morag.macdonald

On Tuesday I attended the Argyll and Bute Pre-5 Annual Conference at Inveraray. The speaker in the morning was Penny Tassoni who is an authority on Early Years education and child development. I thought her name sounded familiar and indeed I have recently purchased one of her books, ‘Planning Play and the Early Years’.

In the afternoon Catherine McMillan who won the ICT in Education Award this year, presented her work to us. I enjoyed seeing again what she has achieved at Bowmore. Well done Catherine.

Back at school, I have now rejigged the Pre-5 computer area and put ActivPrimary onto their laptop so that they can begin to make use of the Promethean board in the GP room.

P7 made use of the Activote pods this week for the first part of a Christmas quiz which I downloaded from the Promethean website. I have been using the set of pods I have on loan and managed to put new batteries in 2 which were not working. A special screwdriver is required and it was only when I got my new set that I discovered where it is kept in the box. Of course another couple have gone on the blink since their last use so I need more batteries now!

This week the children have been learning how to export clipart from Kidspiration to the desktop, which they can then drag into ComicLife giving them more options for their creations.

Primary 1 were using PoissonRouge again today and had to be prized away from the computers, requesting to come back after lunchtime. Those not online were exploring KidPix and were delighted when I showed them the sound tool, adding another element to their pictures.

Nativity rehearsals are now well underway and as usual those lovely tunes are playing around in my brain, morning, noon and night.

Next Tuesday and Wednesday I will be back in Inveraray for  2 days training for my new job. I briefly met the other Early Level Teachers at the Pre-5 conference and look forward to learning more next week.

I have been trying to set up a Smartboard in our P1 classroom. The board was originally in P7 and when trying to get it up and running with a brand new Macbook laptop didn’t have the correct connector for the projector. After buying the wrong one, we now have the correct one , only to discover no cable to connect to. Found a spare cable amongst the Promethean board stuff and hey presto!! Ah, but the connector point on the Smartboard was twisted and I had to dismantle the plastic cover and try and ‘bend’ it back into place. It is now connected, projected, in focus and …………….doesn’t work interactively. I believe it is now a software problem…….and I will need to upgrade the Smartboard software to work on the new Mac.

All this has happened over the course of a couple of months as it is only one of a number of jobs needing done, in between teaching and installing software, fixing printing problems and setting up Promethean boards.

Anyway, off to the Smartboard website to look for updates …………….maybe I shall get it working this week.

Since my last post I have been for an interview for a seconded post. I will soon become an Early Level Peripatetic Teacher, one of four to cover Argyll and Bute. The position will involve working in Pre-5 units initially, supporting children and staff. I will be immersed in active learning and look forward to the challenges ahead.

The pupils at school have been busy creating slideshows using KidPix Deluxe 4. They are delighted with their early results and incredibly engaged in the activity. ComicLife is now available for Windows and our authority has licences for it so I shall install it onto the PC’s tomorrow.

I had problems getting the Promethean software to work on our newer iMacs. I installed Version3 and still had problems, eventually after a couple of phonecalls to Promethean have managed to get two more of our classroom IWB’s up and running…… at last.

Today Primary 1 were with me in the computer suite. They are all developing super mouse skills and two even managed to cope with the trackpad on the laptops. One of our pupils with additional support needs works on the whiteboard using the pen, and was literally jumping up and down with delight at what happened when she used the 2Simple Paint program. The others were on KidPix and I love to watch the way they share their discoveries and immediately offer support to show how they did it.

We then went onto look at PoissonRouge, my absolute favourite website for Early Years. The children were enthralled by the number activity and as I put a match to each firework and set it off there were squeals of delight. The children then took it in turns to complete an activity…what fun learning!