Yvonne hit upon the eBook idea after seeing it in use in another school.
She started it to improve her pupils'
reading, speaking and listening skills.
We decided that it was a good way to teach the children,
initially, reading skills, because if we could put our voices
onto eBooks, then they could hear our voice,
which would help them to read.
Then we thought that it would develop their speaking and listening skills,
put their voices on, so that's their speaking skills.
They're listening to themselves. And then it just grew from there.
The woods were smelly...
like the old cat.
Yvonne soon realised that eBooks also presented a way
of successfully differentiating tasks
to cater for a class with a big range of ability.
Have we got "sound" in our story?
Well, not everybody was supposed to do that, were you?
Who managed sending that story?
Well done.
I split it up in a way where I'd got the more able children
were able to write in their text themselves
and were very able to go and think about the words they wanted to use.
With the special-needs children, I think it was important
that not only were they able to access what they were doing,
but they'd got the support to help them to access it.
So I paired them. They were very much mixed.
Very low-ability children and middle-ability children.
So there was somebody who could read a little bit,
some children that couldn't read at all,
but they were paired with somebody that had got some skills,
somebody that had got very, very low skills,
and that one of them were able to read the text,
while the other one could actually type it into the eBook.
D... D... O...
O...
W.
N.
With pupils with special educational needs,
they often need some structure and support
in a whole range of learning situations.
When we're looking at ICT, I think it's essential
that there also is that scaffolding which can be provided
partly by the technology, but, probably more importantly,
by the management in the classroom.
And that's why Yvonne, by pairing learners together,
by looking at those that can support each other,
by providing a range of different tasks based on ability,
was so effective in using the technology with those pupils.
What it clearly does is support inclusion.
When managed well, all of those pupils were participating,
were engaging and were achieving.
The higher-ability children
were going to then take on their ITC skills that step further,
and they'd drawn their pictures
and we wanted them to scan their pictures into the eBooks,
so as that develop their ITC skills.
And then, because they were the better readers,
they were able to read their own text and put their own sounds
and their own reading words onto their text.
The smell of dead animals hang in the air.
The silence was...
away... waysome.
Nothing could be heard as we crept through the scary wood.
The lower-ability children that weren't quite ready to scan
were able to access the pictures from the shared area, again in pairs,
so as they'd got the support of their working partner,
to actually help them to then access the picture from the shared area,
so as they were able to then put it into their eBook.
In terms of differentiation,
we can make the resources fit the child.
Almost to the individual child, rather than just a group of children.
So that we're able to differentiate, once we've got a resource,
we can choose how that is meted out to each child,
or we can change it to the needs of the child.
If one child has a lower language ability than another,
then we can bring that down.
You can't do that if it's a paper resource, for instance.
If it's been a manufactured resource.