Session
1 and 2:
Understand
the importance of the historical facts during Prehistory and Roman times.
Analyse
and summarize information while connecting ideas.
·Session
3 and 4:
Understand
how Pixton works
Use
the program exploiting its possibilities
·Session
5 and 6:
Create
a comic using the summarize content with Pixton
·Session 7: Present the comic in front
of the class acting out. Evaluate their own comic and the others.
General aims: Work collaboratively and speak in English.
-Strategies
and competences involved
Language and audiovisual communicative competence
Information processing and digital competence
Autonomy and personal initiative competence
Knowledge of and interaction with the physical world
-Content:
Using ICT to research information on tour performing specific tasks.
Oral individual or group exposition of subjects studied and using all media available visual tics and informatics.
Understanding work instructions and performance in the classroom.
Understand global and specific types of texts and diverse content in different media and formats and extraction of information for performing a specific task or as reinforcement / expansion of knowledge
English skills:
Reading:
During the first sessions
the students have to read a lot of information in order to summarize it.
Speaking:
During all the sessions
the students have to speak in English among them and with the teacher. Furthermore,
the last session they have to present the comic in front of the class.
Writing:
While summarizing the
information and creating the comic they have to write.
Listening:
During all the sessions
the students have to listen to the teacher instructions, to each other for
the creation of the information and the comic and finally pay attention to
the presentations.
Bloom’s Digital
Taxonomy: This activity offers an opportunity to enhance both lower- and
higher-order thinking skills.
Lower order thinking
skills.
·Level II. Understand (explain ideas or concepts): Understand the
importance of the historical facts during Prehistory and Roman times.
Understand how to use Pixton.
•Level III. Applying (using
the knowledge in a variety of ways): Implement the ICT knowledge using Pixton.
Higher order
thinking skills.
·Level IV: Analyse (draw
connections among ideas): Analyse and summarize the Prehistory
and Roman information while connecting ideas.
·Level V: Evaluate (justify a stand or
decision): Evaluate their own comics and the other groups.
·Level VI: Creating (create new products or points of view). The activity
gives the students the opportunity to create a comic with Pixton.
Added value
through ICT – In my opinion
this resource is appropriate to use it in the classroom and for example, in
this project, because it is very complete and at the same time intuitive. It
provides agility because students don’t have to spend time creating the comic
if you don’t want because the website provides backgrounds, characters and
accessories divided in topics. I believe
that ICT contributes to the activity because it is more motivational and
challenging. It facilitates scaffolding because the students have the parts of
the comic created.
Trouble-shooting
– As I explained
before if you don’t pay for the account you have a short period of time to work
with it, so I recommend creating a school account. Another problem is that
sometimes in the schools Internet doesn’t work properly and you waste a lot of
time waiting for the page to charge completely. Maybe some students need extra
help with the site, so we could teach one person of the group and create
“Expertics”.
Assessment – As I explained before Pixton includes an
Assessment grid and has the possibility to write comments. The teacher have to
take into account the process and the final result, taking into consideration
if the students speak in English all the time, is the apply the suggestions of
the teacher in the comments, if they work collaboratively, if they make grammar
mistakes and the technology skills and problem solving. Finally, during the presentation the teacher will be using the following rubric:
Increasingly, Interactive whiteboards (IWB) are gaining ground in the classrooms. They are a powerful tool in the teaching learning process adding interactivity and collaboration. When used innovatively IWB create a wide range of learning opportunities raising the level of student engagement, motivating students and promoting enthusiasm for learning. Moreover, I believe that our nowadays students, as digital natives, feel confident using this tool, which is always a positive aspect.
As far as my experience using IWB, I've just used them in one school where I did some substitutions. And I couldn't really use them as I wanted because I had to follow some instructions as a substitute. But my mother is an Infant education teacher, and she has an IWB on her classroom. And I’ve seen her using it a lot! She works with the Panasonic elite Panaboard Software and it is really useful for her. She creates lots of activities to do which are so interesting for her 5 year-old-students.
After our last session on ICT, I’ve been investigating and discovering how to use SMART Notebook, and eventually I’ve created two activities related with the topic of fairytales. They are thought to use in Year 4 Primary.
The first one, according to Bloom’s digital Taxonomy it’s a “Remember-Understand” activity, so it is a LOT (Low Ordered Thinking). I’ve created it with the Lesson Activity Toolkit 2.0 and it focuses on the fairytales characters. As you can see, the activity consist on clicking the right picture according to the word that appears in the red rectangle. The fact of scoring, having limited time and adding sound effects will engage children.
The second activity, according to Bloom’s digital Taxonomy it’s a “Creating” activity, so it is a HOT (High Ordered Thinking). Using the vocabulary that students would have learnt doing the first activity, this time they would have to create a scene of a story. First, they would have to roll different dice, one for choosing the setting and two more for choosing the characters. Then, they would have to complete the sentences besides the dice.
Finally, students would have to create a scene in comic style using the vocabulary they have been working. This last part can be adapted to the level of every specific group and also to the level of each child, as everyone can complicate the dialogue as much as he wants to.
You can download and try these activities by clicking here.
To conclude, I want to say that using SMART Notebook software I’ve discovered lots of advantages and countless ideas have come to my mind. However, I’ve also fins some things that I don’t like so much. First, when you insert some images in your Notebook document, it slows down and it crashes sometimes (so be careful not to insert large images!). Second, I’ve found several limitations on the use of animations of objects. It happened to me that I had ideas in my mind that I would be able to do with Power Point and then I couldn’t do it with SMART Notebook.
Despite this, using SMART Notebook Software on IWB has been an enriching experience and it has caused me want to continue learning and creating things.
