Minibeasts and PowerPoint

The creation of an on-screen book in P3/P4

Jenny McGlynn, Class teacher P4/P5, Glamis Primary School, Angus

This case study focuses on the collaborative use of PowerPoint in a composite P3/P4 class, resulting in the older children producing an on-screen book about minibeasts for the younger children. It also shows their subsequent joint development of increasingly sophisticated PowerPoint presentations over the months that followed, as their knowledge and confidence grew.

Glamis Primary School has a roll of 49, with a teaching head and two other full-time teaching staff. It is set in a rural location with children coming from the villages of Glamis and Charleston, and outlying farms and hamlets on Strathmore Estate.

Glamis Primary School has been using ICT in the classroom since 1982 and all the members of staff are enthusiastic, so the pupils have a good grounding. Primary 3 and 4 had no previous experience of PowerPoint, but had used the computer for word processing and resizing and moving text in both Word and Textease.

I had had to use PowerPoint as part of mentor training for NOF and decided to teach the pupils the skills so that the P4 class could make up an on-screen book for P3. The class consisted of eight Primary 3 pupils and nine Primary 4s.

The topic for the six-week block was minibeasts and the children had already been gathering information from topic books and making up a database. It seemed an ideal opportunity to use ICT to support the literacy skills of researching and writing for information.

The target group were Primary 4 children who were writing for Primary 3.

Aims of project

Literacy – Conveying information, Level B

• Use research skills to select important facts.
• Be able to rewrite facts in own words.
• Write for a known audience.
• Enthuse reluctant writers.
• Discussion.

Enquiry skills – Variety and characteristic features, Level B

• Gather knowledge of minibeasts by use of simple reference material.
• Disseminate knowledge to others.
• Enquiry skills, e.g. conflicting facts.

ICT guidelines

• Creating and presenting
  • create and edit a piece of text
  • create a document with text and graphics
  • create a multimedia page
• Searching and researching
  • access websites
• Developing informed attitudes
  • appropriateness of use of ICT

Timescale

The minibeasts on-screen book was produced during four weeks on the topic in September 2002.

The strategic context

Evidence base and trigger for the project

Pupils had viewed a PowerPoint presentation about the school by P6/P7 and were enthused by the ability to animate text/graphics.

Previous knowledge (as already mentioned) made me think they were ready to attempt this for themselves.

Relevant research and/or pedagogy

Giving the pupils a known audience is a stimulus for writing.

Small chunks of text allow the pupils to text-process without taking too long.

Monitoring and evaluation opportunities

Evaluation

• Observation of the pupils using PowerPoint showed a stimulus for reading and writing for information. They were keen to write the information so that they could animate it.
• Discussion with the pupils showed that they enjoyed the tasks, and also enjoyed downloading pictures.
• Later presentations showed that they had retained the skills and built on them.

The teaching and learning experience

Resources and activities

While the Primary 4 class worked in groups of two or three at one computer, the rest of the class gathered the information required from books. Primary 3 were busy collecting information about one minibeast each and writing about it and drawing it.

PowerPoint file: The making of the Minibeasts on-screen book (2.7 MB)
Jenny McGlynn's presentation from SETT 2003, where she told the story of her journey towards the use of PowerPoint as an integral classroom tool with her composite P3/P4 class.

PowerPoint file: Minibeasts: an on-screen book (896 KB)
Read the on-screen book that P4 pupils from Glamis Primary School created for use by their P3 classmates.

In subsequent presentations the Primary 3 pupils used PowerPoint too and while groups of two or three worked on the computer the rest made posters (Welcome to Scotland presentation) or tourist leaflets (Angus presentation).

PowerPoint file: Welcome to Scotland (771 KB)

An on-screen book of interesting facts about Scotland created by P3 and P4 pupils.

PowerPoint file: Angus, All you need for a good holiday (1.3 MB)

A tourist information presentation created by P4 pupils to promote Angus.

There are now two computers in the classroom with PowerPoint, one PowerPoint 97 and the other PowerPoint XP.

Outcomes

Pupils enjoyed working with PowerPoint.

PowerPoint file: I think... (100 KB)

Pupils' comments about their experience of working with PowerPoint.

Parents and staff praised the results and the presentation was shown at an 'Achieving Success' evening in the local high school.

Other evidence of the project's impact

The P3/P4 is now confident in the use of PowerPoint and their progress can be seen by comparing the Minibeasts presentation with the promoting Angus presentation. They are aware that the two presentations were for different audiences.