Gunita Pugeja - Learning Diary by G

Me

gunitapugeja — 2015-04-22 06:32:31 UTC

My name is Gunita Pugeja, and I'm from Balvi ( Latvia). I teach Maths, Nature Science and Social studies. I love eTwinning because it is an inspiration to develop the use of ICT in the learning process, to expand student and teacher interaction outside the classroom / school / state borders, improve teacher's professionalism.

My school

gunitapugeja — 2015-04-22 06:36:29 UTC

My school is Balvu pamatskola ( Balvi primary school). Balvi is the town in the northeast of Latvia, the center of Balvi county.There are 479 pupils (Grade 1 – Grade 9) and 53 teachers. School implements 3 basic education programs (general program, program for pupils who needs additional help in learning and minority program).

M 1.1 What is computing? Computing in our country

gunitapugeja — 2015-04-22 06:42:20 UTC

At this moment students acquire subject „Computer Science” (basics in Computer Science, Office programms, Internet safety etc ) in Grade 5 – Grade 7 ( 1 lesson per week), but not as separate subject in primary level.

Primary teachers can integrate the themes about e-safety in Social Studies, they use different ICT tools in lessons. In some schools or so called interest centers students can attend extracurricular activities to learn how to use software or even computer coding.

Starting from September 1, 2015 there will be new pilot-project. Schools will be able to choose to integrate the teaching of basic computing skills in in almost all subjects from Grade 1 till Grade 3, but it will not be compulsory.

I’m not the teacher of Informatics, but I teach students how to use Office programms, different browsers for searching information, different ICT tools (Padlet, Google Docs, Learningapps etc) in Maths, Nature Science and Social Studies. My favorite topic is e-safety so I use every opportunity to involve students in discussions about security and copyright rules on Internet.

M 1. 2. Why teach computing? The importance of computing

gunitapugeja — 2015-04-22 06:46:19 UTC

Everyday situation in students’families. We are getting ready to leave the shop. Our hands are full of bags of groceries. How are we going to open the doors of shop? Just when we’re wondering if we’ll need to set some bags down, the doors open as if by magic! The automatic doors mostly are installed at shopping malls, hotels and post offices etc. It provides user comfort and safety. Automatic doors operate with the help of sensors. There are many different types of sensors that can sense different types of things, such as sound, light, weight, and motion. The similar with Mindstorm Lego robots.

M 1. 3. What should we focus on in our teaching? Skills

gunitapugeja — 2015-04-22 06:50:54 UTC

Activity from my Comenius project : Creative Writing.

During the Creative writing theme all schools collaborated to create fictional stories. Latvia began the stories, these were then continued by Wales, Poland and Ireland respectively. A total of three short stories in English were created. Students also ilustrated these stories. These are appropriate for pupils aged 4 - 6 years, 7 - 9 years and 9 -11 years. These were shared via the wikispace and are available in powerpoint format.

In our school work activities were divided in such way:

- 4th grade each student wrote the entry of creative story.

- 4th-8th grade students got acquainted with all stories and selected 3 the most interesting entries.-

5th-6th grade students illustrated these entries.

- 7th grade students translated them into English.- 8 th grade students put the stories and illustrations in Powerpoint presentation.http://comeniws2011.wikispaces.com/Creative+Writing

eTwinning project using interesting ICT tools

gunitapugeja — 2015-04-22 07:00:12 UTC

The idea of project Christmas is coming again" was to create an international online Advent calendar. From the first to the 24nd of December the children can open every day a new “door” filled with input from one of the partner schools. Schools/ children can decide what they will add: painted pictures, a recorded song, a video with a small drama, a photo story how to handicraft something …

M2. 1. Focus on not using computers

gunitapugeja — 2015-05-02 11:30:45 UTC

Many fantastic ideas from CS unplegged materials!

As our school year soon will finish, I'll try with students some activities as: Kid Fax, Sorting Networks etc. We have already used similar strategies to find the lightest weight of boxes, the necessary key in math, making enviromental games. I am happy to learn about new ideas!

M 2. 2. Focus on collaboration

gunitapugeja — 2015-05-02 11:42:40 UTC

During eTwinning project students learned about partner - countries. Their tasks were to find information both in books and on the Internet and then set up a small poster. At first we spoke about good / bad communication examples. Then Students collaborated in pairs: jointly sought the information, images. They presented the work done. In this long process the children learned to work together and they got to knew a lot about the partner countries.

M 2. 3 Focus on engaging girls

gunitapugeja — 2015-05-02 12:07:47 UTC

From my experience in the primary level both girls and boys are quite interested in computing topics, sometimes girls are even eager to learn new things, to acquire new computing skills. But I absolutely agree that it depends on teacher's personality, his / her teaching approaches how to make attractive computing to all students.

M 2.4 Focus on links across subjects

gunitapugeja — 2015-05-02 12:38:10 UTC

I teach Nature Science, Math and Social Studies which are very easy to link with ICT. Recently we spoke about healthy food in Social Studies, we used http://www.twofoods.com/ etc. At the end students filled the Padlet. And of course, eTwinning projects because they integrate itself many subjects, using of English and ICT. I love to use also http://learningapps.org/ during my lessons..

M3.1 Introduction to Educational Robotics

gunitapugeja — 2015-05-17 06:36:22 UTC

We don't have any robots in our school, but I'm sure that robots can be used in many subjects for different themes. For example, beebots can be used in teaching traffic rules, safety etc.

M 3.2 Educational Robotics - Example Activities

gunitapugeja — 2015-05-17 06:56:30 UTC

I don't have experience of using robots. But I've been on eTwinning seminar in Denmark where we visited local school with special Lego robots classroom. Children were really proud of their work and it was very interesting! Also thanks for nice ideas in videos! So it's worth to think about it in future!

M 3.4 Simple Game Design Tools

gunitapugeja — 2015-05-17 12:50:24 UTC

My first Scratch :) It was great fun!

https://scratch.mit.edu/projects/62707854/

Wonderful ideas from other teachers

gunitapugeja — 2015-05-17 12:53:01 UTC

Simple and nice Scratch games from colleagues :

Marie - https://scratch.mit.edu/projects/62223270/

Sofia Karamitrou, Greece - https://scratch.mit.edu/projects/59374010/#player

Slavica - https://scratch.mit.edu/projects/61422470/

Fernando Batista - https://scratch.mit.edu/projects/61235322/

C. Schicke - https://scratch.mit.edu/projects/62560716/

Useful link about teaching coding

gunitapugeja — 2015-05-17 12:59:03 UTC

Just recently I discovered http://code.org/ Brilliant ideas!

Primary Computing - http://www.scoop.it/t/primary-compu

Great ideas from educational course:http://csunplugged.org/

Solving Problems at Google Using Computational Thinking

https://youtu.be/SVVB5RQfYxk

Pair Programming

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vgkahOzFH2Q

M 4.3 Tools & resources for teaching internet search, web editing, and computer networks

gunitapugeja — 2015-05-17 15:15:05 UTC

I didn't create a website with my primary pupils but I think it will be the wonderful challenge for next year! But I have my blog about our school' green activities. I taught my pupils how to do search on Internet using Google, Bing, Safe Search for Kids. But at the beginning we definitely discuss about the copyrights (specially for eTwinning projects), e-safety and ethics rules ( for chatting, using different social medias).

M 4.4 Digital Literacy & E-safety Resources

gunitapugeja — 2015-05-17 20:12:36 UTC

I think that we should start talking to children about e-safety at first in family because many preschool age kids like to play games, to view videos on Internet etc. But at the my school I encourage teachers to talk about these problems even from 1st Class in Social Studies.

In Latvia we have a wonderful website http://www.drossinternets.lv/page/53 There are many ideas, worksheets, videos in Latvian language how to speak with pupils ( in all age levels) about e-safety rules.

Specially I love to play together with children game about e-safety http://www.drossinternets.lv/spele/ or ethics on using Internet http://www.wildwebwoods.org/popup.php?lang=lv

From other resourses I also like to use these videos:

Amazing mind reader- https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kOvw3EaHZ-o

Also great cartoons from Slovenia as Natasa mentioned ( http://sheeplive.eu/? with subtitles in different languages) and on Youtube, for example, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MwH02Rapgw4
I also use another website for checking password - https://howsecureismypassword.net/

M 4.5 Lesson plan - Teaching Computing

gunitapugeja — 2015-05-17 20:56:44 UTC

My first attempt for Computing lesson

http://v.gd/fzmvSU

Course finished!

gunitapugeja — 2015-05-23 10:30:11 UTC

Completed all steps of the course. Excellent course with useful ideas and tools. Thanks to all colleagues for fantastic experiences together! Hope to meet you all again!