BYOD Journey

Last year HNS started down the Bring Your Own Device (BYOD) path with my beloved room 1 and the neighbouring room 2 trialling this strategy. Both f us teachers love technology and were looking to integrate it into our programmes more regularly and believed it would be beneficial for our teaching and learning outcomes. Next term we're planning to present some of our work and its effect on engagement at a WAPA e-learning strand but I feel the need to share my own personal journey for the benefit of other schools and teachers who are thinking about adopting a BYOD policy. We are now looking at moving BYOD into other classes and, naturally, there is apprehension among some of our teachers which is another reason for me to share some of this journey.

Before we first started last year we conducted some questioning of our children, what devices did they own (tablets, phones, laptops) and what platforms were they using (Android vs Apple being our main concern). Initially, we started pretty slowly but this year both classes have steadily had increases in the number of children using BYOD and naturally this has affected both the classroom management aspects as well as the pedagogy.

Currently I have 14 of my 28 children signed up to a BYOD agreement, this agreement outlines proper use and the responsibilities of all people involved. Not all children bring their devices every day nor do they get to use their devices for everything, that is still at my discretion.

Key lessons
App decisions:
I always try to avoid telling the children which Apps they use to do their work but Pic Collage is a firm favourite, while Book Creator and Flipagram are getting more use. Dropbox is an absolute must, while we get some use from Socrative also. The children have a range of different apps on their devices and I have had to exercise some restraint as I don't want anybody feeling pressured into purchasing particular apps.
We have slowly been working on creating our own HNS App chart but it is definitely a work in progress. There are a number of Apps that I feel the children could be working with successfully such as Explain Everything, other digital writing tools or even things such as Sock Puppets or Puppet Pals but the cost of them has been put a dampener on recommendations, hence the emphasis on the free side.
My biggest problem has been trying to navigate my way through the Android store to find equivalent apps as I am far more familiar with those available in iTunes.

Workflows:
When we started out the children weren't too sure about what to do, what to use or what to do when they're finished. Layering of Apps still isn't a regular occurrence but I'm hoping that this will improve as the year continues and the the children become more confident in their ability. My BYOD regulars are now more self-managed when it comes to full BYOD tasks, with an understanding that the work needs to be shared or published at least to their teacher. We have set up a shared BYOD folder that we use for issuing tasks/instructions and each student has an individual shared folder with me to upload their work or for any individual tasks they are given. Twitter regularly gets used to share their work also. We ought to be publishing work straight to our class/individual blogs also but I think that will be the next step.
Reflection still hasn't become a regular part of their learning which is something I need to push more in the future. A simple exit task is easily managed through Socrative, Google Forms or Exit Ticket.

Class Management:
Thankfully, the journey to 14 students has been gradual! It has definitely been some trial and error and I have found that it has had an impact on my instructions. I need to be far clearer about my expectations, the success criteria and the time expected to be used. Dropbox has assisted in this greatly, as I am learning to make instructions/tasks available electronically.
Naturally, the introduction of more browsers and publishing tools has had a positive impact on some disruptive behaviour. There are more ICT resources to share, therefore less frustration as we're not waiting as long to publish our work or do the research to create work. This also has an impact on differentiation, it is now relatively easier to give students tasks that suit their personality and learning needs/style.

Where to next:
I know I don't have BYOD working perfectly in my class, sometimes I still ask/invite them to do something off the cuff. But there are far more BYOD notes in my planning, more kids asking for agreements to take to their parents and more kids clamouring to show what they've just created.

Time to do set up another task for my kids...

Thinglink

Thinglink is a great way to engage your children with information your delivering or tasks they need to complete. After tweeting about it tonight and being asked a few questions I decided to put this together.

I hope it helps.

Blogaholic: bringing it into the classroom

"My name is Reid and I'm a blogaholic".

It certainly sounds right, amongst some teachers admitting that you blog, tweet, or any use any other social media for networking purpose does feel like you confessing a giant sin. They don't really understand the power yet, but they're getting there and these types of queries below help us move them along. So I hope you'll pass this blog post onto 2-3 teachers you know to help them think about blogging in the classroom. This isn't the how to guide, there's plenty of those but one of my favourites as a beginner was Linda Yollis's.

I recently got emailed by a teacher wanting some help on how to integrate blogging into the classroom, in the interest of spreading the love I'm blogging my reply. The teacher was a blogger (not uncommon) but was unsure of how to proceed and they'd used kidblog also. This teacher's pondering was prompted by their signing up to Quadblogging. Their questions were:

Do you have ipads, or lots of computers in your class that you use?

3 favourites
from Room 1

In my classroom there is 3 desktops, BYOD (currently 10 kids) and we have a pod of laptops that come to the classroom for a week every term. We use Blogspot as a platform for blogging.  I prefer the Blogpress app when on the iPads though as it has better functionality I believe plus you can manage several blogs from the one app,

Do all your students have individual blogs?
I run both a class blog and individual blogs (none active right now, given the time of year).

How do you work blogging into your classroom programme?
Blogging into my classroom forms part of the literacy programme, when it is reading time I always include blogging. Students are directed to various blogs through their favourite blogs list, or according to our Quadblogging commitments. When it is time for writing students always have the option of publishing to the blogs. I've seen that some teachers like to have students write drafts each time to their book and have these rigorously checked, I find this onerous and prefer students to write directly to the blog, editing still takes place and the children find it more engaging. Fantastic, or otherwise, pieces of writing can still go from their writing book to the blog as you see fit. I also constantly have planned lessons & other teachable moments to learn about Digital Safety as part of Health - where blogs are often the context and we can model the learning.

My class regularly use the blogs for reading, posting and commenting before school and it can be included as part of a formal homework programme although if the blog is engaging the children will be on it at home anyway. A target for blog views or comments can be motivating also, there was much excitement when we reached 10,000 hits.

Do you QB through your class blog only? 
No, classes that have individual blogs may have these accessible also, it is entirely up to you but naturally the children love having people visiting and commenting on their own personal work.

I understand the basic premise that QB is about, but on the weeks that your class is not the focus class, do you not blog? OR is it just that you are not the focus for the comments?
My classes still blog, even though they are not the focus that week. It keeps them engaged with the practice of blogging and they generally have plenty of comments to respond to also. My class also participate in Aotearoa Quadblogging which means that I always have a blogging focus.

There are heaps of blogaholics and even some recovering ones, I hope that they'll all pass this on to 2-3 people who are unsure about blogging in the classroom.

#LoveReading #LoveBooks

I have a distinct advantage when it comes to reading, my name regardless of spelling, conjures up questions about reading. Especially when people have known me long enough to start name jokes. There's never been anything witty, amusing or even original but they occur often enough.

"You're name is Reid and you like to read, hahahaha, make sure you spell your name right".

I don't remember learning to read, or even having my parents read to me, but my brothers and I were surrounded by books at home.  Grandma was a particularly avid reader and as a former school teacher must have had a positive influence on my attitude to reading, going to her house was always fun and every time we would pore over her collection of Asterix titles. One set of cousins had the full Munch Bunch and Sesame Street collections, while at my Nana's I always looked forward to buying more Commando comics from the dairy.  By the time I'd finished primary school the Hardy Boys, Willard Price adventures, amongst countless other series, had all been read, enjoyed and put aside for the next enthusiastic reader. Like many high school bored me with the never-ending list of activities to prove that had read and knew the book! I can tell you some of the book choices I loved: The Outsiders, Z for Zachariah, and Owen Marshall's Fat Boy (an amazing short story). I was one of those kids reading ahead so I didn't know where the rest of the class was up to, even worse some teachers would say that you couldn't take the book home.

"Its not fair on the others, everyone needs to be at the same place".

The real joys of high school reading were in discovering the harsh realities of war through countless World War II biographies and adventures of Colditz Castle, the Victoria Cross, El Alamein, Tobruk, Cassino. Sports, music & political biographies were churned through as well as all sorts of spy novels. However, I have to confess I never read classics like Lord of the Rings or the The Lion, The Witch & The Wardrobe.

After university I even spent about 3 years working in bookstores, during which time I introduced myself to Harry Potter, Frodo, Neil Gaiman and even some contemporary literature. I now consider myself a very well rounded reader (excuse the pun for those who know me well).

Becoming a teacher has presented its own challenges for reading, already I've developed a tidy collection of picture books for use in the classroom, some like "I need a new bum" are purely for entertainment. The picture book section at the Sylvia Ashton-Warner was a constant place for relaxing during training. But I was also exposed to many great books and some cool things for learning to read, my favourite being reciprocal reading and a title called The Mozart Question.

Reid = reading, #lovebooks #lovereading

After two years I'm proud of the reading time in my class, kids have nearly always made progress, although a few have still not been able to achieve National Standards. I have a healthy programme during the year that includes independent reading, KiwiKidsNews, reciprocal reading, blogging, Starfall. One highlight of this year undoubtedly was when the class burst into song during shared reading of Alice in New York, fabulous interactive book that we never finished. We've also had several engaging bodies of work to celebrate our enjoyment of books, especially the The Day the Crayons Quit and Fantastic Flying Books of Mr Morris Lessmore.

Alice is indicative of a few problems in my class though, we didn't finish it because some of my boys were getting bored with the plot and for others it was just too long. So why were they down there? Did I naively believe that by forcing them to sit still and listen that they would enjoy the book and come to #lovereading. One group of boys regularly asked to continue with this shared reading activity, they would load it up on the smart board and take turns at reading. This mixed ability group would help each other with the vocal, making meaning of the text and occasionally would turn to me to clarify something, but this highlights problems too. This was working for them, but not others.

Providing books for the whole class, shared reading at a class level and plenty of time for reading isn't going to create lifelong readers, it's tantamount to a shotgun marketing approach.

In hindsight I haven't modelled being a reader very well. I read aloud often but not as regularly as possible and one of the first things to go in any day has been my SSR time. Compounding this I often do marking or tidying during reading time and in the interest of keeping the class happy will allow some to sit there and draw, am I subconsciously saying to the class that if they've got something better to do than reading then that's ok? This doesn't promote the importance of reading, Donalyn Miller attributes her success at creating readers to her status in the classroom as a reader. I need to do better!

Picture these three little scenarios that happened towards the end of this year and think about how it would affect your budding readers.

Boy 1: Was always trying to find books to read but had a low reading age, the books he would independently select were too difficult and would result in him being back at the class library very quickly trying to choose another book. But he was crestfallen when in trying to help him select an appropriate book I told him that particular books were too difficult or well above his reading level. 

Boy 2:  Told me that he knows how to read enough and the only thing he likes reading is the comics about the Incredible Hulk.

Boy 3: Was that child who would rather draw than read, but late in the year I discovered his fascination with World War II.

I'm in the business of creating readers and all three of these children were not being led towards being  lifelong readers. I buy a lot of books for my classroom with my own money,  but these holidays I'm on the lookout for books that will rectify these problems. Books by Jim Eldridge are top of the list, along with Commando comics and a couple of books I remember loving as a boy. I also need a pile of  superhero comics. However, many of new class were excited just at seeing the existing book collection.

Most importantly, I need to become more like the person who is reading at home at school. The Book Whisperer had a huge impact on me, not because of some big revelation within the text. Simply for the fact that I came to understand that I was asking children to commit to being lifelong readers without ever really showing them my commitment to reading. As a teacher I have established great book resources, valuable connections with book people through Twitter and blogging but I need to take that passion to another level.

I look forward to undertaking the 40 book challenge with my class next year.

New class = new learning

We've reached the inevitable end of another school year and although I have accomplished many things this year, my teacherbrain has been in overdrive thinking about next year. Today I got to start implementing these ideas when we had Meet the Teacher, particularly some ideas revolving around getting to know your class.

In trundled 25 of my 30 children full of wonder, intrigue, apprehension and no doubt some worries. 

My first two attempts (in previous years) at this were about laying down expectations, the culture of the class and getting to know some names. This year I wanted to lay the foundations for getting to know them but first I outlined several of my passions (ICT, reading, art & sport). They reciprocated through a post it note - 25 little jewels that tell me something they wanted to share about their likes.

What a treasure trove! 

Nearly half of this class love Minecraft, I have been quite curious about integrating Minecraft in the

classroom but this year I only had 2-3 kids who were avid participants. The first question my new class asked me as I expressed delight at this finding, "Could you please set up a Minecraft server for the classroom?".  In order to leverage this passion, I have to up skill but what an exciting prospect. Writing, reading, art, maths & reading will all be able to piggyback on this finding.

Lego also featured among the likes, similar to Minecraft there are 1000s of ways that a teacher can utilise this.

I was also pleased to hear that some of the kids love to read, most importantly, they saw the book collection in my room and oohed & ahhed. One child's enthusiasm was especially important. I'll need to work hard to keep her engaged before she becomes enraged so hearing that she loves reading was a small victory. I've been reading Donalyn Miller's "The Book Whisperer" lately, so have been reflecting constantly on my reading programme and wonder if she became an underground reader in her previous class. Another year means a fresh start.

Lots of other things were divulged in the PostIts, none of it is earth shattering but I now have 25 of my class each showing me a way to personalise or differentiate their learning. I've got a class that includes children who like play dough, chess, art, role playing games, spiders, swimming and many others.

Next year I'll have a new class and the learning journey will continue, when my new class returned to their old rooms I was the one left full of wonder, intrigue, apprehension and worry.

Getting to know your students

Term 4 is rapidly drawing to a conclusion and nestled amongst all the testing and report writing is the realisation that I have to be thinking about next year. Our year group has a deadline of week 6 for their reports to management (I'm making great progress!) but in various teams we're meeting to decide on important aspects of next year. As a BT I just want to get this one finished, but I'm so excited about 2014 and continuing my own learning.

All the inputs I use to get to know a student.

My latest wonderings have surrounded getting to know my kids, how I might best do this, surprise at the things I'm learning about them still and the desire to rewind so I could use these facts to better teach them.

Why have I been thinking about this?

1. A week or so ago we organised our classes for next year (I'll explain this process shortly) and hence I'm curious about my next bunch. 
2. This week I've seen one of my more reluctant kids wow me with his enthusiasm & engagement. 
3. I have been surprised by the ongoing release of details from students about their lives. 
4. Ongoing discussion about my kids going to other classes and the kids coming towards mine.

At the start of the year we hand out an introductory report, about week 5, it includes a section for parents to help us get to know their kids. Around the same time our school hosts an event for parents to meet the teacher. All of this is designed to help build that relationship with the whanau and learn more about the child.

The teacher involvement in class allocation is intriguing, everyone has their views based on teaching styles, curriculum strengths/weaknesses, passions, personality etc. Clearly there is a need to take each teachers opinions onboard when considering your approach to teaching a child the next year but without a doubt, I am different to you (whoever you are). Which brings me to the point that I still need to get to know each child based on my 'Almost Clean Slate' approach.

I do all sorts of things to get to know my kids. Lots of different activities, plenty of time invested, a little bit of myself is shared and I listen. But it's way too early to think I am doing this vital part of our role to the level that it deserves. I believe I'm doing a good job I just want to do better and I know that there is no replacement for time invested in these relationships.

I'm hatching a plan that involves several strategies, as follows:

• A short adventure learning activity early in term 1.
• Google form on the class blog over the holidays for parents & students.
• A family tree activity for class display.
• Multiple intelligences type activity.

I love sharing my passions with my students, I believe I'm easy to get along with and relatively personable. But that doesn't make it easy to get to know students, not the important bits that assists you when teaching them anyway! Yet it's one of the most crucial aspects of being a teacher. 

Your views, suggestions (especially for professional reading) or comments for getting to know your class are all valued, here or through twitter. 

I'm off to learn more about my kids.

Adventure learning - 1st attempt

This term I introduced my class to Adventure Learning. Our school was going to have our senior show and I knew my students would need a project to keep them on task while they were being pulled this way and that for their many commitments.

I had several great people to discuss my plans with, including both in-school support and some Tweeps (thanks especially to @simone015). But there were still mistakes to be made, lessons to learn and reflections to be had.

Last week our school presented the show and this week several students have presented their topics to the class. I'm certainly not going to have a 100% completion rate, I didn't expect to however I would have liked to see more projects being finished and shared with the class. Part of this bound to be my input, some kids deserved more scaffolding with self directed learning. They would have been better working in small groups with some hand-holding from their teacher, I was confident that they would get there but its been difficult trying to balance a severely constrained timetable, letting them explore their passion and trying not to take over (especially with some projects which were uber-cool!). 

• Next time: a mix of individual, pair & group projects is required to balance interests & learning needs.

Expectations of quality are difficult to moderate. I've been pleased with what I have seen but thought I might have my socks blown off, this hasn't happened. However, the class is on their 1st attempt at such a project and I haven't modelled an Adventure Learning project to them. Success is hard to measure when you have no experience with this type of project.

• Next time: I'm doing an Adventure Learning project too, maybe I'll even include some students with higher learning needs.

A handful of kids have moved swiftly to beginning another Adventure Learning project. Clearly they have become motivated learners, or at least found a suitable outlet for their motivations. The computer time before school has been graduated from games and blogging, to blogging and adventure learning. These two developments are both positive but I now need to integrate this energy across our timetable.

• Next term: I need to provide opportunities for children to pursue learning in their own interests in more curriculum areas (I guess I'm looking at personalising learning more successfully).

It has been a positive move for classroom management too, it hardly takes a rocket scientist to understand that pursuing your own interests increases engagement and motivation. Some of my more difficult students have been more productive this term.

• Next term: Can I continue this in other areas of curriculum?

I've loved the questioning, discussion and engagement that Adventure Learning has introduced to my classroom. I won't give it an A+ on its first attempt but do believe that it has demonstrated enough positives to warrant another attempt next term.

Now I just have to work out what my project will be for next term...

Engaging in PD, making it count.

Last Thursday I attended a course on Blended Learning provided by TTS. I'd headed down hoping to learn more about planning and designing better integration of my BYOD devices, desktops and the school iPads. But I also got some first hand experience with the Socrative tool, I'd heard a lot about this but just never translated this into classroom use.

My problem with using Socrative before Thursday was I thought it was reasonably similar to using Google Forms, which I do use. Further, I couldn't imagine that I would be able to use Socrative effectively when I don't teach in a 1:1 classroom.

The facilitator demonstrated Socrative throughout the morning (albeit in a 1:1environment), so problem 1 was solved. Socrative can be used with far less set up, it took me 2-3 minutes today to train up my 2 of my BYOD students to help as class experts and with a very quick introduction we had the class all using this today.

However, immediately prior to this class is lunchtime. I was chatting with our DP and we were discussing meetings for the week, including a planning and curriculum mapping meeting. I suggested Socrative, gave him a quick run down (based on my limited knowledge) as the bell rang and headed back to class.

My plan for my afternoon lesson involved using a Thinglink image of the Painted Apple Moth to discuss a variety of issues that surrounded this pest and how it was eradicated. Using Socrative this became much more effective and the students loved the more interactive element.


I can't create a 1:1 environment, we have 3 desktops, 2 BYOD devices today plus my phone to use with 25 students in class today. Nothing like jumping in the deep end! With some creative questioning, smart use of peer/share activities and rotation of students using the desktops we made good use of Socrative on our 1st attempt. The class told me that they enjoyed its use in the class and it added a different element of voice even if one response was a tad over the top:

 T: How do you think they eradicated the Painted Apple Moth?
 S: They could shoot it with a Tomohawk Cruise Missile.

I recognise that some days I'll have several more BYOD devices in the room, boosted by school iPads and during ICT week every child would have a laptop. All of these circumstances make including Socrative even more favourable. The instant feedback was fantastic but it also gave me another management tool, data to base decisions on rather than just feel and allowed everyone a voice.

After school, I visited the DP, here he is setting up a quiz to use at our staff meeting on Wednesday. So we quickly trialled his quiz.

Engaging in PD isn't about just attending, instead taking valuable advice or resources and putting this into action is the important element of PD in any profession. Sharing your new knowledge with others in your organisation is also a vital component of PD and with any luck you'll watch as your peers act on your enthusiasm and new found knowledge.

21st century motivation, praise & room 1

I'm a learner, a thinker and I have a can do attitude. I teach because I like the idea of facilitating others to find their passion for learning, either in a specific subject area or generally.  The concept that I wasn't doing the right thing by my year 5 & 6 students in terms of praise/motivation in the 21st century has given me much to think about recently. Fortunately, my PLN have come to the party by tweeting or emailing links for professional reading.

Among the readings have been these gems:

Presence, Not Praise: How To Cultivate a Healthy Relationship with Achievement

Debunking the genius myth

How not to talk to your kids

Thinking About Classroom Dojo – Why Not Just Tase Your Kids Instead?


They have certainly given me food for thought and have enabled me to evaluate what I'm doing in my classroom, why I'm doing it and whether it is working for my students.

This debate is typically about motivation, are kids doing tasks because they are intrinsically motivated and believe there is value in the process and outcome of the task. Or do they do complete them because someone is going to reward them with something (extrinsic motivation). Praise is also an intriguing topic that is worthy of further study (another time, another place!). NB: I haven't studied these areas and I'm not entering into academic debate with you.

What do I do?
I confess I do use Class Dojo. My class told me at the end of term 1 that they wanted hard work to be recognised individually, we negotiated a reward of 15 minutes of free time for the winner of each fortnight. I don't use negative points, its not the correct forum for discipline. I've also introduced categories for the NZC Key Competencies and PB4L, this works well in my classroom and the students typically don't cash in their 15 minutes. We're in our second term of using Class Dojo and the kids are recommending others get points, particularly for my favourite category "Thinking & Learning".

I'm not into bribing my students to get things done, I'll offer them the odd choice, e.g. "this afternoon we can either do Art or Language, it really depends on how much you get completed, the quality of the completed work and your behaviour while doing it. Your choice".

I love giving students a high five or pat on the back. Such gestures typically aren't accompanied with an explanation as they're spur of the moment when the student does something that deserves it.

As a class we talk about our choices and future, I hope for good things for all of my students and dare them to be brilliant. We love Kid President and I'm forever challenging these kids to follow their dreams.

My students demonstrate a mixture of intrinsic and extrinsic motivation. Some will engage with every task and illustrate a high degree of intrinsic motivation, however, others are clearly in a 'whats in it for me' mindset. I've been working hard all year to evaluate what works for each member of my class, some I still haven't figure out and continue to confound me. For others, I find that what worked yesterday doesn't work tomorrow so I'm just trying to get the combination right!

Where to next:
Reflecting on these thoughts has been enlightening for me. But I'm pragmatic and passionate about my teaching, so if you want to provoke/further my thinking feel free to drop me an email/tweet/comment. I'm a BT and happy to learn.

Engagement, ICT & Social Media

One of my boys finds it difficult to write & read at National Standard level, I'm working my butt off to help him and its not for lack of motivation on his behalf. All year he has loved being able to interact with the ICT tools available to him, he'll tweet, blog & comment his way through a day. However, his work is generally facilitated by myself or  children in the class.

Today, he comes to me during Art (not his favourite subject at any time) and asked if he could go on the class blog to read, of course I allow him. Shortly after, he asks if he can show me something because he wants to do this for our class blog. I was looking at a St George School blog and a post announcing their Class Dojo points winner. We went into the Blogger dashboard to look at putting a Class Dojo icon & some text together to announce our points winner, but we didn't achieve the result either of us were after. So I suggested a Voki, the result below is pretty good.



I told him that he ought to tweet what he'd just done, he was quickly on the twitter account and contemplating what he'd do for a hashtag (i.e., planning - text features, audience, ideas). He quickly put together a tweet, asked me whether 'Just' was a j or g then spelled the rest and spelled fortnight without a second though. Now this isn't all his work, when writing 'voki' I told him to put the @ sign which of course gave us their @officialvoki handle, we did the same for @classdojo. "Can I copy the blog address?" and I'm beaming with pride. I gave him the hashtag but still...

Straight after lunch he asked if he could jump on Twitter again and sent a 2nd tweet without any help.

I accept these aren't full Level 3 texts, but walking is considered a safe way to learn to run. He's engaged, finding a way to communicate, interact and is having fun while he's at it.  The difficult part is moving him from here to somewhere nearer to where him Mum and I would love him to be. Clearly, using ICT is a large factor in this planning. I have a plan to use Storify to curate a text, we'll be able to work on sequencing, planning, & many other surface & deeper features.

I'm sharing because I have had a victory and I know that there will be many accidents in this learning journey but we're both having some fun on the way.

Interestingly, after lunch he gave me a note to say thank you, the writing & handwriting was all rather sketchy, demonstrating that for some the computer is a better tool for learning to write. Maybe he should have tweeted ;-)

Praise inquiry feedback

Thinglink

My class are in the midst of ICT week and have been creating posters about biosecurity risks. As they finish these posters I have been moving them to creating a ThingLink image. Rather than explain what this is, take a look at Sara's example:
 

Sara was the first of my class to have venture onto this during the week and quickly became the class expert, both modelling what they could do as well as trouble shooting for a few students.

Previously, I had used a Thinglink image to show them some work earlier in the year, this introduced the concept and aroused some curiosity. But the following steps were used to help the children create their own.

Steps:

1. The first person who finished the poster got to be first to create on Thinglink, I would demonstrate only once to an individual and allow them to become the expert. As each child finished they were first directed to Sara's work to see what she was doing.
2. I got the class to sign in using their class twitter account to avoid further password confusion.
3. Allow them to find an image to use as the main image.
4. Explore the internet to find images, information and video to embed as tags.
5. Share to class blog/individual blog using an embed code.

I recommend that you use this tool in your class, it could be a great way to have children explore and share their understanding of many subjects especially the sciences. But I'd love to take an illustration or piece of text from a reading book and have the children use this to share their understanding. As a tool it is useful for allowing students to share their voice and it also comes as an App for the iPad/iPhone.

Engaging literacy lessons

I have my share of reluctant writers so am always looking for ways to engage them, particularly in writing activities. 

My latest attempt was using an Oliver Jeffers new release "The Day the Crayons Quit". Duncan, the main character, receives resignation letters from all of his crayons. Each page contains one letter, plenty of artwork and lots of inspiration for children's writing. It was hard to choose my favourite but who can't love the idea of a crayon complaining that it was naked...

Day 1: 

I read the book to the class to gauge engagement with the book. There was plenty of laughter and a lots of conversation about which crayon letter was their personal favourite. 

Day 2: 
Quick recall of the story from the class and I read my favourite couple of letters.
We brainstormed some of the words that we thought were repeated too often. I was searching for something to run a synonym based lesson. Amongst many words we settled on Dear (as in the beginning of a letter), Quit, Reason and Friend.
Everyone then used whatever they could to find synonyms for these 4 words & record them on a word wheel.
Shared all the words with the class. Totally impressed by words such as abdicate, discharge, associate and acquaintance.
The class then set out to create their own resignation letter to themselves, the kids have written a number of letters & the aim of the lesson was the investigation of synonyms so not much emphasis was put on the structure. I gave them a piece of A3 newsprint and let them choose their own crayon.
In 20 minutes even my most reluctant writers had produced a draft letter, with original ideas, interesting vocab and a smile on their face. SUCCESS. 

Day 3
We published the letters, produced our own envelopes, created a letterbox for the school and finished the activity.

There are plenty of other literacy lessons that could be built around this book, maybe next time.

Quick review: 5 Apps

Pic Collage
Designed for creating montages and posters this can be used in a number of ways in the classroom. My class love using them as quick writes to demonstrate their learning after reading books, but we've used them to produce Wordwalls, drama explanations, funky text only posters while I loved the way some students made on-the-go posters while on field trips. Some cool features is the ability to search for images on the Internet, use photos on the tablets own library, use stickers (free & paid sets). Available for free on both Android & iPad.

PuppetPals
Choose your characters, backgrounds, can throw in a few props. Record your audio, playback and share. What's not to love. Haven't used this a lot in my class but as a practice run used it with the junior school age nephews in the T2 holidays, together we had heaps of fun creating a zombie attack puppet show. A good tool for publishing all forms of writing but could also be used to break the monotony of teacher instructions.

Tellagami
An app where you can design your own character, background and then either your own recorded voice or typed text to produce a Gami. Kids love the easy manipulation to build their character but its the ability to make and share the audio aspect that is the real goldmine. Another tool that can be used for writing, reading as well as classroom management.

Explain Everything
A slide based tool for presenting information through your tablet. Allows for recording of audio while you create and you can also insert movies (yours or off the Internet). A little bit of effort is required to figure out all of the functions when first using but is worth persevering with as the finished outputs will show you.

Little Story Maker
I'm writing this without having used it in class myself, but had a play over the holidays based on many recommendations from other teachers. As the name suggests its for creating stories and allows you to illustrate, write, record audio and publish your own story. I am looking forward to using this in my class and believe many other teachers will be pleased with the results they get using this in their class.

*Its worth noting that if you are considering blogging in the classroom that neither Tellagami or Little Story Maker have an embed function as part of the app.

Comic strips for writing - Teaching as Inquiry

Interesting day today. I visited 6 of our classes to observe the inquiries each teacher is undergoing as part of our writing PD. Remember I'm a BT but am also serving as the Senior Literacy Leader to aid in my own development. I was also visited by the lady responsible for our PD, so some serious juggling took part there.

I've been looking at integrating ICT to help some of writers to accelerate/achieve their learning.  So what did I show her and how do I feel about that now?

Yesterday, a group of 10 started to create some comics, the excitement was palpable. Today, it was all I could do to get the writers to be quiet long enough to touch on a DAT. Is this an issue, not really I need to let them soar, they're engaged and the teachable moments will be utilised along the way.

At the moment, some of them are planning on creating clay/plasticine models of their characters for photos, others are busy drawing and writing and a couple have planned themselves silly - today they worked on their weapon arsenal (should I be worried?).  Some characters they've created thus far are inspired by Lego, video games and there's a battle brewing between burgers from two famous franchises.

We've been using the apps shown below.  I'm planning on the kids helping me select other apps we'll use to turn photos into cartoons, there is plenty to choose from but if there are any favourites out there I'd love to know. Any general advice for a grateful BT is most welcome also.

 

The moment of clarity that convinced me that I was doing the right thing was the enthusiasm the whole class is showing, I had students hanging around after school to discuss next steps and others who aren't involved are begging to be included. To say they're engaged is an understatement!

I can't wait to finish this unit with my group and share all their writing and they're just as excited.

Maybe the next step will be a collaborative effort with other schools...