This module has taken me a bit longer to complete because it has given me the opportunity to try a heap of things In the classroom K -6. I have my own Year 5 classroom, but part of my coordinators role is to work within classrooms k-6. My focus this year has been ict and critical literacy. This post is mostly a reflection of how my module learning have been implemented at my school.
Dragon Dictation is simple to use. We have tried to use it in the classroom with a literate Year 1 autistic child who just happens not to like to write! We have been able to get him to record his thoughts and stories which are then converted to text.
Found that external microphones were not needed.. Kids managed to record themselves . Even when recording in classrooms, their voices could still be clearly heard.
Kids have loved the Miss Spider series. Level of engagement are high- a few kids were distracted by the interactive features rather than focus on the text. Cost of purchasing multiple books is an issue. Not many quality free books around.
Our Choice interactive book is phenomenal. Good to use with a small group and project on an interactive whiteboard.
This is the format school text books should be taking. Most at the moment seem to be PDF versions of the text rather than rich media inserted within the text to allow for student interactivity. Schools need to pressure the publishers to give more.
I used Dragons Jumble Dream with small groups in Years 1 and 2. They worked through these activities with complete engagement. It always amazes me how little teacher explanation is needed. Just tell them the name of the App and off the kids go.
Love digital story telling on the iPad. I introduced Puppetpals to a Year 2 class. I watched a small group of children creating a story and It was interesting to see that they went and grabbed pencil and paper and began to script their story prior to starting. This quality of this groups work was of a much higher standard than the others who just used the app.
It proved to me the importance of the work that needs to be done using traditional methods and then allowing the App to improve the final product.
I also have been using My Story with my Kindergarten group. The children create a written story and then with the assistance of their Year 6 buddy, they publish their story using the My Story App. I particularly like the kinder kids being able to read back their story and record it in their book.
Eastern Region CEO have provided me with a really exciting opportunity. It involves an iPad training day for staff and students next term.
I will be exploring iMovie over the next few weeks with a combined workshop with our adjoining high school. The day will be presented by Mac1 with students from Years 2 to 10 being taught how to use GarageBand and iMovie. Its great to be able to combine with our neighbouring school. A great way to share resources and expertise.Another useful app that some of my Year 5 students are trying out is iMotion HD. This app allow the students to create stopmotion style movies.
I love working with the iPads because they are so intuitive. I can takes photos, video, voice record, work with iTunes and all on the one device I can create a product and publish it. No need to download.
At the moment, I am working with a Robotic company testing their products for them in my year 5 class (www.roboteshop.com) I am also using the Edmodo App to assist with classroom communication. I can take photos of the kids products and video them in action. Within a few moments, I can instantly upload these and the kids and their parents have access to it all. I'm really pleased that CEO updated their acceptable use agreement, because it makes doing things like that possible for me.
I used the "teachwithyouripad" wiki. It is a valuable site to find good primary literacy resources. Found a number of free story chime books which I will install on our school set of iPads. It also made a recommendation for a book creation App called Build a Story . I bought it for about $5:50 and then tried it out. Thought it was great as once I completed the story, it can be emailed as a PDF file and even printed out if needed. I evaluated it using the five finger evaluation process and the only down side I found was that it occasionally shut itself down as I was working. I then lost pages that I had not already saved. It isn't cheap but I think it would get a lot of use in a early learning.
Wow Flipboard. Great potential. I find that twitter tends to be my greatest source of updated information in technology. Actually this is the only reason I use twitter. Once twitter is opened up in clipboard, a whole new world opens up too. I just opened it up for the first time and got totally lost in it- going from one story to another - one useful link to another useful site. Being able to see the article in full was so helpful. Such an intuitive app and definitely something that will become part of my daily repertoire!
This post must sound so disjointed- I've been taking notes as I have been working through the module ....and that's what I do.... Jump around a lot. Says something about the way students must learn with these emerging technologies!
No comments:
Post a Comment