catherine.macmillan

Kathleen Johnston at Port Ellen Primary asked me a few months back if I would do some whiteboard training with the staff in her school.  However she later came up with an idea- I would work a day and a half in Port Ellen Primary and Pre-Five Unit with staff and children on the interactive whiteboards and she would do a day and half in Bowmore Primary and Pre-Five Unit with staff and pupils on ways to use a PC Tablet.   On my first visit I worked with the nursery on a Promethean ACTIVboard.  We did lots of different activities starting with 2paint, as this was a programme that staff and pupils were already familiar with.  The children were immediately ‘hooked.’  We then used the ACTIVprimary software to decorate photographs of themselves and recorded their names, which they really enjoyed.  They also experimented with adding backgrounds and drawing pictures.  Before my visit I prepared some flipcharts based around traditional stories and nursery rhymes which we all discussed together before using the special ‘torch tool’ so the children could guess the pictures by seeing a small section at a time. We also looked at Musical Monsters and Number Run by Q&D Multimedia which allowed the children to be creative and learn in a fun way.   Staff commented on how it was particularly beneficial for challenging individual children and meeting all their interests. Overall I feel the session went really well.  Both the children and staff seemed to be motivated and inspired.   On my next visit I spent about and hour in each classroom.  I planned a variety of activities that the children would hopefully enjoy and at the same time show staff the potential if the ACTIVprimary software and how to actually use it.  In Primary 1&2 I started off by doing ‘magic writing.’  I used a white pen on a white page so the only way the children would know what I was writing was by watching my hand movements.  Then I revealed the number by using the fill tool to change the background colour. The teacher thought this was such a simple but very useful activity that she felt she could use to help develop children’s letter formations.  The primary one children then used the software to decorate the photographs of themselves (the teacher had seen the nursery children doing this and thought her children would also enjoy it.)  The class have been doing a topic on ‘Food’ so using the artwork of Guiseppe Arcimboldo as inspiration the primary two children used the ACTIVprimary resource library to create their own faces with different fruits, showing that the board can be used in different curricular areas. In Primary 3&4 we looked at how to use the ‘camera tool’ to add photographs into our flipcharts.  They have been doing a project based around the Flay Stanley books so we added a photograph of Stanley and the children added backgrounds and drew other things.  This gave them, and their teacher, a chance to experiment with all the tools.  We also did a maths activity with a Space theme.  The children had to make the astronaut move between pages to collect all the odd numbers they could find.  This showed staff how to make objects ‘containers.’  Again it showed how the board can be used across the curriculum.  The teacher thought she could set up activities for the children do when they had finished their work which would reinforce what they had been learning.  We finished off by taking photographs with the digital blue camera then edited them with the special animated features.  They really enjoyed this, and the teacher could so real potential for its use in future topics.  Primary 6&7 worked in small groups to make flipcharts.  It was amazing how quickly they picked it up.  After a quick demonstration they were adding photographs, sound and even QuickTime movies! On the board the children worked in small groups to complete a sudoku challenge.  I also brought my ACTIVote set so the class teacher led a maths activity using a flipchart I downloaded from the Promethean Planet website.  It was amazing to stand back and watch- every child in the class was giving the activity their full attention and they were really motivated. P5&6 then joined us.  They have been learning about handling data based around their healthy tuck so we did some voting on questions about healthy eating.  We then looked at different ways to present the data using ACTIVote and also how you could make your own graphs using ACTIVprimary.  Again everyone was completely engaged in the lesson. I really enjoyed my day and half.  I found it beneficial to work with the children and staff together.  I think it allowed staff to see the potential of using an interactive whiteboard in their own situation.  It also created a mutual learning atmosphere- staff and pupils were learning together and people could share things they and found out.  It is really nice that Kathleen and myself have had the chance to share our skills within each other’s establishments.