Year 1 students had a go with Sphero, a spherical robot toy controlled by a mobile device or tablet. The students had a chance to freely explore and play supporting their pushes and pulls unit. Later, the students raced Sphero through a path and obstacle course. It was a bit tricky getting Sphero over a ramp to finish the race!
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Year 2 students learned how to use Comics Head Lite, a comic strip generator, among other apps used for story telling. The students worked in groups. They learned to take turns. The students also learned basics of comics strips, for example, using the same background if people had a conversation in the same room and consistency in characters in the story. Below is an example of an unedited version of the comic strips created as we were learning. The students told a story of what they learned during After School Activities in school. This is a skill students will transfer and use in their classrooms.
Year 5 students participated in the hour of code. Since they only have ICT classes for about 40 minutes a week, code.org saved their work and let them continue from where they had left off during the previous lesson. The students worked independently learning the basics of computer programming (coding) during the Introductory course. The students thoroughly enjoyed solving the puzzles and thinking logically. On completion of the hour of code, we will explore using coding to tell stories.
Spelling City is widely used in school for spelling practise. Teachers may create lists for students as a class or in small differentiated groups. The following page provides links to apps on most devices https://www.spellingcity.com/app/
My iMaths is accessible over the internet via a web browser on any computer. It is also accessible via the Puffin Academy iOS and Android "Mobile Flash Browsers" for K-12 students, teachers, and parents. Click here for instructions on how to access My iMaths on both platforms. At this point My iMaths can only be accessed on a computer, iOS or Android device.
During their unit of inquiry titled 'Hello Hello', Year 3 students discussed Twitter to support the central idea 'Advances in technology change the way we communicate'. Here is what they thought about Twitter at the beginning of the discussion.
We watched a video by Commoncraft describing twitter in plain English. The discussion continued thereafter and the students took it to Digital Citizenship when someone talked about posting about something that happened. I asked them what would happen if someone fell and i tweeted about it? Does that mean twitter is a bad thing or a good thing? Below was their response after half the class said twitter was a bad thing and the other half thought twitter was a good thing.
Conclusion: Twitter is a new communication tool that can be good or bad depending on how you use it. One of the students asked if we could tweet videos and other media. Next week, we are going to the twitter website to see if we can tweet about our learning! Will we be able to share their voices saying what they learned on twitter? How fast will it take for the tweet to reach to people around the world? How is that different from how people used to communicate in the 20th century?
Year4 students used four random images in a Google Document to tell a story. Google Docs is a free word processing application that is part of our Google Apps for Education Platform. It has almost all of the features that Microsoft Word has but offers much more functionality. The students read each other's stories and left comments (peer editing). After correcting their stories based on the comments, we used the Read&Write for Google Chrome extension (a speech to text tool) to let the teacher's computer read the stories out-loud. The students were able to tell spelling mistakes or incorrect grammar when the stories were not read out fluently. This was very interesting. Students then went and corrected their stories again to make sure they had correct spelling, punctuation and grammar. Below is one of the stories written by a student and edited by another.
After exploring Powtoon, Year 6 students used other presentation tools such as Haiku Deck, FlowVella and Google Slides. Students worked either on their iPads or on computers. Students learned from peer and teacher feedback as they presented their work to the class. Presentation skills will be useful during the IB PYP Exhibition. For links to presentation apps for students, read the post 'Recommended apps for Year 6 students'.
Year 2 students learned about internet safety and showed their knowledge by creating animated videos. We used the Tellagami and Chatter Pix Kids iPad apps.
Year 6 students learned how to use Powtoon as a tool to create animated presentations. Powtoon is a free web based app with some elements that are paid. We used the free elements. Powtoon works on a computer's web browser. Below is an animation made by one of the students telling us about themselves. One of our focuses was privacy on the internet. We discussed how to register for accounts on the internet and create content without giving out too much information about our selves.
Image from Jordan's Tech Stop
The students shared their animations in Google Classroom. We had a chance to look at each other's animations and leave comments. The students are looking at other alternatives like Google Slides, FlowVella and Haiku Deck for creating presentations on their iPads.
Year6 students are exploring Google Classroom, a virtual learning space provided on the school's Google Apps For Education platform. To access the classroom, students signed into Google Classroom with their school e-mail addresses. They used a class code to access their (private) ICT class. I will post announcements, tasks and share resources in the virtual classroom. Students will post their work and receive feedback from their peers and myself. Google Classroom will allow us to practise Digital Citizenship skills as well as share documents and resources. It is Year6's introduction to e-learning. |
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April 2016
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