ICT in learning and teaching
Action Research
Primary and Early Years > Interest > Learning support
P53: Developing programs to assist a Classroom Assistant's support with speech and language acquisition
Author: Elaine Pace, Furze Infants School
Date: 2006
Summary
Elaine is a classroom assistant specialising in speech and language. She found that she was unable to devote the necessary time to all her pupils and, in conjunction with the team at Barking College, she developed some programmes that the children could use on the school's ICT equipment to improve their speech and language skills.
Action
Elaine and the Barking College team initially developed three programmes for the children to help with prepositions, blends and body parts. While she was giving some children personal attention, others were able to use the new programmes on the computer.
Outcomes
The children soon showed a noticeable improvement in their speech and language skills, and were found to be engaged and enthusiastic. This is supported by the views of the Key Stage One co-ordinator, who was pleased to observe the improvement in the children's work.
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Primary and Early Years > Interest > Learning support
P57: Developing Keyboard Skills in Reception Children
Author: Claire Price and Jayne Hagar, Hunwick Primary School
Date: 2006
Summary
Claire and Jayne investigate the use of a BIGKEYS PLUS keyboard to help keyboard skills in reception children. The keyboards helped the children to log on to the school network using their own log on, and provided a 'stepping stone' towards the use of a normal keyboard.
Action
Each child was given their own unique log in to the school network, where they could access a range of websites and software to help with their learning. To help them learn their log in, which consisted of their initial and surname, the children were given 'log in' cards and the BIGKEYS PLUS keyboard to use. They could then move on to the standard or laptop keyboards when they were ready.
Outcomes
Claire and Jayne felt that the colourful, non-threatening and user friendly keyboards had given many of the children the confidence to progress to the stage where many of them could log on to the network using standard keyboards without the help of their 'log in' cards.
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Primary and Early Years > Interest > Learning support
P59: Evaluating how ICT can help develop confidence in two underachieving Year 3 children.
Author: Sarah Mangle, Hunwick Primary School
Date: 2006
Summary
Sarah investigates the use of ICT equipment to help two children with behavioural problems to interact more successfully with the rest of the class. The children were asked to lead a project producing a PowerPoint presentation incorporating photos of each class member.
Action
The two children were each given a list of classmates and asked to take each child's picture and add it into the PowerPoint presentation along with their favourite memory from the year. The rest of the class were asked to support them wherever necessary.
Outcomes
Sarah noticed a marked improvement in the children's behaviour both in and out of the classroom, particularly in the way they interacted with the other children. They were both more confident and happy, and keen to participate in the activities. Due to the timing of the exercise however, Sarah was unable to tell if there was any long-term improvement, but she is hoping to explore this more in future.
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