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AppventEdTechResources

On Day 6 of #Appvent22 I’m very pleased to share the brilliant @nowpressplay

By December 6, 2022No Comments

It gives me great delight to share now>press>play as today’s entry on the Appvent Calendar. 

As you’ll know if you’re a regular reader of my work or sharing on social media, my view is that technology provides the opportunity to improve many things but it can also improve absolutely nothing, the difference is what you use and how you choose to use it. What I’ve always called the ‘Bananarama Principle’. 

It ain’t (so much) what you do, it’s the way that you do it, and that’s what gets result

now>press>play is an award-winning immersive audio resource, which engages primary school children in the curriculum through sound, story and movement. Don’t just take my word for it. The quality of their offer was recently highlighted in this product impact report. As you’ll see it scores really well in lots of interesting markers:

  • 92% shared how now>press>play enriches the curriculum
  • 69% shared that now>press>play inspires quality writing
  • 66% shared that now>press>play helps pupils retain key facts and their vocabulary
  • 70% shared how now>press>play particularly helps learners of lower abilities

As we all (should) know, successful edtech adoption is all about the implementation; not just providing the right training and support with technology, but also the right infrastructure, onboarding, ongoing support and access to resources along the way. 

Buying technology in education shouldn’t be like buying something from Amazon where you have a transactional engagement. It is very much in the interests of the edtech provider, and the schools to which they sell, for the purchase and subsequent use of a product to be a success. 

To help with that, since I last shared about now>press>play, they’ve gone even further to reinforce their offer with additional curriculum resources to further improve oracy, writing, knowledge and engagement, right across the primary age curriculum.

What else is new? 

The team at now>press>play have created new follow-on resources which are all available for teachers to email themselves in a few taps or access via their app. 

With these follow-on resources you’re provided with discussion points relating to one of their four teaching themes: 

  • Visual observation
  • Story & curricular facts
  • Debate & critical thinking
  • Social & emotional learning

…Including pre-prepared quizzes to help you check learning and understanding, not just in the lesson you’re teaching but in subsequent lessons too. This means teachers can be sure that every now>press>play lesson provides a quality level of in-depth learning for your whole class.

“One of the best ways to widen the vocabulary of early years children is through linking to their lived experience and their play. With our EYFS Word Mats, pupils are able to further embed the vocabulary they’ve already heard in the audio-based now>press>play Experiences by linking them to a visual aid. This is especially useful for those children whose language is still developing.

Whether you use the Word Mats before, during, or after an Experience, they provide a striking visual aid for teaching early years vocabulary. They are easily accessible through the now>press>play app, and can also be printed out as classroom posters or stick-in sheets for children’s textbooks.”

“In this resource, students are tested with SATs-style questions linked to every part of the KS2 grammar and punctuation curriculum — all based upon the learning from their now>press>play Experience.

Questions include:

  • Word class
  • Capital letters
  • Functions of sentences
  • Punctuation
  • Apostrophes
  • Synonyms and antonyms
  • Tense
  • Passive and active voice
  • Verb forms
  • Clauses
  • Prefixes and suffixes
  • And more…”

The reading comprehension questions cover lots of different SATs style reading question types such as: 

  • Word meaning
  • Retrieval
  • Summarising
  • Inference
  • Prediction
  • Choice of words to enhance meaning
  • Comparison

What sort of coverage is there? 

The activities are completely controllable by the teacher and give learners deep immersive experiences that transport them through audio into different learning activities across a wide range of topics. Here’s some of the coverage for LKS2 (Years 3-4):

 

As you can see on their roadmap of new activities for the 22/23 academic year, there’s plenty more in the pipeline to go along with the many that are already in place: 

To learn more about now>press>play and how it can help you in the classroom, please visit their website or why not follow them on social media to further engage with their content. 

 


// Today’s entry is a sponsored post

Mark Anderson

Mark Anderson, @ICTEvangelist. Click here to learn more.

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