QTS Q30 – Timothy West

Creative Computer Control Year 7 Lesson

By adminPGCE, POT 3, Reflection, Teaching125 Comments

Jam Sandwich Creative Lesson Year 7

Computer control is a fairly mundane topic for year 7s if it is not delivered in the correct way. In order to make it more creative and innovative I discovered and was informed about a way to explain how computers need to control things precisely and exactly and you have to issue commands in sequence.

This is where the Jam Sandwich Robot Demonstration comes into play. It is quite a simple task and is as follows.

You need bread, jam, a knife and a plate and possibly butter or margarine.
You then need to tell the pupils to instruct your every movement so that you can make and eat a jam sandwich
Emphasize that it is only one command at a time
Allow each pupil to have a go at giving you a command
Do what each pupil says exactly

At the start the pupils issue too many commands at the same time and they also don’t issue them exactly. For example pupils say put bread on the plate but don’t tell me how to open the bread packet and how many slices to put on the plate. If they tell you something to do that is sill you can just say computer does not compute.

The pupils then get into it and give you all the instructions that you need to create the actual sandwhich and they soon get the hang of it.

The only thing you need to get right is the safety of the experiment its is important that you have all chairs cleared and that you ask the pupils to stand back before you start making it just as they all start to crowd round and it is not fair on the other pupils. This helps keep the classroom purposeful and safe.

This is a great task to get them thinking logically and to understand the importance of precise and exact commands in computer control.

Lesson Plan >> http://bit.ly/itXVCx

Power Point >> http://bit.ly/lYfda3

21/05/2011

Photoshop lesson 2 – Year 7

By adminPGCE, POT 2, Reflection, TeachingNo Comments

Lesson Reflection Document

Class Year 7

What we did?

We were creating an Elvis at the Abbey project with a pop theme to it.

Lesson 2 was all about working and making tweaks to the sky using a gradient tool on Photoshop.

Please look at attached lesson plan

What went well?

It was great to see that the pupils where using their inner creativity to create some really good-looking items of work.

They where able to grasp the points that I needed to re-enforce through questioning

I made sure the chairs where set out as they came in as it really helped the pupils focus and be really quiet for the introduction. I have noticed how when I don’t do this it is slightly more chaotic and hard to get through the introduction well

I was able to introduce AB tutor well to the classes at first I found that they where really excited about the whole concept but if I just did it and asked them to put their hands of their laps it stopped that initial excitement. The AB tutor really helped with the finer details that I had to explain with for example the new layer creation and add to selection tool box.

The time at the end of the lesson was a good time to show of the pupils work and give constructive criticism.

I found I was able to be more confident with the lesson the more I had taught it showing that experience is so valuable to self-development.

I set some good extension tasks of finding and adding in another “Friend of Elvis” to be put in from the Internet.

I used some good classroom discipline to keep them under control when the noise level became too loud.

What could have been done better?

In my earlier lessons I found that my explanation was quite rushed and not as thorough as It could have been this had a repocusion later on as there where so many questions almost too many for me to handle at once. I found in the last lesson that I did when my delivery was clear and concise they where able to really get on with the work with out too much guidance.

I need to keep an eye on pupils that are running behind due the extremely hi ability sometimes the less able can get missed.

I have to make sure I keep the plenary time for assessment of learning and ict skills not just an artistic critique on their work.

Conclusion

All in all I feel it was a good set of lessons that where executed with good pace and clear guidance.

11/03/2011

Forest of Dean Tutor Trip

By adminPGCE, ReflectionNo Comments

Over the lent term I was able to go on a school trip with my year 8 tutees this was a great trip to get to know the pupils well and build those vital relationships. I was able to lead several activities to help promote indipendant survival skils just to manage and co ordinate several expeditions.

We had to deal with children that had not been away from parents before and had full responsibility of their diet and wellbeing.

We also had evening reviews with my colleagues to asses what had been achieved in the day and to plan for the next day.

It gave me chances to take kids on walks and for them to learn in out of school contexts.

PLEASE SEE THIS DOCUMENT FOR EVIDENCE http://bit.ly/mG30Wc

03/12/2010

After School Animation Club

By adminPGCE, ReflectionNo Comments

I have been helping out over the last 5 weeks in an after school animation club.

Here at the school i am placed in you can choose from a series of after school clubs there are several that range from Art club to hockey right across the board to the one i am helping in Animation club. These extra curricular clubs are brilliant as the give the kids the opportunity to do something that they really enjoy outside of the normal school day. The benefit of this is that it’s a more relaxed time that is not like being in a lesson and it also gives them more opportunity to explore and get into the club they have chosen.

In our animation club we are using two main programs. One is Macromedia Flash MX and the other is Scratch from MIT.

Most of the kids that come are either year 7 or 8 and so scratch is extremely popular as it is really easy to use and get to grips with but still requires the ability to logically program the sequence of events in their game or animation that they are making. It has the “High ceiling yet low complexity” benefit as everything is done using simple to understand bolt together modules.

At the moment we been really just allowing the kids to get to grips with scratch and then encouraging them to think of and plan a game or animation that could work. We have had to give them ideas and prompt them to stick to one project as they are quite easily distracted by all the other games that people have made.

I have been mainly going round answering and helping them one to one with their own projects and working particularly with a select few who’s projects I have been able to get to grips with.

It has been so rewarding to go through their ideas and watch them turn that into a real life game. One chap is making a simple game that has a main character that shoots the baddies that parachute down the screen and then walk to attack him. There is even a boss at the end who is harder to kill. We have been looking at how we can use the variables to create good game play and also how we can create realistic animation in the physical sense.

One of the thing I have learned is that you need to prompt the kids but not do it all for them so its important to give them the mouse and get them to figure it out with your guidance. This way they remember it more and more and are then able to go away and do this on their own.

The other brilliant thing is that it has given me the opportunity to broaden my own subject knowledge as I have to really think on the spot when helping the kids and at times we are both learning the program together. Thankfully I have been able to pick up the program quicker than they have and am then able to really help them develop their skills.

Our numbers are running low at the moment so we are about to introduce a 3d animation program called Mission Maker which looks amazing. It allows them to make fully 3D games without having to create everything from scratch as all the GUI is created and the coding is done through a form field rather than through a coding language. Again it has great (High ceiling) results but is not that complicated to use or control.

We are expecting the number to increase with the introduction of this new program Mission Maker and I’m really looking forward to getting to grips with it.

All in all it’s really great to get involved with extra curricular activities out of the classroom and to use that as a chance to broaden my subject knowledge and invest in the kids that want to go deeper with this ever growing area of animation.

30/11/2010