John Sayers Geography Blog: I AM LEARNING a new ICT question tool

My school signed up to I AM lEARNING a couple of months ago and it seems to be a successful learning tool with many features that keep students engaged and coming back. Mainly the GAMES FEATURES Students take part in exercises provided by I am learning or exercise questions that have ben created by their teacher. These can be multiple choice questions or they can be written questions where the use of key terms and phrases are incorporated into the I am learning answer box and so these have to be incorporated for students to get the question correct. The concept is simple. If a student gets a question right they get an allotted time to play a game. This might be 10-20 seconds. They then have to attempt another question in order to continue the game. If they get a question incorrect they still get to play a game but for half the time.

Unlike other online revision question programs like SAM LEARNING students can click back on the browser to go back or find the right answers out and then know the sequence and what to press to get the answers right and so not take any learning in as I am learning mixes the questions up and the play element makes the students try. Also it will log that students are trying to do this and so a teacher can see how many questions a student has attempted what they got wrong etc and can then work on individual learning plans for students to inform their planning to see if a certain question is a class issue or whether it is an isolated incident that needs independent action.

Pupils sign in and they see the following screen:

This is their homepage when they log in. From this you can see many roll over with a mouse features.

A paint can - Decorate their study homepage

An ipod - student podcasts

A photo frame - allows students to edit their personal details and edit their avatar

A head statue - where students work on their skills and add details where they have demonstrated certain PLTs they can even upload work to prove this.

Bar graph blocks - were students check their progress and performances through the exercises.

A snow globe - to input targets and check them to see how the student is working towards it.

Exam Paper - try real exam papers to see how the student is progressing.

Books - Guides on how to get most out of I AM LEARNING and revision.

Phone - To contact their teacher if they have a query or to get messages from teacher that work has been set.

Computer Screen - Take an exercise

Clock - How long the student has spent on I AM lEARNING revising.

Champions League - Compare how they are doing to other I AM LEARNING students around the country.

Picture with finger pointing - A teacher survey that students have to complete.

VAK vacuum - Complete a how they learn survey to find out what type of learning they are strongest at and what areas need learning help / persistence.

Calendar - What homeworks / tasks have been set by a teacher?

What the I AM lEARNING screen looks like to a teacher with twitter feed (note my twitter feed at the top:)

This allows you to check who has taken the exercises that you have set, how they have done, progress of that classes, year groups, individual students, how the student is getting on in other subjects, allows you to check the students PLTs progress to the student, Who has completed the homeworks, if you have a message from a student who may be having trouble, allows you to create a survey, create an exercise, allocate homework - For this you can use the I AM lEARNING created exercises, your own or exercises that other teachers have created and you can search for subject and key areas of study for specific examples if any have been created that you can set your students.

This is what the questions look like from a Rivers Management exercise I have created. SEARCH FOR IT AND HAVE A GO!