Writing and iPads

In Term Two 2013 I demonstrated teaching in an e-Learning class for 2 weeks in a Year 5/6 room at Clevedon School. This post is about how the students used iPads (and other tools) in Writing.
As I plan the work students will be doing, I am always thinking of

• How could I introduce this to students in a visual way?
• What choices of tools, ideas, activities could I make available for them?
• Am I covering different student learning styles?

When I am in the classroom, I like to ask the students how they like to learn and what are their favourite activities. From that information I add other options to the choices they have.

I personally think that students should have options of how they want to do their work and some of those options are explained further down the post.

On the first day I worked with a couple of groups showing them how to download their Inspiration mindmap 'Narrative Writing Framework' ready for tomorrow and they then went on and taught others in the class.

I made the framework in Inspiration 9 on my computer and then exported it to Inspiration Maps on the iPad. (If you don't have Inspiration 9 on your computer you can still make your frameworks in Inspiration Maps) I provided a link to the download on the class wiki. I had showed the students how to make a website link on their iPads so that they could access the wiki quickly by loading the website in Safari, tapping on the Share button and tapping on Add to Home Screen. It will appear as an app on your iPad.





We talked about introductions and setting the scene for writing and I demonstrated using the Narrative framework and the Myths and Legends Narrative Walkthrough I had uploaded to Slideshare and embedded on the Wiki Writing Page.

Narratives and myths and legends from Jacqui Sharp

 Students used the Inspiration Map as their drafting template and when they had finished they  shared and opened in Pages for crafting and editing.
Day Two
On the second day I managed to see all of the writing groups at different times to
show them their Proof Reading/Assessment which was created in Google Docs.
Before they are ready to conference with me they have to have looked at the 'Have I...' table and check off that they have attempted or achieved all of the goals.
Because this document was in a table, students had to go to Safari, Chrome or Puffin to edit Google Docs as a Desktop version. They could view the table in the Google Drive App.
On further reflection, I would not use tables in Docs until Google Docs have updated them to be used seamlessly on an iPad.

Day Three
Students are gradually understanding the Writing Charts of Drafting, Conferencing and Publishing. They know not to put themselves on Conferencing if they haven't checked off their 'Have I...' chart. And they are learning very quickly that if I see any missing punctuation they have to leave the Conferencing group immediately and work on it.
Below are some of the choices they can make for Drafting, Conferencing and Publishing.

Writing management labels from Jacqui Sharp

This was the first time I worked with a conferencing group using the Apple TV and TV set. It was perfect for the job. Students were able to mirror their work to the TV, and the other children were able to peer edit it for them with a little input from me. I had their group learning intentions and success criteria on my iPad in front of me and was able to keep referring students to what they had to concentrate on.

Day Four
 One of the students finished her writing today so she was able to
publish it to our Myths and Legends blog.
In this photo she has her edited draft open on her iPad and she has transferred it over to the laptop to paste into Blogger and add some pictures.
Later I made the Blogger App available to students so that they could add to the blog from their iPads.

  The clipart she has used comes from the fantastic mrdonn.org website which is full of wonderful resources
and free clipart for children. Eventually students will start creating their own clipart. They have learned how to create clipart using Keynote on the iPad and at the end of each day I give them quick 5 minutes lesson on how to draw cartoons. I use 'How to Draw Cartoons' by Brian Platt ($2.99
Kindle on amazon.com)
The apps the students used for practising their cartoon drawings were Paper 53 or
Crayola Paint & Create

This photo shows the students peer editing using the TV and AppleTV. They have mirrored their iPads to screen.
They also discovered to their amazement that they could mirror their mac laptops and iMac as well!

After talking about Vivid Verbs in writing, the children set to their work. A few students have started on their second story and lots are ready to conference and publish. Several have posted to the 'Myths and Legends blog' and some are working on Book Creator. Here is one example of a finished book.

Theseus and the Minotaur from Jacqui Sharp

Students are using the Writing task boards well. Some of the students are on their second round of writing stories. When it comes to publishing, they are loving the choices they have.

Several more children were publishing today. They really like using Book Creator. I reminded them that they could create their own graphics while they were waiting to conference with me which means they can use Sketchup, Minecraft, Pages shapes or any app they have on their iPads.

Students are now starting to get into the habit of checking their Writing Assessment Doc when they are proofreading their writing.

What I have particularly enjoyed in my time at Clevedon,  is having the opportunities to look at how children learn, identify what are some of the difficulties they have and thinking about the 'what' and 'how' I can assist them. An example is using the Telescopic Text last Friday which has helped the students to think about expanding their sentences using more adjectives and verbs. Some students are having difficulties sequencing their myths and legends so tomorrow I am going to get them to screen shot or copy the text from an original myth, insert into Notability and let them use the highlighting and pen tools to identify all the different parts of the structure of the story, then they will use the Narrative Framework to plan their writing.


It's not all about iPads!
This student is reading her next Myth and 'writing' down the facts/information on a piece of paper!












Day Seven
I tried out a couple of new ideas today with the students. I noticed that some of the students were having problems sequencing in order and identifying the main points in a story. I ran a workshop session where they copied the story Dionysus and Ariadne from the website and pasted into Notability.







I then showed the Narrative Framework on the Projector which has been made in Inspiration.
I asked the students to highlight 'Who' were the main characters in Green.

They then had to highlight the 'Where', 'When' and 'What' in different colours. After that we identified what the main problem/conflict was by highlighting in red. We then went on to highlight in blue the main points in the story and finally the conclusion in a different colour. At first students wanted to highlight whole paragraphs, but after discussion we were able to identify just the main points. They can use this information to fill in their Narrative Framework. From there they can add more detail and eventually share it to Pages for final editing. A target group of children will be expected to do this every time they start writing a narrative on a new myth or legend. 

 Most of the students like to publish their work in Book Creator, but from tomorrow I am going to introduce them to more ways. I am going to take one student's piece of writing and present it in several different ways. As they decide what they want to use, I will only show those students how to get started and they will become my teachers for the rest of the other children when they are ready to learn how to do it.

Below is a Slideshare I have created that shows different ways students can publish the same piece of writing using one of the student's own writing as an example.

Different ways to present your work from Jacqui Sharp

Sometimes an iPad alone is not enough (4 devices, 2 students!)

The parents came in today and were able to see the children at work. They were able to see students

• writing in Graphic Organisers
• editing by developing their ideas in Pages
• proofreading by checking their learning intentions and success criteria
• publishing in a variety of ways
• observing the teacher as she held conferencing sessions with the students as they talked about their writing

So over a two week period a variety of apps were used and the students became very proficient at using them to create their writing. Laptops were used quite extensively as well which indicates that iPads alone are not enough. In this post I have mainly concentrated on iPads but if I was full time in the class there would be a balance of non digital writing and creation as well because it is a choice that is available to students.

What didn't work so well?:

• Tables in Google Docs. If you want students to edit easily then do not put tables into your docs

What worked really well?: 

• students having access to their Writing Assessment so that they could check off that they were following their success criteria
• mirroring iPads through Apple TV onto the TV screen and a group of students peer editing
• showing a small group of students (in less than 5 minutes) how to do something with an app and then they teach the other students
• having the links to the Graphic Organisers on the class wiki page
• students having a quick access link to their Assessment and to the wiki on their home screens of their iPads
• students having a choice about the tools (digital or non digital) they are going to use for their learning

A Research Tip using Safari and Inspiration

Become a smart researcher using

Safari: Preloaded on all Devices

 Inspiration: (Free or $9.99 for iPad)




1. Find your website on Safari by using at least 3 keywords. I am going to do a search on wading birds in New Zealand. So the key words are 'bird native wading' and I will add New Zealand to narrow down the search results.

2. Open an Inspiration Graphic Organiser
Create your mindmap

3. Go to the internet site you have chosen, type in one of the keywords in the Search Box from the question links in the mindmap like 'eats'. I have to use the synonym 'feeds' as eats did not appear under the 'On the Page' links







Tap on the Find 'feed' under 'On this Page' There are 6 matches for the word on this webpage

4. Click the next arrow button to see each instance of the word 'feed' until you see a sentence that will answer your question

5. Tap and highlight a word in the text that answers your question, tap and drag the handles until they highlight all of the sentence and tap Copy

6. Go back to your mindmap, tap and hold and tap Paste
7. Go between the Internet site and the mindmap adding information
 8. Don't forget to reference where the information and pictures came from by highlighting the internet address, tap copy and paste into your mindmap.

Demo Lesson with Inspiration (Reading)

Yesterday I demonstrated an iPad opportunity with a group of children at Hingaia Peninsula School. They had read the book 'Squid Monster ' by Jill Eggleton
One of the key features of the story was all the emotions the characters were feeling in the book.
The follow up activity was to find other synonyms for the emotions which we did by using the following apps
iPad Apps

• Inspiration Maps (Free or half price at the moment NZ $9.99) for iPads only
• Dictionary (Free for iPod Touch and Free for iPad)

Laptop Apps (wireless mirroring to a laptop connected to a projector)

• Reflection (Mac only NZ$14.99 single user or $49.99 for 5 licenses) this was the one I used but PC users could use the one below
• Airserver (Mac & PC $14.99 for 5 licenses)

We talked about the different emotions that the characters felt in the story and looked at the highlighted words in the book. Using the mirroring  software I was able to introduce the 'Inspiration' app

• Find the Inspiration app on the Writing page or Press the Home button once and once again to get to the Search Window, start typing Inspiration tap on the app to open it

1. Tap on the Templates window
2. Tap on New Diagram
3. Type the name of the first character we are looking at

 

Find the Dictionary app by going to the Page it is on or by pressing the Home button to get to the Search Screen as seen below. Start typing Dictionary and then tap on the app when it appears

Type in the word to be found in this example it is 'anxious'.

At this point there was a lot of discussion about the word 'anxious' and what it meant in the context of the story. The students looked carefully at the Synonyms and talked about which of the words there would be correct to use in the context of the story.

Once they had chosen a word I showed them how to get back quickly to Inspiration to add the new synonym.

Double tap the Home button and tap on Inspiration.

Add the word to the new symbol.

Then click on the arrow to get a new symbol.

Add more symbols, remembering to tap on the first symbol (Tomas) to start the new word synonym find.

All of the students caught onto the moving between apps very quickly. 

When I saw one particular student had become very proficient quickly then I showed her how she could organise her information by colour and shape. She is now the 'Inspiration Expert' in the class. She will be able to share her knowledge by teaching other students.

 In 15 minutes these students were able to

• find apps using a search function
• flip between two apps
• find Dictionary meanings and synonyms in the time it took them to type the word
• add information to an Inspiration mindmap and organise it
• how to save their diagram
• discuss the words and the meanings they were finding and through that discourse make informed choices

Other ideas that came from the teachers observing were that the students could use the note feature for further activities.

They were using an iPad each, and their book Squid Monster. They could have used a paper Thesaurus or Dictionary, but the speed it took them to the information they needed I think they would rather use the iPad.
To begin with this has been about the apps, but students and teachers alike need to know how the apps work before they can make good use of them. Already teachers are thinking about how they can use Inspiration in their reading in a variety of ways.

 At this stage Inspiration is not compatible with the desktop version. These diagrams are saved as pictures and can be emailed or sent to Dropbox.

Self review and setting Goals

I have been talking quite a bit to teachers about students documenting their own Personal Learning Journey. It is loosely based on 'Ipsative' Assessment which is the measurement of where we were, where we are now and where we want to be. The following diagrams build on that with the student deciding with the teacher what they are going to have to do to succeed with their goal. The junior one is more simplified then the senior example.
Click on the diagrams to see them in full view.
Junior

Senior

These were created in Kidspiration and Inspiration. Students can type into them or they can be printed out and students write in them.

The examples are available for download on this site. 

Visual Publishing

I saw students publishing their autobiographies today in Word, with a border and a fancy heading. Children were working alone, typing one finger each letter as they copied from their writing books. They look bored and uninterested in what they were doing.

Another teacher said to me, I want to do something more interesting or exciting when I get my students to publish their autobiographies, they aren't able to write much. This school has very limited access to internet, they cannot publish online so we needed to use what was available on the computer. They had Inspiration version 8! I was elated!
I started showing the teacher how they could create a visual autobiography.
We set up a template for students to use...

Then we looked at how you could add pictures, Inspiration 8 and 9 have a great search feature (unfortunately the search feature is blocked at this particular school).
Other choices of graphics are students creating their own graphics in Paint, Artrage or Kidpix.
Or you could go to Google Images and find graphics, there are quite a few free graphic sites that show up in Google Images such as http://www.cartoonclipartworld.com/
Use Google images to find graphics of maps and places as well.

 

There are lots of skills children will learn 'just in time' and 'as needed' in an authentic context.

Inspiration and IWBs

These activities can be used independently or...

Factor Product Puzzles.ist	Match the decimals.ist

...screen capture parts of them and add to IWB notebook software and turn into teaching activities.

Have several pages of the same activity, so that you can start the children off on it and then leave them to continue. You will be able to keep an eye on what the children are doing by watching the projector. Students could be recording in their exercise books as well.

 Adding up to a 100.ink mimio example
 Adding up to 100.notebookSmartboard example
 Adding up to 100.flipchartActivinspire example

Creating Math Activities

Tania wanted to know how to create clock math activities in Inspiration today. In 10 minutes she had made 2 activities that children are going to be using independently and in groups using the mimio.

Step 1: Google 'Blank Clock Faces'. Click on Line Drawing in the side panel options
Step 2: Drag the clock face of your choice onto the Kidspiration or Inspiration page
Step 3: Draw the lines by clicking on the line tool on the toolbar

Step 4: Change the lines into arrows by going to Link - Arrow Direction

Step 5: Add a text box below the clock

Step 6: Click and drag around the whole clock picture and text box, press Ctrl or Command C and paste on another part of the page, repeat until you have covered the page. Save your activity as a template.

Use the same template to create other activities.

The same activities can be created in IWB notebook software as well. Do a search for clock and you will find a clock face, hands and digital display.

mimio, Smart notebook, Activinspire