Mr P's ICT blog - Tech to raise standards!

Having previously blogged about Christmas Adverts, in particular, the John Lewis Ad, it was only inevitable I would do the same with their latest effort: With my new website - MrPICT.com , I have put together a whole topic page looking at creative ways to explore the advert: The first two ideas are COMPLETELY FREE. Just click the picture above and add your email address to download all the comprehension questions linked to the advert. What I have tried to do with this topic page is show how you can challenge children and show progression with certain tasks in computing. In my class, we have been looking at ideas 12-15. I wanted to share the outcome to this: My class were made up when John Lewis themselves commented on their work: For step-by-step tutorials for how to do this with your class, sign up to MrPICT.com for just £3.50 a month. You can subscribe annually and save £5. Alternatively, you can sign up for a whole school licence meaning ever...

Towards the end of the academic year, my Year 4 class were learning all about the Stone Age. Part of the topic focused on learning about how Stone Age houses evolved as the lifestyle changed for people. One of the activities the pupils were challenged with was to try and sell a Neolithic House. Using a range of apps, the pupils were able to bring their writing to life in a creative and purposeful way. Check out an example here: For step-by-step tutorial guides, make sure you subscribe to MrPICT.com . My new website where you can access all of my CPD online.  We have now started to add topic pages, with a series of videos with specific ideas to enhance learning in that topic.  We have created one for the topic of the Stone Age, click the picture to see everything we have posted:

Apple Clips is quickly becoming one of my favourite creative apps to use in class. Recently with Year 4, we have been using it to explore our teeth and how they differ to other animals. I love how creative my pupils are with it and how it helps them demonstrate their knowledge and understanding in a fun and engaging way. Check out some of their work here: For step-by-step tutorials for how to do this with your class, make sure you sign up and subscribe to MrPICT.com

I recently discovered a bit of a game changer when it comes to accessing engaging texts to use in class, see the video here: It has inspired an incredible English project where we deconstructed the model text from the film before writing and performing our own audio descriptions over one of my favourite clips from Infinity War. Here is an example of the finished efforts from our pupils: There are so many possible ways in which this idea can be adapted to different films with audio descriptions. If you're interested in more detailed tutorials to create this, sign up to MrPICT.com. Over the past couple of weeks, I have added the option to subscribe directly through the website. There is also the option to subscribe as a school so your whole staff can access all the training videos and content. The subscriptions options are: Individual Teachers: £3.50 a month through Facebook - Click Here Individual Teachers: £3.50 a month through the website or subscribe an...

I think Social Media is a tool for good. Unfortunately, at the minute not everyone is using it positively. It comes down to choices. In 2019, we don't have a choice about using social media, the choice we make is how well we do it. Just this week the DFE announced that lessons around mental well-being linked to the internet and social media will be compulsory next year.  I have been saying this needs to happen for the past few years. I do think education is crucial to prevent the issues we are seeing around mental health, screen addiction and relationships. Over the past few weeks, I have been working with my year 4 class to learn more about some of the social media apps they are aware of. I wanted to cover both the positives and negatives and make children aware of how to stay safe and act responsibly when they are old enough to use these tools. The genre in English was non-chronological reports and the children looked at three subheadings of: What is it? What are t...

With Lego Movie 2 hitting cinemas this week, I decided to embrace the children's enthusiasm to introduce stop motion animation. Stop Motion Animation is a brilliant and creative way for students to tell stories, explore ideas and explain different concepts. There are plenty of different stop motion animation apps. My go-to app is I Can Animate. There are so many possibilities with this app as you can link it with greenscreen to add an animated background before editing further in iMovie. Here is an example of something we created: I have posted a step-by-step tutorial video for how to create something like this exclusive to the supporters of my facebook page. Click here to sign up.

As I recently discussed in a previous blog post (click here to read)  I really think, when used effectively, technology can enhance and support a student's love of reading. In most classrooms, once a child finishes a book they will be asked to then fill out a book review worksheet. Something along the lines of this... I don't want to sound like I am having a go at any teachers who do these types of worksheets. I just believe with technology so easily accessible in schools, it should be used to enhance this task to add more purpose and engagement. Using an app like Apple Clips, children can turn their book review into a VLOG (video blog.) Not only does this add more purpose to the writing (children have to write the script of their book review first), you will be developing key oral speaking objectives and ICT skills. In my experience, these worksheet type activities are rarely done to the best of children's ability as they are used as a time filler or carousel acti...

As much as I love technology, I will always talk about the importance of reading on my CPD sessions. It really annoys me when people like to blame technology as a reason why children don't read as much. We like to blame technology for a number of things but for me, it comes down to choices. I hope through this blog and my social media pages, I demonstrate how, when used effectively, it can transform teaching and learning. Unfortunately, I think too many of us make the wrong choices with technology. When pictures like this appear on my social feeds, it does wind me up because they both can be valuable and certainly enhance each other: For me, technology can enhance the reading experience allowing pupils to explore texts in more creative ways. This is something I wanted to promote in my yearly Christmas video. For the past 9 years, I always treat my pupils to a silly video at the end of our annual talent show. To see what I have produced previously - CLICK ...

I love using Christmas as a way to engage children in their learning. They are excited, inquisitive and generally really interested in anything Christmas. Recently, I worked with Year 2 where they created their own Interactive Christmas scene using Chatterpix Kids and Thinglink. Here is an example of what they created: I have posted a step-by-step guide for how to do this activity on the supporter part of my Facebook page. Sign up by tapping the picture below: This idea can easily be adapted to other areas of the curriculum, such as: Read more about this idea here. Read more about this idea here. Read more about this idea here

You will have seen over the past half term I have been working on a very important topic with Year 4 inspired by the Greenpeace "There's a Rang-Tan in my Bedroom" advert. This has since been used by Iceland Foods as their Christmas advert but has been banned from TV. This has culminated in a very special project where my class have all become published authors. To read what we have done so far, click the pictures: The first link looks at the advert in more detail and the work my class produced writing in role as an Orangutan seeing their home destroyed.  The next post looks at the letters my class have written to all the companies with links to dirty palm oil and the responses we have received. Over the past couple of weeks, we have been learning more about Orangutans. We started by generating questions we wanted to find the answers to and then looked at researching on the internet to find the answers to the questions. ...

A few weeks ago, I blogged about a project my Year 4 class had started, inspired by the recent Greenpeace advert - There's a Rang-Tan in my Bedroom. To read that blog post, which includes original questions linked to the advert, please click the picture: The response we received from the video the class created where they wrote in role as a helpless Orangutan, seeing their home destroyed was so positive and empowering.  Again you can read more about this by clicking the picture above. If you haven't yet seen the video, here it is: From the reaction to the video, my class were inspired to go further and investigate the issue more. We discovered this from Greenpeace, which identifies companies with links to Dirty Palm Oil: According to Greenpeace, these companies made a promise to be clean of dirty palm oil by 2020. My pupils decided to write to these companies to provide a polite reminder and ensure they are on target to keep their promise.  After draft...

In Year 4, we have been inspired by the latest Greenpeace Advert - There's a Rang-Tan in My Bedroom. The advert tells the story of Rang-Tan, a young Indonesian orangutan that has been forced out of her home by humans. It is a beautifully animated video with a very powerful message: We decided to look at the text used in the advert in more detail: There's a Rang-tan in my bedroom and I don't know what to do. She plays with all my teddies and keeps borrowing my shoe. She destroys all of my house plants and she keeps on shouting 'oo'. She throws away my chocolate and she howls at my shampoo. There's a Rang-tan in my bedroom and I don't want her to stay, So I told the naughty Rang-tan that she had to go away. Oh, Rang-tan in my bedroom, just before you go, Why were you in my bedroom? I really want to know. There's a human in my forest and I don't know what to do. He destroyed all of our trees for your food and your shampoo. There...

#EveryoneCanCreate  is a hashtag I have very much enjoyed following since the ADE summit in Texas this month. From some of the ideas I had seen, my son created this before his school trip to the zoo: Click here for a more detailed description of what we did to create this video. It was this tweet from Matthew Pullen  which inspired this latest idea: It’s been a labour of love but I wanted to share how I created it. Shout out to all those that shared the original concept, @BenMountz @WesMolyneaux et al. I never thought I could draw but now I have the right tools in #iWork #ade2018 #appleeduchat #everyonecancreate @AppleEDU pic.twitter.com/DXQWq1Cwyy — Mathew Pullen 🏴󠁧󠁢󠁷󠁬󠁳󠁿 (@Mat6453) July 22, 2018 Following the thread, @JoeDale then suggested an app which might make the Video to still image stage a little easier: Great job. With the Video 2 Photo app you can export multiple frames to the camera roll in one tap which may make this rotos...

I am not going to lie, I am very jealous of all the amazing teachers attending the Global ADE 2018 summit in Texas. I have been closely following the hashtag #WWADE2018 and #EveryoneCanCreate and enjoying some of the amazing content being created and shared. It has reminded me of all the brilliant new additions to the Keynote app and inspired me to try some with a project with my children. They are going on a school trip tomorrow to the zoo and so created this animated quiz about animals: Keynote has been an app that I have used personally in my CPD and training sessions for years. Essentially, it is Apple's version of Powerpoint. At the UK ADE summit last year I was very fortunate to get a one to one tutorial with a Keynote expert, Alan Rosenfield , who really opened my eyes to creating engaging content to support my training sessions. More recently, Apple have announced a number of new updates to Keynote which take the app beyond a simple presentation app to an incredib...

There have been plenty of occasions when my classroom has resembled a zoo! But today, through Augmented Reality, we actually turned our EYFS classroom into a real zoo! I've blogged about different ways you can use Augmented Reality (you can read them here) and it never ceases to amaze pupils and bring that moment of awe and wonder that technology can provide. The app we used today was LEO AR camera . Using Apple's ARkit, the app allows you to scan the ground and place 3D animated objects into the real world.  There are a range of different objects you can add including different animals and dinosaurs. There is a horror option which may not be appropriate for your pupils . Today, we just used this app on my teacher device.   There is a record option which allows you to video the animated object within the scene alongside your pupils. This is a little buggy at the minute so today we just used the screen record option of the iPad to captur...