How does online learning impact on mathsknowledge in my year 2 class?

Intended Outcome

I anticipate children will enjoy using the computer and playing games. I amhoping I will be able to steer game playing to current maths-knowledge goals,indicated in the Early Numeracy framework, and that there will be a directspin-off with foundation number knowledge being improved.

Background

Although, in the past, I have had maths-game sites saved as bookmarks, theyhave not been organized to suit the varying stages of the children and therehas been limited home links. Laptop accessibility has varied from time totime; hence if the opportunity for playing could be more available from home,children would have the advantage of greater exposure.Also, once the web page is set up, and the children become familiar with it, Iwould not have to direct or control the choices.

Implementation of the Action Plan

During the February interviews, it became evident that all children hadinternet-access at home, although some had better arrangements andconnection than others.As a way of organizing maths games I registered for a teachers’ wiki spaceweb page. I then established a front page with enough headings to lead oninto other curriculum areas in the future. The numeracy page had the mathsgroups colour coded to match classroom groupings. By clicking on theappropriate colour, links to the games, with picture clues, made it easy toaccess appropriate activities.A newsletter advertising the site and explaining access procedures was sentout.Other reminders were sent as part of the beginning of term newsletters.

Children’s Attitudes

At the start of the year children were interviewed individually. They wereasked, “How do you feel about maths?” To help them articulate, we asked“What is hard for you?” And “What is easy?”All children had a positive attitude although one was slightly hesitant.They were all able to articulate something they found easy and most couldremember something that had been difficult.During the final term, most attitudes were still positive. Three children said“It is ok” and one said “not good”. Two of the three who said “O.K.” wereachieving very well and the other two needed extra support at home and weregiven explicit goals to work on.Another part of the interview was asking “How much time do you spend onthe computer at home?” and “Do you play any maths games?” Children of this age have little concept of time so imaginations ran riot!Two children indicated playing some type of knowledge maths game, at thisstage.In term four, children were interviewed again, and 10 children said they had played the book-marked games. Results from a questionnaire to parents interm 4 indicated 14 children had some exposure to the games (in varyingamounts).

Literature Review

Research has indicated that online games are enjoyable, engaging and help to preparechildren for the workforce in the 21

century (Sedig, K. (2008) Matthew Mackerith(1998)).Futurelab (2005) has made some recommendations for the future of games in education.One worthy of note, and that ties in to the way games are being used in my project, isthat teachers need to be clear about the exact learning goals they are hoping to achieveand outcomes need to be made clear to students before playing and evaluated afterwardsso that the necessary links can be made between the game and the lesson and teachersneed to be able to assess the impact the game has.