Pencil Suites and Power Cuts

Day 24 of #28daysofwriting.  Almost over.  I am a little sad.  I know I will remain active on my blog, I love the habit too much now.  Maybe I’ll do #52weeksofwriting and write for 52 min once a week!

We celebrate new innovation.  The shiny new gadgets we have in the classroom…

I have a really great tool I would like to share.  Beautifully simple, it is accessible by all students, it is very intuitive, anyone can use it.  It requires no charging, which in a classroom environment is amazing.  It can help students to share their learning and develop their creativity.  Mistakes can be addressed really easily.  It is made of eco-friendly materials, and unlike tradition tech, it can be disposed of easily at the end of its life.  Everyone who isn’t using one needs to right now!

It’s a pencil…We don’t celebrate it, we don’t spout its benefits from the hilltops. We don't have Pencil Suites where teachers fight to try and get their class extra time on the school pencils. It gets the job done though.  Students use it when and how they need to share their learning.  So if we don’t celebrate the pencil why do we get all evangelical over the newest i-chrome-app-web-2.0-gadget?  Is it going to replace the teacher… I sure hope not because I like my job.

I am an avid supporter of tech in the classroom.  I think it is the vehicle for learning, an amazing tool that opens up learning possibilities for our students.  I know that I have blogged about useful web tools and apps and I have always tried to explain and justify their use in a classroom programme.  But apps and tools alone do nothing without some serious pedagogy behind what you do.

I was thinking today as @BridgeeNZ and I explained what we did with team teaching last year when we had too few devices.  I realised that underpinning everything we did were some core beliefs around learning.  

The Four C’s was one idea we tried to weave through our programmes.  Critical Thinking, Creativity, Communication and Collaboration.  To do this we made sure that what we were doing with tech to achieve these goals was reflected in the pen and paper work the students did.

We tried to make learning fun,  relevant.  We tried to make sure our learning tasks were scaffolded and allowed students to use multiple ways to share learning.  We excited the students about their learning.

The last few nights I have been blogging about how I am starting my Daily 5 journey.  I know that tech will enhance what I am doing, apps will be used and YouTube videos will be watched.  But none of these things replace me, the teacher.  If the power goes off, or the internet drops out, I will still be able to continue.  Because the pedagogy of what I am doing sits within the Daily 5 and best literacy practice.

I saw this great little image tweeted by Shawn Blankenship (@Blankenship_S) and it really reinforced that our conversations around tech should always come back and focus on the learning outcomes, not the tools themselves.

So if your school has a Pencil Suite or if you panic at the idea of having no devices tomorrow maybe you should rethink what is really important in what you are doing, what are the big ideas and pedagogy that would still be important without the devices and apps. And then be thankful we live in a time where these devices are available!

Thoughts on a Quality Literacy Programme

Day 22 of #28daysofwriting.  It is the home stretch and I am amazed how writing each day has just become part of ‘what I do’.   I hope you enjoy my post on ideas for changes to my literacy programme.

I did some reflecting last week on my literacy programme.  I had to think about the teacher aide time I had and how I would use that effectively.  I had to think about how the iPads that I am setting up will change the programme and today I was trying to plan.  It was a challenge.

With the basics, a bit of handwriting - focusing on letter formation families and then Phonics - a non negotiable at our school and then modelled writing or shared writing I feel like it doesn't leave a lot of time.  I am going to join my reading and writing blocks together and create Literacy - because reading and writing don’t happen in isolation.

The first half will have the must do’s in it.  Setting the class up to go and work independently.  Then in this second block I will see my reading groups.  I don’t know if I am going to be able to include a reading activity or response to text because it will chew into their writing time.

With my iPads I also want to have students using Poptropica as a reading game.  I will set the student with challenges based an adventure each week or two from the game.  These challenges will help me to double check their comprehension skills.  I also want them to use this game as a motivation for writing, and see each student keep an adventure journal.  The great thing about Poptropica is that it is based on spoken text so the students will naturally have a reason to learn and use speech punctuation.  

I have other reading and writing apps I want to try in writing though.  And I really want to look into Daily 5 for the class.  

So as you can see I have the bones of my new programme but I can't quite see how everything will fit.  Between using new ideas and practices in my literacy teaching and the change in year level which has caught me out a few times over the last few weeks.

I know I want a Literacy programme that allows student to use their literacy learning in fun and relevant ways.  I want them to be excited about learning.  I want technology to help engage and excite them (and hide the learning behind a whole lot of fun).  I want to cover those basics that are needed in a junior programme.  But I feel like I haven’t found the best way to use the time yet.  

Maybe this is an ongoing battle.  Maybe this is part of the problem of being a perfectionist.  I just want to do the best I can for these learners and it gets frustrating when I don't feel like I have it right.

Teaching can be a lonely job at times and often when we do talk we talk about snippets of our practice. We talk about big ideas.  But often we fail to talk about the connecting ideas like timetabling, transitioning and how we manage the whole literacy programme so that it builds and supports the planned learning.

So I am going to risk sounding stupid tonight and say I don’t know the right answer and I would love some help.  I’m also pretty sure that there are others out there too who would benefit from this kind of discussion as well.

So my challenge to all #28daysofwriting authors is to make one of your next few posts about the best practice you have seen in literacy and how it is tied together in a overall daily programme.  Lets also tag it in Twitter as #BestLitPrac and see how much we can learn from each other.

I hope you have enjoyed the post and I hope you join in the discussion for #bestlitprac so we can improve outcomes for all our students.

Setting Up My iPads - A Few Handy Tools

Welcome to day 19 of #28daysofwriting.  It is hard to believe there is only just over a week left.  I hope everyone who is taking part has been enjoying the process.

So after a busy couple of weeks I have finally pulled the iPads out and started to set them up.  iTunes isn’t my friend.  Maybe it is because I became best mates with Google and it is taking a bit of time to come to terms with the new technological garden I have to play in.

So I thought today I would write about some of the apps I will use.  This will not be an exhaustive list, or by any means the best list out there but it is my list and I will explain why I have chosen to use them.

Comic Life:

This great little app is really good as an all-in-one writing and publishing tool.  Students enjoy using it but it can be a bit fiddly to change some of the settings and to find many of the customisation options.  But for younger students, choosing a template and just going for it is a great way to help motivate writing and their own comics can be used as reading texts in independent reading time.

Storybird:

This is not so much an app as a web tool.  But it has been one of the most motivating and promising writing tools I have used.  It works well on the iPad and the fantastic artworks students can use as prompts in their stories mean they really want to write well.  Some of the highest quality pieces of writing students produced last year were while they used StoryBird.

Garageband:

This is a great creative programme.  Students get hands on experience with musical sounds and instruments that primary schools simply can’t afford.  Students can create soundtracks for their own films or they can use it to record themselves reading - and then make it hilarious by altering their voices.

iMovie:  I have written about this one before too.  It is a great way for students to share their learning.  They can make full length videos or use the trailer option which is a great way for students to learn about camera shot types.

Explain Everything:

This is a fantastic tool.  It can be used in a huge number of ways.  This tool allows you to add video or images and then add voice and annotations over the top of them.  This can be used to make videos for your class explaining a new concepts or students can use it to explain their own thinking.  I have even see new entrant teachers use it as a way to record how students are forming letters to help identify next steps.

Slide Maths:

These set of maths games a great for basic facts practice and recall.  It is especially good because up to four players can play on a single iPad.  This is fantastic for a class with limited numbers of iPads or when other iPads are needed for other tasks.

Poptropica:

This is an interesting one.  After visiting a few high performing schools and seeing them use minecraft as a motivational tool for writing I thought about whether or not this was the best tool.  I saw my young boy playing Poptropica and realised that it is a really good reading activity as students have to read the speech.  The I realised that using this tool to motivate writers encourages them to use spoken words in their writing, so exposing them to speech marks and other interesting punctuation.

Minecraft:  

This is one i'm going to have to sell pretty hard to get the money to buy it.  But Minecraft is a great tool for teaching students about geometry, area, volume and basic number skills.  It puts studen’s into a deep and engaging problem solving environment where they can explore many mathematical ideas in a practical way.

Some speech to text software:

This will be important for some of my struggling writers.  There are times where I need them to record ideas but it is not writing time and the quality of their ideas is more important than the writing component.  This is where this software helps break down any barriers to the students showing their learning.

I am out of time now.  I hope that my post give you some useful ideas that you can use and some insight into why and how I use them.  

This post relates to the following Registered Teacher Criteria:

4. demonstrate commitment to ongoing professional learning and development of personal professional practice

6. conceptualise, plan and implement an appropriate learning programme

7. promote a collaborative, inclusive and supportive learning environment

12. use critical inquiry and problem-solving effectively in their professional practice

11 Great Digital Tools for the Classroom

It’s day 7 of #28daysofwriting.  A week down, a quarter of the way through.  If this were a marathon the lactic acid would be starting to build up.  Today I thought I would just share some of the digital tools and apps I have used effectively.  I hope you find the list useful.

So here goes, here is a list of some of the best hardware, apps and web tools that I have used over the last few years.  They are in no particular order, just a random pile of thoughts and ideas that I can manage in 28 min at 9pm on a Saturday night!

1) Google Docs:  The go to simple document write in the GAFE (Google Apps for Education) set of tools.  Fantastic for work that doesn't need to look amazing.  It has a brilliant commenting system that can be used for students to collaborate on work and as the teacher you can and highlight sections that need review and attach your comment to the particular section of the work.

2) Google Slides:  Much more powerful than a slide show creator this is the place where you can create documents as you would in publisher or word with layers and directional text.  It takes a bit of getting used to and you have to remember the dimensions for A4 paper for the page setup but if you want to make something pretty in GAFE... use Slides.

3) Google Forms:  Great way to survey your class and community.  Can also be used to create quizzes.  From here all of the data goes to…

4) Google Sheets:  This is excel for GAFE.  Great for sorting raw information and data and you will need to use it to set up classes and students if you are using Hapara Teacher Dashboard.  There are some really cool add ins for Sheets.  My favourite is Floobaru an app that allows you to mark and analyse students answers from a Google Forms quiz.

5) Hapara Teacher Dashboard:  This is an invaluable tool for any school wanting to use GAFE effectively.  It allows you full control over all of you students’ accounts.  You can see all of their recent work at a glance and can even see their screens if you have the right set up.  You can group students and Smart Copy templates and work into their Google Drives.  I would definitely recommend this tool.

6) Storybird: This great little web tool is a place where students can select amazing pieces of art to use as inspiration for their writing.  The students loved it and we had some amazing story come from students using this tool.  Definitely give it a go!

7) Piktochart:  This great online tool is amazing for making class displays.  It makes those awesome longform infographics and with very little experience you can make great looking displays.  They can also be embedded into websites.

8) Prezi:  This is an interesting alternative to the traditional slide show.  The slides sweep and zoom in and out around an image or diagram and it is much more visually appealing.  Student will enjoy the change and like presenting their learning in an interesting way using this tool.

9) Garageband: The go to music creation tool.  If you have access to iPads or Macbooks this is an amazing piece of software.  Students can produce professional sounding music in no time at all.

10) iMovie: Really intuitive and easy to use video editing software.  I have used it with both junior and senior students and they love it.  Great for recording reading too.  It has a cool feature call Trailers which come out like … Movie Trailers and its a great way to share  learning and what has been happening in the class or school.

11) Scratch & Scatch Jnr: Web and iPad versions allow students to learn how to code computer programs in a simple and visual way.  Great way to introduce coding into a class and is a great activity to use in Maker Time.

Well I better stop there  have 2 minutes of the 28 left.  I hope you enjoyed the list it is far from complete!  Maybe I will do a part two… Thanks for reading the post and please comment on any tools you find really useful in your class.