Students are learning about Shpero, a ball that can be controlled using the iPad. Sphero will let students explore problem solving skills where, in Year2, students will see whether bridges they are building in the classroom can with stand a Sphero crossing. Year 5 students went through obstacle courses, getting Sphero to follow a path or direct it to a particular location. Sphero will also be used in secondary school to introduce robotics.
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Year 5 students discussed cities and what they are made up of, what is important and so on. Later they were asked to design their own cities. They used Comics Head Lite to plan their cities and state what was important and why they had hospitals, police stations, playgrounds among other things. Later students used the City Island iPad app to build virtual cities and make sure they functioned well, keeping communities happy. below is a screen shot from the game. We all learned from a student who showed the class how to use the 30 Hands iPad app to annotate an image and use it in Tellagami to create a short commercial. He connected his iPad to the Apple TV and explained the steps he took. The concept of using two or more apps to produce media is called 'app smashing'. Year 5 students connected with a school in Lesotho via Skype to find out about their international week celebrations. Classes from both schools each prepared 5 questions. Students practised speaking and listening skills as they took turns to speak, introduced themselves and had to speak clearly for the other class to hear them. It was interesting to learn that the other school wore a uniform and our school did not wear a uniform. We also learned about the Lesotho and it's culture. The two classes will try and keep in-touch via the Year 5 Class blogs.
Year 5 students practised accessing a shared Google Document on the iPad using the Google Drive, which opens the Google Docs app. They learned that it takes patience and cooperation to edit the same document with 10 or more people at the same time. The class will use Google Docs to create a student handbook in the form of an e-book. To support their Music lessons, learning about the different types of musical instruments, students are creating a budget for a Music Studio. We created a spreadsheet listing all the musical instruments and what they cost. Students used their maths skills to figure out how to calculate the totals. They learned to use formulas that would calculate their totals automatically. Now that formulas are in place, during the next few lessons, we will use iPads to access the spreadsheet and pick out musical instruments and what quantities we need for the Music Studio. We have a limit of $400 to spend so our formulas will help us keep an eye on our spending. Students will use the comments feature in Google Spreadsheets to explain why they choose a particular musical instrument for their Studio.
Year 5 students flexed their problem solving skills by playing the Pirate Treasure Hunt game, a free iPad app. Students were required to solve eight problems to find the hidden treasure. The whole class came alive as they tried to come up with solutions using their math and literacy skills. Problem solving skills and decision making is one of the strands we use to assess students. The app allows students to gain confidence to solve more complex problems. During their How The World Works unit, Year 5 students looked at forces and energy in their classroom. We decided to introduce programing using Scratch, a free software program. Students learned how to manipulate sprites by designing an obstacle game similar to the famous classic PacMan. So many questions came up about how to make sprites do different things on the screen. We had very little time to work on this so we will definitely get back to it to advance our skills during the next school year. During their How we Express Ourselves unit, Year 5 students discussed the various types of videos available from comedy, silent movies, action, tutorials and many others. We decided to film and edit videos of different genres expressing ideas or teaching/sending a message to viewers. Students learned how to cut out sections of videos, add special effects and transitions, captions and titles and how to export their videos for viewing on the computer and other devices. Below is a KWL chart created collaboratively using Lino to show our learning. Drag on the canvas to view more stickies.
Year 5 students explored storytelling using Storybird a digital story creating website. Students had to use limited themed artwork that could be related to their stories. Stories was about a city of their choice and students and one of the expectations was to write about how the city has changed over time. Interesting facts about cities were discussed in class giving us content for the stories. We enjoyed sharing stories with teachers via e-mail and read our stories to other classes. The younger students enjoyed our stories. Below is one of our story books, enjoy flipping through all pages.
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AuthorKahlil Danai Maramba, Categories
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April 2016
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