Classroom OrganisationWe are fortunate enough to have a wireless network in our school, so I used the bank of laptops for the children to access the website during our daily numeracy lessons. I did have to do a quick plenary first in order to show them how to log on and what to do when they arrived on the site, but I only had to do this once. Some children worked independently on the website whilst one group worked with me on a focused activity. I periodically checked on the progress of the other children although they were enaged with the website and concentration levels were high. The website does not have any noise distractions and the pupils were easily able to engage in their own work. Context of UseBefore the title can be used with the class you have to add yourself as a user, purchase some credits, enrol your children as 'student' users and then allocate credits to each of them. Depending on the size of your class this can be a little tedious as you are returned to the main screen after the input of each child, it would be far easier to have a teachers screen and add a whole class in one go; similarly the allocation of credits has to be done one child at a time and this also takes you back to the main menu. Once the children are installed however, it is fairly easy for them to access the site and start work. I introduced the website to my gifted and talented puppils first as I wanted to see how they would cope with it. They loved the challenge and all of these children have accessed the site from home too. They enjoyed the competition - knowing that they would get a score at the end of the quiz. They were introduced to the video inputs but they were more concerned in getting a higher score. The rest of the class were introduced to the website together. We used the interactive whiteboard and I showed them the two stages - the initial assessment quiz and then the selection of appropriate lessons and how to 'use their credits'. They all found this relatively straightforward and were eager to start. Children needed only basic ICT skills to navigate the site and all found this easy. At the end of use I encouraged the children to continue to use the site at home, asked for their opinions and discussed any key issues with them. Ease of Use - Design & NavigationThe children were given an initial plenary session to show them how to navigate the website and they definitely needed this in order to get started. I struggled myself to find how to get everything set up in the first place but practice made the site easier to understand. There is guidance provided on the website but I initially still struggled to use the site as it was intended. A sequence of events on one page may have been easier as it seemed to take quite some time to get the users set up correctly. I also struggled initially with user names and passwords - the site only recognises the username on entry - so should you want a username of 'Daniel' the chances are it's already taken. In the end I combined the username and password to help ensure I had unique usernames.
Once the children knew how the website worked they found it easy to follow although some did press the 'back' button only to find their answers had disappeared.
When the children have finished their initial assessment they have to choose a suitable bank of lessons and it's here where things are a little confusing - it tells the child that a credit must be used in order to unlock the course - I assumed that this is so they can make the correct judgement as to the level of the course with their class teacher. My class all panicked at this message - some even thought that they, themselves had to pay. Once I had shown them what was required they found it fairly easy to use.
The online support is excellent and my queries were all answered very swiftly and the subsequent answers very useful.
There are some issues concerning some of the questions within quizzes and their layout. For example one question asks 'Count and write 30 more than 331' there are then 30 boxes. My pupils didn't know if they had to add 30 each time or simply count up in ones (previous questions had related to adding multiples of tens). Another question shows a grid and asks how many parts it is divided into. The grid has a number of squares shaded and even I was unsure what the question was really asking. Sometimes the layout of the question hinders success as the question covers two lines and can be very confusing for the user.
The website provides games and activities to support the learning and provides printable resources to support these. They are all easily accessible and straightforward to use. Monitoring & AssessmentThe reporting system for the teacher is good. You can see at a glance which children have completed which quizzes or exercises, the number of attempts it took them and their final score. However what is missing hinders both the teacher and the child - there is no support in terms of what the child gets wrong. You simply get a score at the end of the test - You have no idea if the child is struggling with specific areas within the quiz they have completed. It is also difficult to understand fully what is covered by each course - it would be really useful for the teacher to see in advance what the questions were going to be. The video teaching sequences do give learning objectives and this is useful to both children and their teacher.
I used the monitoring system to check and see which children had used the website at home and how successful they had been. During lessons some children did become frustrated because there would be an error reported at the end of a quiz and they would lose all of their work - it would be more useful if their marked responses could perhaps be printed out. Then they would have something concrete to bring back to school and discuss with their teacher or they could use the website to focus in on their specific weaknesses. Feedback from Pupils and Other StaffThe children loved using the website - they enjoyed the challenge aspect and waiting to see their score - they always wanted to beat it and spent much time going back over things trying to improve. Some children did use the website at home but not all of them - the less able children found the initial assessment quiz a little daunting and this put them off the rest of the website. Some of the teaching videos did amuse the children especially the Year 3 lessons. Some of these teaching sequences looked a little old and dated. That said the children still watched them and enjoyed moving on to the quizzes associated with them.
I showed the product to our Numeracy and ICT subject leaders who were both impressed with the innovative approach to supporting Numeracy in the Primary classroom. It fits with 'extended schools' in so much as it offers curriculum support beyond the school day.
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