Enhancing Learning in Geography Through Technology Lesson 3

Over the past half term, I have been working in Year 2 and supporting both classes with their Geography topic.

I have blogged what we have done previously and you can read what we have covered so far:

Enhancing Learning in Geography Through Technology Lesson 1

Enhancing Learning in Geography Through Technology Lesson 2

The next step was to focus in on our local area of Manchester and Urmston where our school is.

We listed some of the famous landmarks and interesting places to visit. We also discussed other reasons why people should visit or even live here.

The children were then challenged to create their own eBooks about why people should live in Urmston, Manchester.



The students worked in pairs using the app Book Creator to create their eBooks. Book Creator has always been one of my favourite apps to use in class. As a creative tool, it is up there as one of the best apps/tools for the classroom and is a must for any primary and secondary school. The app allows pupils to create eBooks and comics where they can add text, images, videos and audio recordings. It gives the students the opportunity to creatively demonstrate their knowledge and understanding about anything.



To help the children with their ebooks, they used the app Google Earth to look at some of these famous landmarks through the bird's-eye view or the Google street view. The students could then take screenshots to use in their eBooks.

The students could choose which landmarks they wanted to choose and most went for ones they were familiar with and have visited themselves. They explored through different media - adding text and audio recordings to share their knowledge about different places. Here is one of their finished efforts:

What made this project even better was that we shared some of the eBooks on our school twitter account and had this reply from the Mayor of Manchester:

Teach Rex - Bringing Your Dinosaur Topic To Life!

This week, we were very lucky to have the team from Teach Rex visit our school. The brought their good friend Jam to see our pupils and led workshops to help us learn about the Tyrannosaurus Rex. Needless to say, our pupils were captivated! To have an actual dinosaur roam our school was amazing!

See the moment Jam appeared to our KS1 pupils here:

To say the pupils enjoyed the experience was an understatement! They didn't stop talking about it all day. For me, Primary School should be about creating incredible experiences that ignite a love for learning and provide memories that last a lifetime. 

We had such a good day when @teach_rex came to visit this week! This short video gives you a glimpse of what we were doing and the excitement and wonder on our pupil’s faces! If you head over to Facebook, you could win a FREE visit from the team!

A post shared by Lee Parkinson (@ict_mrp) on Feb 25, 2018 at 2:41am PST

What I liked most about the visit from Teach Rex was the fact is was led by teachers. Joey and Sam both work as class teachers and so the experience was all about learning. The children definitely retained some interesting facts about the T-Rex as can be seen in some follow up work we did in class using Apple Clips and ChatterPix Kids. Here, some Year 2 pupils have created an interview with Jam the T-Rex:

An interview with Jam, the T-Rex 🦖 who visited our school today! Thanks again @teach_rex, as you can see, our pupils learnt a lot from the session!

A post shared by Lee Parkinson (@ict_mrp) on Feb 22, 2018 at 1:29pm PST

If you're doing Dinosaurs as a topic or even if you're not, a visit from the Teach Rex team will be something your pupils will never forget! If you head over to my Facebook page, you could be in with a chance of winning a FREE visit from the team in the first week of June. Check out the post below:

My Thoughts on the Idea of Arming Teachers

With the recent tragedy in Florida, where so many young innocent lives were taken in another school shooting, Trump has sparked controversy by suggesting that teachers should be armed with guns.

Here are my thoughts on this idea and what I feel would be the universal response to this suggestion:

The response to this video has been incredible and it seems that most teachers are certainly on the same page. 

The School Staff Oscars

It is awards season! We've had the BAFTAs and BRITS and will soon have the Oscars. But what about teachers and other school staff? What about celebrating them? Well, I've decided to do something about that!

This video, which I posted on Facebook, has all of Mr P's nominations for this year's School Staff Oscars. The winners? That's up to you! You can tag your winners in the comments!

Now That's What I Call Being a Teacher Vol. 14 - The 90s Edition

The next in the series takes a step back in time and uses some of the best hits from the 90s for those popular teacher catchphrases:

Watch every volume of Now That's What I Call Being A Teacher Vol 1-14 here.

Please subscribe on YouTube.

Enhancing Learning in Geography through Technology Lesson 2

Last week, I blogged about the work I had started in Year 2 linked to their Geography topic:

Enhancing Learning in Geography through Technology Lesson 1

After the students had labelled the continents on a world map:

The next step was to focus in on the UK. The first step was to create a similar labelled map through Seesaw. However, this time we discussed improving the formatting and style:

The next step was to look at finding out about each country in the UK. First, we generated a series of questions to help us with our research, some of the suggested questions:

• Where is it?
• How many people live there? (Population)
• What is the Capital City?
• What does the flag look like?
• What is the national anthem?
• What famous landmarks are there to visit?
• Who is the patron saint?

The pupils were then given some time to research online and try and find the answers to these questions. After writing a script using their facts, they created a short video about their country using Adobe Spark Video. This tool has to be one of my favourites as it is the perfect example of a creative app which allows students to creatively share their knowledge and understanding about any topic. For Year 2 especially, it is a great app which removes certain barriers for children. Some of the students who might not yet be fluent writers are still able to show what they know. 

Within their tables, they came together to then create an interactive map. Using the app Thinglink, the pupils linked their videos with their maps created in the previous lesson. Once all the videos have been linked, the interactive image can be shared online. Here is one of their efforts:

In the next lesson, children will be looking at their city of Manchester and local town of Manchester.

Taking Teaching Back Episode 2 - The Fear in Education

The response to the first Taking Teaching Back Episode has been amazing! Thank you so much to everyone who took the time to watch it. The comments have been great and it has been so encouraging to hear of teachers who have taken the discussion into school and are actively looking at ways to change what they were doing in a way to help reduce workload. This is EXACTLY what I wanted from these videos. So here is Episode 2 and this one looks at one of the biggest reasons for the workload crisis in schools which is... FEAR. As always, please let me know what you think.

In case you missed Episode 1, here it is:

Enhancing Learning in Geography through Technology Lesson 1

For the past few weeks, I have been working with Year 2 in my school. I have been team teaching with the staff to help build their confidence in using technology more in class. Along with English and Maths, we have been looking at ways in which technology can enhance learning in Geography. The topic is all about learning about their local area, but to start with, we look at the world and gradually work in.

Around 4/5 years ago now, we did the same topic in Year 2 and I blogged about the tools we used then. You can read that blog post here - Using iPad to give children a better understanding of the World. 

This time, we have used some different creative apps. As I discuss a lot on my training, this is how we should be focusing our use of technology in schools: allowing students to use tools to creatively demonstrate their knowledge and understanding about the chosen topic.

I understand the pressures teachers are under, especially in Year 2 when SATs are looming. English and Maths take priority and so we don't necessarily devote as much planning time to the wider curriculum. A shame I know, but that is the reality. Many teachers will look online for planning and grab something that has everything done and run with it. So when I received the planning for the geography topic from the teacher I was surprised at how poor some of it was. This is nothing against the teacher, who is awesome but can only do so much. But I get so frustrated with companies pushing resources to schools that simply save teachers time rather than making learning engaging and purposeful.

In the first lesson for this geography unit downloaded from one of these planning sites, it was looking at the different continents. There was a powerpoint to talk through, followed by the suggested activity. The activity was for the teacher to print out a world map, cut it up into jigsaw pieces and ask the pupils to stick the pieces in the correct place in their book. My reaction:

Here's my problem with an activity like that:

• Unnecessary printing - time and cost
• Teacher or TA wasting time cutting it all out - time
• Glue sticks (which we know are like gold dust) being wasted - cost
• No real depth of learning

Instead, we decided to allow pupils to share what they had learned about the different continents by using a simple tool on Seesaw. There is nothing special or flashy about this tool, but it is just a simple way for teachers to save time and children to demonstrate their knowledge whilst embedding simple digital literacy skills.

I shared a World Map image into everyone's profile in Seesaw. The pupils logged into seesaw, found the image and tapped ... to copy and edit:

Along the bottom of the screen are a number of options, one being the label option. Here, they can label all the different continents. As an extension, they could also label the different oceans. Here are some finished examples:

Within the label option, the pupils can also change the font and style. For me, the children are getting so much more from completing the activity in this way compared to the original jigsaw idea. They are able to embed simple digital literacy skills, improve spelling and practice typing skills

The week after, to consolidate the learning we used the same idea when focusing on the UK. Here, we looked at improving the style and having the same style for countries and a different style for capital cities. Again here are some examples:

There is nothing flashy about this idea but it is an example of where the technology can enhance learning and save teachers time. Seesaw has so many benefits and this is just one example of how powerful it can be as a tool in the classroom. Stay tuned for the next lesson in this topic where pupils find out more about each country in the UK.

Taking Teaching Back Episode 1 - Book Scrutinies

I am in an incredible position where I am able to visit schools all over the UK. On that journey, I try to inspire teachers with ideas for how best to utilise technology in their school. One part of this is looking at ways in which technology can be used to help teachers work smarter, not harder. There are still so many schools who are struggling to effectively manage workload for a number of reasons. This is something I am passionate about changing. Being able to address some of these issues when visiting schools is great however it is only a small amount of schools compared to amount throughout the UK and beyond.

Thanks to the unbelievable support I have through this blog and social media channels, I am able to reach thousands of teachers, which is why I have started this new series of videos.

Taking Teaching Back will be a series of videos that look at addressing a number of issues within education that I feel contribute to workload. I cannot guarantee that I'll be able to provide all the answers but I am hoping the videos will spark discussion and at least get schools talking about whether what they are doing is having a direct impact and ways in which to work more efficiently to best benefit the students.

The first video looks at the issue of book scrutinies and why that phrase sends the wrong message to teachers:

For these videos to really have an impact, I need help from you guys to share, like and spread the word. The more teachers we can have engaging with these videos the more it will be discussed in schools and the more the issues will be addressed and dealt with. 

Thank you for the support!

Our New Interactive Display on Never Giving Up!

In my sessions each week at Davyhulme, I have been working on a project with my Digital Leaders. As a school with a motto 'Reaching for the Stars,' I wanted the pupils to create a display that would inspire children to persevere and not let failure stop them achieving their goals.

The idea was inspired by something I saw at Candleby Lane School in Nottingham. They had a display featuring stories from teachers talking about how they have failed and how they overcame that failure. So we did the same, we asked teachers to share stories of times when they felt they had failed and how they worked through it and didn't let it stop them from achieving their goals. I feel this is a really powerful thing to share with our students to make them understand that everyone will have ups and downs including their teachers. Here is my example:

The Digital Leaders also researched famous people who had also struggled in their journey to reach their goal. To share what they had learned, they used the app Apple Clips to create a short video about each person, why they are famous and what failure or obstacle they faced on their journey to being a success.

To enhance the display we then linked the videos through Augmented Reality using the app HP Reveal (formerly Aurasma) to make the display interactive. This is something we have used before and you can read about our interactive reading display here.

Here is a video of some of our Digital Leaders talking about their finished display:

We have also published all of our videos about famous people who failed to this YouTube playlist, we hope you enjoy watching them: