Schelderwald-Schule Oberscheld, Germany: Our first-year experience with mozaBook

Partner school report

In our first year of using mozaBook, two of our classrooms were equipped with digital blackboards. Two of our teachers worked with it extensively, while many others were educated on how to use it and were able to try it out for themselves.

Overall, our experience with mozaBook has been very positive. The interface is intuitive, the functions are useful and it enhances teaching with a digital blackboard in many ways.

We especially appreciate and work with the following features:

• The basic blackboard features with different pens, rulers, etc: The basic blackboard is very functional. It allows for dynamic teaching within the classroom. The fading pen is especially appreciated among our colleagues, along with the different writing backgrounds and fonts for primary schools.

• Our favorites are the 3D-models. The selection is large and suited for primary school topics. The functions work well. The children are mesmerized by the models which retain their attention very well. They gained a better understanding of the different topics and were more engaged during the lessons we worked with the 3D-models.

• We appreciate the direct internet pathways that allow for videos and images to be inserted into presentations.

• We are able to use many of the videos provided by mozaBook. Much like the 3D- models, they provide the students with a fuller understanding of the matter while retaining and increasing their interest.

• Since German school book publishers aren’t cooperating with mozaBook as of yet, the option to import PDFs has been especially useful.

In our first year of using the mozaBook software, we have found a few aspects we would like to mention for constructive feedback:

• We are in the process of buying tablets for our classrooms. This will allow us to involve children more in the lesson and have an interactive environment. As we started to work with different test exercise types (matching, gap filling) we realized that we cannot engage the whole class at once without student devices, but they work perfectly as homework assignments and grading, feedback management is also easy to use. Right now we use mozaBook exclusively on the blackboard and when we do one of the exercises in class, just one or two kids can do the exercise. 

• We would appreciate closer cooperation with German school book publishers, which would make our work much easier and expand our possibilities in the classroom. 

Overall, our experience in working with mozaBook has been very positive and we hope to

continue to work together in using and advancing the program. We appreciate the webinars that continue to educate us on the features of the platform as well as the improvements of the Media library and enjoy learning more about them. We also appreciate the access to mozaBook that we received when attending one of the teacher-webinars and are gladly continuing to use mozaBook in our classrooms.

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We are proud to present this short article that was written by Glenn Carter who is a teacher at Ingleby Mill Primary School in the United Kingdom. The school is one of our partner institutions, which means that they are using our solutions actively in education, therefore they have first-hand experience regarding their real-life application. Please welcome her short report.

We have been using mozaBook for around two years now at Ingleby Mill Primary School and have found it to be an exciting, engaging and useful piece of software. The staff have access to it in all classrooms with an interactive whiteboard which makes many of the features in mozaBook even more useful.

One of the elements that we have enjoyed in particular are the Tools and Games which engage the children tremendously. The variety of tools across a range of different subjects means that there is usually something for every lesson. The interactive and customisable Board Games are fantastic at helping the children to remember key concepts and knowledge in a fun and exciting manner. The fact that you can add in your own questions and pictures, along with a variety of different question types, means that we can tailor the content to suit our own topics.

The MiniMap is another favourite tool as it allows us to highlight key geographical concepts whilst making the experience interactive. Adding our own quizzes and labels onto maps that can then be saved and reopened is a huge timesaver that allows us to easily revisit content to consolidate it.

We also love using Mozaik’s 3D scenes to help bring a lot of our curriculum to life. Using these for history, geography and science means that many difficult or abstract concepts are made concrete and clear. The ability to rotate the scenes and hide or show labels means that we have control over how we use them. We have integrated a lot of these scenes into our planning right across school, from KS1 to KS2, meaning that the entire school has access to them.mozaBook has become the fundamental piece of software in my own teaching and for many others across school as the volume of content, interactivity and accessibility make it an essential part of mine and many other teachers’ classrooms in school.

Throughout our current topic on Ancient Egypt, I have used Mozaik3D in most lessons to try to engage the children and bring the ancient world to life. For me, this has been, by far, the greatest resource during this topic for multiple reasons:

• The range of 3D scenes has covered most lessons
• The detail within them has captivated the children

The discussions we’ve had as a class from them have helped the children to see just how significant the Ancient Egyptians were as a society.

After our first lesson on the Earliest Civilisations, we then moved onto the Egyptians, their timeline and their place on the world timeline. We used the ‘Legendary Ancient Empires’ scene to ascertain that Egypt’s history was more than just itself, but that of other empires too who had conquered it, helping the children to realise that there may have been significant changes throughout these thousands of years depending on who had invaded and what kinds of culture they had brought.

The next lesson focused on Ancient Egyptian achievements and we of course had to look at the pyramids! We started off by looking at the ‘Pyramid of Djoser’ to see how the first Egyptian pyramids were built. We then compared these to the Pyramids of Giza and identified the size, structures, purposes and general wonderment of them. This helped them establish what an incredible achievement these structures were for people who lived thousands of years ago. We also looked at the ‘Rosetta Stone’ to investigate Egyptian hieroglyphics and understand how exactly we came to unlock the secrets of Ancient Egypt. The ability to zoom in on the stone and the reimagining of the entire piece helped the children to understand how significant this artefact was in understanding Egypt’s history.

Following on from this, we looked at a typical Ancient Egyptian settlement, guiding us through their positions along the Nile, the types of layouts that might have been found, the materials used and various other features that provided interesting comparisons with today, such as wells and border walls. This then led us into a somewhat typical Egyptian house where we could explore the functions of different rooms and identify the similarities and differences of Egyptian homes with those of previously studied civilisations and those of today. This really helped the children to understand the different lifestyles that people in the past may have had and the reasons behind these.

A few days later, we had finished some of our English a little sooner than anticipated, so we looked at an Egyptian sailing boat to understand one of the most important means of transport that they had. We studied the Eye of Horus on the sail and what that meant, the construction of it and the potential lack of wood to build with, the adornments at the front and back and the type of person that this particular boat may have belonged to. This helped the children to see how significant boats were in everyday life and the skill that the Egyptians had to make them.

Next, we moved onto Egyptian society. By studying the various levels that made up Ancient Egyptian society, we began to understand how different aspects of life seemed to be more important than others in their world. We looked at an Egyptian pharaoh to see what they might look like and looked for clues that showed their power and status. We then looked at typical Egyptian clothing to identify what poorer and richer people may have worn, including jewellery and perfume. This enabled us to develop discussions about the differences between clothes back then and now and why many people wore very little clothing. Although the role of the 3D scenes in this lesson was fairly minimal, it was certainly more interesting than just looking at a picture. 

The following lesson was a massive hit due to the 3D scene!

We started to look at Ancient Egyptian religion and began focusing on their gods and goddesses to understand the nature of their religion. Using the ‘Ancient Egyptian Deities’ scene, we spent a good 30-40mins just watching each deity pop out of the wall and discuss their form, gender, appearance, what they represented and even discussed them carrying the ankh (the Egyptian symbol of life) except for Anubis who was god of the underworld, so therefore didn’t need one. The children were mesmerised and we could have continued with this for longer, but we needed to compare their gods with Roman ones to see how they differed and whether their religions changed. The 3D scene created an immense hook that had the children excited to explore more and produce detailed work that showed that they understood not just which gods and goddess they had, but the nature of the religion and its impact on daily life.

At the end of the half-term, I wanted to do an art project as I knew the children were flagging (as was I!) so we collaboratively painted a picture of Tutankhamun’s death mask in the style of Chuck Close. Before we painted though, we used the ‘Tutankhamun’s Tomb’ scene to investigate the Valley of the Kings, the tomb itself, the sarcophagus and the mummy, as well as the death mask. The children were enthralled by this and were amazed to see how many layers there were to his sarcophagus. We also used the scene to investigate the different elements of his face mask to understand why they adorned it in such a way, which helped them understand the significance of finding an artefact such as this.

The next lesson was all about mummification and the afterlife, but unfortunately there weren’t any scenes linked directly to it. What we DID use afterwards though was the scene of the ‘Temples of Abu Simbel’  which absolutely blew the children’s minds! Through this, we investigated how this magnificent site was constructed by carving into the rock, the role that it played in intimidating Ramses II’s enemies and positioning him amongst the gods plus the sheer scale of it.

Finally, we looked at the role of food and the importance of the Nile in giving life to Ancient Egypt. To do this, I used the ‘Ancient agriculture in the Nile Valley’ scene to show the flooding of the Nile, the deposit left over, the irrigation systems installed and the use of the shaduf to move water from one place to another. This visual representation was essential in allowing the children to see how advanced the Egyptians really were when it came to agriculture and how fundamental the Nile was in allowing the Ancient Egyptians to thrive as a civilisation. 

Without Mozaik3D though, I really would have struggled to have brought all of these lessons, concepts and history to life, all of which stopping the children from truly understanding the significance of Ancient Egypt.

Our esteemed partner school, Mittelpunktgrundschule and Mozaik has come to an important milestone in their cooperation, it has been three years that we work together. During this period this institution had the opportunity to experience the full-on potential of mozaLearn, our digital education system. Their experience showed us that the complexity of our product doesn’t represent any difficulty, after a short period of familiarization the staff was able to use it smoothly. We are proud of the fact that they had little to no technical issues, or in the event of the occurrence of an inconvenience our team has provided the necessary support rapidly and effectively.

Mozaik always underlines the importance of its educational background, that helps the company in the creation of an efficient, easy-to use and didactically-methodologically adequate product. We were delighted to see that our partner school expressed its satisfaction regarding this unique aspect of mozaLearn that is unparalleled on the market. With the intuitive and visually appealing user interface even the colleagues with less experience in technology could have an entertaining learning process.

The features of mozaBook came in so handy for them that they slowly became part of everyday life. The cloud based nature of the product allowed the teachers to create content from the comfort of their homes, and later use that in any classroom that has the required infrastructure, or even to pass it on to their colleagues. The integrated browser and the preexisting database transforms mozaBook into an all-in-one solution for them. Based on their feedback, mozaBook is now an integrated part of every subject, even social and religious studies.

During the pandemic mozaBook’s video recorder gained significant importance for the teachers, because with the help of it, they were able to create and send video lessons to their pupils.

Mozaik’s mozaLearn system now represents such a high value for Mittelpunktgrundschule that they offered to volunteer to demonstrate the use of mozaBook in actual real life circumstances.

To find more information about our esteemed partner school, have a look at their website. http://www.mittelpunktgrundschule-haiger.de/ 

You might remember our lovely partner school from Haiger, Germany as last semester they were kind enough to write a short summary of their experiences of using our digital solutions. In October 2018 we had the chance to meet their media team in Frankfurt at the annual Buchmesse and conduct a quick interview about how things are going in the school, how kids are doing, and you know, about mozaBook itself.

Do you feel you were able to successfully integrate mozaBook into your daily lessons?

Absolutely. Following our visit to the Mozaik training center in Szeged, Hungary, we gradually integrated many functions into our everyday lessons. We’ve held short internal training sessions so more and more teachers were able to start working with mozaBook. Currently, almost every teacher has access to the program so we can cooperate with each other within the institution.

We use the mozaBook software for various subjects, but most of our experiences come from traditional subjects, such as German, Mathematics, History/Social Studies, or “Sachunterricht” (Sachunterricht in German primary schools covers Biology, History, Physics, Geography, Chemistry).

What’s more, mozaBook is frequently used for teaching small groups of dyslexic students who have difficulties in reading and writing, and in groups of students who need additional support in Mathematics.

In your experience, has mozaBook cut or increased the preparation time for your lessons?

Based on our experience, every new software, textbook or program needs a little bit more time. As a result, the daily preparation was more time-consuming in the beginning, but once our teachers got familiar with the program and gained some experience, their preparation time was greatly reduced.

The illustration and presentation features are especially time-saving. For example, preparing overhead slides is not necessary anymore, plus we don't have to cut or laminate flashcards, and spend hours with searching for images online.

Overall, the use of new or lesser-known functions require more time, but mozaBook helps teachers in other areas. The workflow has changed in the sense that we spend more time on the computer, but less time with other preparation activities.

Do you find mozaBook easy to use?

Our teachers, who had the chance to attend a training in Hungary, find the basic operation of the software self-explanatory and intuitive. Naturally, there are always questions about certain functions and these questions require some further explanation, but the built-in video tutorials are very helpful in these cases.

Overall, in what ways has mozaBook made your work as a teacher easier? Can you demonstrate the topic of your lesson more easily with the help of the software?

Although we see some necessity to adapt more specific content for the primary school level, the demonstration of different topics is much easier with the Media library items. For primary school students, it is necessary to actively deal with the subject matter in order to get to the bottom of a new topic so using 3Ds and videos is a very appealing way of approaching a subject. This way the initial demonstration of the topic is much easier and more effective.

Do you find pupils are more interested in the subject of your lessons since you have been using mozaBook? How often do they work at the board in class?

Students like the visual appearance of the software, for sure. As they work with mozaBook in class, they can quickly learn how to use simple functions and they find it particularly easy to use different pens, colours, and erasers. Solving exercises and practicing with the Test editor are also quick and easy for them, and you can tell how much they enjoy working on the board with mozaBook by the high level of participation in exercises. The frequency of active use of the software varies, of course, as it depends on the structure of the lesson and the learning objective.

"Since we have been working with mozaBook in class, it is easier to keep the attention and focus of the kids. Through the interactive features, students are more directly involved in the teaching process."

Frontal teaching phases have become more attractive, however, the main deciding factor for the motivated cooperation of pupils remained the teacher, and the student-teacher relationship.

Just for fun, could you please name your three favourite features in mozaBook?

Huh, that’s a tough one. Importing PDF documents into the software is certainly a great feature. Once the PDF is imported, we can display, edit and segment the document so quality print materials and new materials can be also used in mozaBook. It’s also great that we can access the Internet within the software so online content can be also quickly integrated into our lessons.

Another popular feature is using images from the Media library and placing them into an exercise book [presentation]. The Test Editor is another great tool to create interactive exercises for students to prepare for tests, but pencils are also very popular as well as the colour palette which is very often used during class.

What is your general impression of mozaBook?

mozaBook is definitely a software we love to use in class. During the process of equipping our primary school with interactive whiteboards, we came across other solutions as well, but none of them convinced us as much as mozaBook. The possibility to present all types of content within one software is simply amazing and makes our everyday work much easier. In future, we would like to further and expand our work by cooperating with German publishers.

(Approximately, 350 pupils attend the Mittelpunkt Elementary School of Haiger and 34 teachers work part-time or full-time at the school. In 2017/18 mozaBook was installed on six interactive whiteboards in six different classrooms, while this year (2018 / 2019) another five classrooms were equipped with an ActivPanel)

King Stephen Báthory Primary School No. 5 in Łodz has been using the mozaBook software since August 31, 2017. After signing the Partner School Agreement to officially establish our partnership, gradually all 32 teachers and all the students registered their user accounts and were granted access to the mozaBook software and the mozaWeb platform. The software is installed on all interactive boards in the school and after a year of using these tools in our everyday work, we can definitely confirm that mozaLearn offers an integrated learning environment and provide our teachers of all subjects with various educational tools such as videos, animations, and 3D models.

An informal group of authentic enthusiasts of the new software has formed who use mozaBook every day in their work. Thanks to them, the school is perceived as an institution applying innovative teaching methods and promoting the use of ICT tools in public education.

Here are the teachers' reflections on the use of the mozaBook software.

1.) mozaBook in Biology and  Science lessons - Katarzyna Kopczyńska - teacher of Biology and Nature

"The mozaBook world is my world now. I have been using its educational resources for about a year, during which I have become the school leader and coordinator regarding the use of mozaBook in our institution. I train teachers, I advise others and I am also learning a lot in the meantime."

"In Science classes we most often use 3D models that help us explore the secrets of anatomy or we show students videos illustrating a given phenomenon. A biologist shall greatly appreciate Microscope tool which  contains a collection of images invisible to the naked eye that can be further enlarged with a slider according to the teacher's needs. LabCamera – the webcam-based laboratory of natural sciences is another real treat for the teachers who are responsible for all above mentioned Science subjects.

With the help of mozaBook, homework management has become a lot easier as we can assign exercises to selected students, classes and groups. After checking the homework online, students receive feedback in the form of an evaluation. Online homework is very attractive for a student who can use the Internet, and not only learn by traditional methods using a textbook or an exercise book. Students themselves ask for homework, due to its attractive form, created with the Test Editor. Thus, a test placed in the teacher's exercise book can become homework assigned to our students online."

2.) mozaBook in Polish, History, Art and Music classes -Anna Kułak-Kułakowska, Polish teacher

"Learning is not boring anymore, it becomes fun. C’mon, it is the 21st century and teachers should not only keep up with their students, they should be ahead of them!"

"I am a Polish teacher. When preparing my lessons with mozaBook, I make use of resources from the Media library. Unfortunately, there are not many typical tasks, exercises, or resources aimed at teaching Polish; so my strategy is to make use of the resources designed for teaching History, Arts, Geography or Music. Thanks to the 3D models, now my lessons about ancient Greece, ancient theater or mythology are actually interesting for students. We can visit the ancient Acropolis, take a virtual walk, take a look at each temple from all sides, read or listen to the most important information about each object and finally solve some exercises to test the acquired knowledge.

A rich gallery of photos helped me create a lesson on the architecture and art. The 3D animation covering the Greek architectural orders was extremely interesting for children who have not come across this type of architecture so far.

I also use the miniMap tool very often, for example in a lesson about the spelling of geographical names. Grammar becomes more interesting if we can see where a given country, continent or city is located on a map. I would also like to dedicate a paragraph to the demonstration tools (eg. Clocks, Calendar, the Scale tool) : there is, for instance, a Musical instruments tool with which students not only visualize different musical instruments, but also listen to them. I use often the Time machine as well – the tool that takes us back in time to present us people and important historical events in chronological order and show these in relation to important events from both science and history.

Furthermore, mozaBook allows me to pin various items of content to my exercise books, such as short excerpts of text and documentary, or animated films. With mozaBook I can use short, well-animated, funny films from the Media library to enrich my lesson and make it even more interesting while discussing Greek myths."

3.) mozaBook in English language classes - Małgorzata Pawełczyk - English and Early School Education teacher

"If you want to change your routine activities and try something new and innovative, give mozaBook a shot. A good lesson is interesting and the more varied tasks, the more information the students need to search and process, the better the results will be."

"mozaBook gives the teacher the opportunity to move away from typical textbook exercises. In my everyday school practice, I use short videos from various fields, audio recordings, 3D models with ready-made quizzes, and language games in my English lessons. I use the rich mozaBoook gallery of images, famous historical figures, avatars, pictures and word cards for a successful vocabulary practice. I often use Puzzle, Lan(g)ame or Word finder as well.

These tasks make learning more attractive and help students to master their vocabulary and grammar. In addition, they bring dynamism to the lesson and increase the involvement of my students."

4.) mozaBook in grades 1 - 3 (Early Childhood Education in Poland) – Anna Aleksandrzak – Early Childhood Education teacher

"At first glance, the materials available in mozaBook may seem a bit difficult or too ”serious” for small children. This could not be farther from the truth. My pupils ask me every day when we are going to do something in mozaBook! They adore 3D presentations, like the rotated African elephant model which also appealed to kindergarten children visiting our school as part of the Preschooler's Academy. Kids were delighted at the opportunity to look at the "stomach" of the elephant, commented on the size of the heart and brain and so on." 

"Personally, I adhere to the principle that it is better to show more, speak more, do as much as possible rather than not using some content because 'you will learn about this in more detail later on'. Therefore, I use all the materials available on the platform and in the software."

"At the beginning of the first educational stage, a set of ready-made tools built-in mozaBook works perfectly well. Children use their finger or a marker to practice how to write letters and this is definitely more attractive than a pencil and notebook which they use at home.

The software offers many simple, but powerful tools for Mathematics as well, which is great because these games can deepen the children’s knowledge of ceratin topics (Chess, Othello, Connect 4 , Tangram).

The tools can diversify our everyday school activities as well. Group work can be summarized thanks to the Evaluation table in which we can write down the teams' achievements. When we're approaching the end of the lesson – well, sometimes we just play with games, like 3D puzzles or building blocks.

mozaBook offers a full range of didactic games – and most of them have a regulated level of difficulty. A popular choice is Number Hero, for instance – the game is based on the well-known arcade game, in which children have to make calculations to overcome obstacles.The software works well during classes for children with special needs, both in the classroom during school time and in afterschool common room sessions. You could argue that it's all somewhere out there on the Internet - yes, but what to look for?! In mozaBook everything is in one place, right at your fingertips."