Learning Package

Part A

Introduction

The topic that will be focused on in this learning package is narrative writing at a year 4 curriculum level. A total of ten resources will be analysed based on
the criteria table shown below with a brief explanation on their suitability and relevance to the topic of focus. The criteria in this table has been carefully
selected based on research in regards to important criteria for evaluation, and will be the guidelines to finding creditable and relevant resources.

Criteria of resources
Authority Purpose Accuracy Nature Coverage Relevance Currency Objectivity Usability Audience
of the
content
R1 ✓ ✓ ✓ ✓ ✓ ✓ ✓ ✓ ✓ ✓
R2 ✓ ✓ ✓ ✓ ✓ ✓ ✓ ✓
R3 ✓ ✓ ✓ ✓ ✓ ✓ ✓ ✓ ✓ ✓
R4 ✓ ✓ ✓ ✓ ✓ ✓ ✓ ✓ ✓
R5 ✓ ✓ ✓ ✓ ✓ ✓ ✓ ✓ ✓ ✓
R6 ✓ ✓ ✓ ✓ ✓ ✓ ✓ ✓ ✓ ✓
R7 ✓ ✓ ✓ ✓ ✓ ✓
R8 ✓ ✓ ✓ ✓ ✓ ✓ ✓ ✓ ✓ ✓
R9 ✓ ✓ ✓ ✓ ✓ ✓
R10 ✓ ✓ ✓ ✓ ✓ ✓ ✓ ✓ ✓ ✓

Table 1

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Tayla Toohey
Student ID: 110198911
Tutor: Alan Barnes
 Learning Package

Evaluating resources

Resource 1 (Education Services Australia 2013) is a suitable learning tool on narrative writing for a year 4 class as it is a learning game that outlines the basic
structure of a narrative, and investigates how the proper use of verbs and adverbs can help to create a more interesting story. This resource also works as a
fun test for students as it marks how well the children do with editing a narrative piece by changing the verbs and nouns, this can be used by teachers when
evaluating students, and can be fun way to introduce a narrative writing unit.

Resource 2 (WritingPrompts.net 2012) is a suitable teaching tool on narrative writing in a year 4 class as it helps teachers with a list of prompts for children
in regards to narrative writing. Teachers can use these prompts to get more out of their students and help students engage in the topic in different ways.
These can prompt a child to write a narrative, to relook something they have wrote, to create a conflict and solution, to help with creating characters and to
overall just make the students think more about their work and what they could do to make it better.

Resource 3 (Ferrari 2015) is a suitable teaching tool on narrative writing in a year 4 class as it is a unit modelled from the year 4 Australian Curriculum that
has been created and implemented at Alice Springs School of the Air. This unit explains how to introduce narrative writing to year 4 students through
exploring other narrative pieces and then analysing these pieces until students get an idea of what aspects makes a narrative. This then leading to students
writing their own narratives and presenting them to their teacher and peers. This is a very useful teaching tool for teachers that can easily be implemented
into a year 4 classroom.

Resource 4 (Tes 2012) is a suitable learning tool on narrative writing in a year 4 class as it is a narrative checklist created for year 4 students. The checklist
covers the basic criteria of a narrative that needs to be checked over by students once they have finished creating their narratives or by a peer. This can be
used for self-assessment, peer assessment or as a prompting tool. When being used as a prompting tool a student can go back and include the criteria that
has not been checked off on the checklist.

Resource 5 (Australian Curriculum 2015) is a suitable teaching tool on narrative writing for a teacher in a year 4 class as it is the criteria the teacher must
base all lessons off for the year level. These criteria help teachers to plan lessons on narrative writing whilst ensuring they are implementing the proper
curriculum. Since narrative writing fits under many criteria of the Australian Curriculum almost anything involving narrative writing is likely to hit at least
most of the bands.

Resource 6 (Education Services Australia 2013) is a suitable learning tool on narrative writing in a year 4 class as it is an educational game that explores and
teaches students the importance of verbs and adjectives in narrative writing. This game shows year 4 students how to use verbs and adjectives effectively in
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Tayla Toohey
Student ID: 110198911
Tutor: Alan Barnes
 Learning Package

a narrative piece to create higher quality narrative writing. The game also explains the importance of illustrations matching the story line and how they can
help to create a more intense and immersive narrative.

Resource 7 (Utah Education Network 2005) is a suitable teaching tool on narrative writing for a teacher in a year 4 class as it provides and explains a unit
based on narrative writing for the fourth grade. This website explains in depth how to introduce narrative writing to the class and the steps to take towards
getting the students to produce their own narrative writing based on a personal experience. This unit is incredibly useful for year 4 teachers as it can be
implemented into their classroom or be the base for a new narrative unit for a classroom.

Resource 8 (Education Services Australia 2013) is a suitable learning tool on narrative writing in a year 4 class as it is a learning game that facilitates with
narrative writing. This game can be easily implemented into a year 4 class room as a fun alternative to exploring the aspects of narrative writing. This game
teaches students how to effectively use nouns and adjectives to add drama and suspense to a storyline. This explains that by using a variety of words you
can clearly portray emotion and suspense into the audience, therefore creating a more effective narrative.

Resource 9 (Dera 2003) is a suitable teaching tool on narrative writing for a teacher in a year 4 class as it gives a detailed example of a narrative writing unit
for year 4 students. Teachers can use this example unit to construct their own unit on narrative writing or they can just simply adapt it to their classroom
structure. This example is helpful as it goes in depth about framework objectives throughout the years’ worth of narrative learning and includes templates
and sheets that can be handed out to student’s in when introducing each new aspect or narrative writing.

Resource 10 (Education Services Australia 2013) is a suitable learning tool on narrative writing in a year 4 class as it is an interactive game that allows
students to edit a narrative to try and make in more engaging and exciting. They are to do this by changing adjectives, verbs, linking sentences and
illustrations in the beginning, middle and end of the narrative. This is a fun alternative to teaching narrative structure that also gives students an
understanding on what aspects make a good engaging narrative piece.

Conclusion

These are suitable resources that can effectively be used in a year 4 classroom when teaching narrative writing. These resources can be used by students as
a more interactive alternative to teaching narrative writing, this helping to keep students engaged and overall being a more effective way to teach students.
These resources can also be used as tools for teachers when planning lessons and units on narrative writing as they give in depth explanations and
procedures on how to introduce the unit to students, what components of narrative writing need to be covered throughout the unit and how these
components can be covered through activities and worksheets.

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Tayla Toohey
Student ID: 110198911
Tutor: Alan Barnes
 Learning Package

Part B

Introduction

Many ICT’s can be used to facilitate the learning of primary school students and function as teaching tools for teachers in schools. This learning package will
look at three of the many ICT’s that can be used for this purpose, these ICT’S being Microsoft Word PowerPoint and Popplet. This learning package will be
exploring how those ICT’s can be implemented as learning and teaching tools reflecting on relevant ICT learning theories.

Microsoft Word

Microsoft word is a computer program that is already used throughout most years of schooling. This computer program allows for its users to access
templates of many different genres of texts that can be used for a variety of reasons, for example you could access the templates of letters, birthday cards,
brochures and many more. Microsoft word also has many functions that allow its users to adjust page sizes, page orientations, fonts, font colours, font size,
insert pictures, create tables and charts, create graphs, write comments, track changes, insert references, create bibliographies and reference lists, change
spacing between lines, insert header and footers, change page design and much more.

Microsoft Word has a major impact on primary school learning as it allows students to access a wide range of tools that assist with writing all from one
program. If a student was to decide to write a narrative using the Microsoft Word program they could use the table function to start planning their
storylines, characters, conflicts, solutions and scenes they would include. They could then begin writing their narrative using their choice of font, font colour
and font size and add visual representations by adding images into the text, this helps make the narrative me immersive. When typing their narrative
Microsoft word will automatically pick up and spelling or grammatical errors, this can help students in the editing process as it will help identify any issues in
the text and provide a solution. If students wanted to go even further with their narrative by implementing a variety of words, Microsoft word has a
synonyms function that assists with finding new words that may be more effective than the word already there. This helps students create a higher quality
of narrative and also exposes them to a wider range of words that can help increase their vocabulary. Microsoft Word can also be used to facilitate teachers
with planning lessons and presenting unit topics. Teachers can create task sheets and rubrics on Microsoft Word that can be given to students for
assignments and activities. Microsoft Word also has templates that can be used for writing letters for parents, presenting student grades, presenting
student report cards and writing important notices. Taylor (1980, pp.1-10) argues the importance of seeing ICT’s in one of three ways, as a tutor, a tutee or
a tool. Microsoft Word acts as all of these things in many ways, for instance it teaches students new words as a tutor, it can learn new words as a tutee and
can be used as a learning and teaching tool as explained above.

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Tayla Toohey
Student ID: 110198911
Tutor: Alan Barnes
 Learning Package

PowerPoint

PowerPoint is computer program that is used frequently in primary schools. This program allows students to present data and information that they have
collected to their teachers or to their peers. This program can also be used by teachers to present lessons to students or introduce a new units of learning.
PowerPoint has many features that allow for creative presentations that can be used for all occasions, these features include transitions between slides,
different designs, animations, charts, font types, font colours, font size, word art, tables, shapes and many other functions.

PowerPoint has had a positive impact on both learning and teaching in primary schools as it has given student new ways to present their work as a
multimedia. The idea that students could create presentations electronically on computer has facilitated student learning majorly, students are now able
present their presentations on smart boards and projectors leading to more ways to display their research. If a group of students decided to measure
everybody in the classroom creating a graph out of their data, using PowerPoint they can now present this data as multimedia to their class allowing the
students to visually see the data and read it. Teacher can also take advantage of PowerPoint by constructing presentations introducing new topics and
concepts to the class and because PowerPoint allows for both images and text, teachers can cater to both visual as well as auditory leaners due by using
multimodal presentations. PowerPoint can help to develop higher order thinking skills as creating a presentation involves many skills of the six levels of
Bloom’s Taxonomy as described by Mardigian (2011) to be “knowledge/remembering, understanding, application, analysing, evaluating and
synthesis/creating”.

Popplet

Popplet is a computer program that allows its users to create mind maps using images and texts. This can be used as a learning tool by students for planning
narratives, assignments, essays and many other things. This program allows for students to map out their thoughts using connecting bubbles, this assist
students with mapping out their thoughts and structuring the work based of the relevant bubbles they have placed. Teachers can also use this as a teaching
tool for classroom discussion as a way to unpack a topic or concept.

A student writing a narrative can create mind maps on Popplet when creating a story line, conflicts, solutions, settings and characters. If a student wants to
create a character they can start off with a bubble of the character’s name, they can connect a bubble for personality then further attach bubbles explaining
aspects of the character’s personality, they can also add another bubble connected to the character’s name and title it appearance then add pictures of
hair, shoes, clothes or etcetera to explain what the character will look like. When writing the narrative, the student can refer back to these mind maps to
ensure they are including a detailed character to their work. Whereas a teacher may put a bubble up with a concept for the class to discuss and as the class
begins unpacking the concept the teacher can continue adding bubbles to represent their understanding. Popplet is another example of Taylor (1980, p.1-

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Tayla Toohey
Student ID: 110198911
Tutor: Alan Barnes
 Learning Package

10) theory that computers can act as tools, tutors and tutees. In this case Popplet is acting as an education tool for the students to map out their ideas and
knowledge and organise them into a planning structure.

Conclusion

ICT’s are can facilitate learning by being used as learning tools for students and teaching tools for teachers. These ICT’s allow for more interactive and
engaging ways to learn the curriculum, and allow for easier ways for students to present their understanding and unpack new concepts. Their potential to
facilitate student learning is reflected in the theories of ICT learning environments and these ICT’s can be easily implemented into the classroom in a variety
of ways.

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Tayla Toohey
Student ID: 110198911
Tutor: Alan Barnes
 Learning Package

References

Education Services Australia 2013, Assessment super stories: verbs and adverbs, Scootle, viewed 30th May 2016,
<http://www.scootle.edu.au/ec/viewing/L8469/index.html>.

WritingPrompts.net 2012, 4th grade writing prompts, WritingPrompts.net, viewed 30th May 2016, < http://www.writingprompts.net/4th-grade/>.

Ferrari, A 2015, English term 1, Alice Springs School of the Air, Alice Springs.

Tes 2012, Narrative writing-year 4-checklist, Tes, viewed 28th May 2016, <https://www.tes.com/teaching-resource/narrative-writing-year-4-checklist-
6205289>.

Australian Curriculum 2015, Year 4 content description, Australian Curriculum and Assessment Reporting Authority, viewed 27th May,
<http://www.australiancurriculum.edu.au/english/curriculum/f-10?layout=1#level4>.

Education Services Australia 2013, Assessment super stories: the abandoned house: verbs and adjectives, Scootle, viewed 30th May 2016,
<http://www.scootle.edu.au/ec/viewing/L6184/index.html>.

Utah Education Network 2005, Fourth grade writing lesson #1/ narrative prompt, Utah Education Network, viewed 30th May 2016,
<http://www.uen.org/Lessonplan/preview.cgi?LPid=13899>.

Education Services Australia 2013, Assessment super stories: the sea cave: nouns and adjectives, Scootle, viewed 30th May 2016,
<http://www.scootle.edu.au/ec/viewing/L6186/index.html>.

Dera 2003, Narrative writing unit, Dera, viewed 28th May 2016, <http://dera.ioe.ac.uk/4825/5/nls_y6t1exunits075202narr1.pdf>.

Education Services Australia 2013, Finish the story: boat disaster, Scootle, viewed 30th May 2016,
<http://www.scootle.edu.au/ec/viewing/L1276/index.html>.

Taylor, R. P. 1980, The computer in school: Tutor, tool, tutee, Teachers College Press, New York

Mardigian, S. 2011, Guiding learners to using higher-order thinking skills, PRAXIS, n/a

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Tayla Toohey
Student ID: 110198911
Tutor: Alan Barnes
 Learning Package

Kent State University 2016, Criteria for evaluating web sources, Kent State University, viewed 30th May 2016, <http://www.library.kent.edu/criteria-
evaluating-web-resources>.

Warner Pacific College 2016, Evaluation of web sources, Warner Pacific College, viewed 26th May 2016, <http://warnerpacific.edu/wp-
content/uploads/2013/08/Evaluation-of-Websites-as-Sources.pdf>.

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Tayla Toohey
Student ID: 110198911
Tutor: Alan Barnes