Experimenting with Rocketium

Rocketium is very easy to use. The only thing you can't do is adjust how the graphics appear with a free account. Make sure you make all graphics landscape rather than portrait, as you can see in mine that some of the portrait graphics are cut off. This is a great tool for younger students to use when publishing their inquiry or writing work. It could also be used as a great reflective tool.

Fourth and final day of 'Walk the Talk' Alfriston

Today was the last day of my Walk the Talk. The students know the drill now and settle down very quickly to all of their tasks. Writing still seems to be their favourite and we are receiving some wonderful writing from them. The following are examples of writing that is still being edited

And another
and then there was the 'Peer Editing'...

The students sat at the 'Teaching and Learning Station'  table with their Chromebooks reading, suggesting, commenting on one student's story that had been shared with them. The story to be edited was also mirrored to the TV through my Mac Laptop. Here are examples of students commenting on student work (Note the last comment in the first example 'Athens (capital dude)'
The students knew what their Learning Intentions and Success Criteria were and used that as the basis for most of their comments.

 

 

This was a great way for students to be part of the editing process, and they were all learning at the same time.

At the beginning of the Writing session I also pointed out the Different Ways to Publish your stories on the wiki.

Once the Students have finished their publishing, they will start the whole process again but with a myth of their choice, starting off with the Graphic Organiser.

Reading

The Novel study groups have been reading their books on the Kindle either on the Chromebooks or the iPads.

They also have been working on their Vocab logs as they read their novels.

 I use the Vocab Logs to teach from. We choose a word from the lists they have made, we go to Kindle, search for the word, read it in context in however many hits of the word we get. Then we tap and hold on the word and get the Dictionary meaning, and if it is a suitable word for it, we tap on Wikipedia or Google to find out more information about the word. Then we bring it all back to the context of the story.

They also have to keep up with their Chapter Title Assignment of Predictions and Adjustments.

The Journal group are learning to skim and scan a play

Maths

The changes to the workshops worked well with me being able to leave the students to keep on doing the learning themselves without me. I used Thinking Blocks Fractions app

with these students. One boy who had been having difficulties, really responded well to this app and completed a page of work, and was so proud that he now understood how to do Fractions of a number now.

Student are managing their Google Maths Docs well, they

•  have highlighted the WALTs they need to work on
• are copying/pasting the activities they are doing to their timetables. 
• are recording examples and totals they have achieved in iPad games or Internet games
• they are reflecting in their maths book about how the activity went

I have suggested to their teacher that they record in their timetables when they have attended a workshop as well.

Mixture of bookwork and computers

Teaching improper and mixed fractions using a game on a website, students look at the problem, solve it in their books, discuss, argue, agree and then check answer on screen. I left them after the first 2 problems, they were sorting the learning out for themselves.

Inquiry
Today the students started writing their Research question. The first steps to designing a research question is to write down what we already know. I introduced them to the Graphic Organiser
Writing Questions. They went to the Wiki Research page and clicked on the link to open it and then they made a copy and saved it to the Room 9 folder so that I could access it.

This took them most of the session. Some of them still need to work out which one will be their research question. Once they have an idea,  I would suggest that they use the 'Big Wide Question' graphic organiser, that I made specially when I observed some students in another school trying to develop their questions.

Once they have developed their question they will need to identify what their keywords will be. With all of the work we have done with keywords this week, they should be able to manage that part of the task easily.
Now it is time to look for the information using the keywords, collect and store which they can do in this Google Doc.

I have had a wonderful 4 days working with Room 9 and co-teaching with their awesome teacher Bonnie.
The successes were:

• the large TV with an Apple TV, iPad and Mac laptop. I was able to use both my Mac and iPad to teach from
• the Learning station with the small TV for students to mirror what they were doing and have other students peer edit, comment, solve problems etc
• Google Docs, all student work was shared in a folder to me, so when we wanted to peer edit, I opened on my mac, mirrored to large TV and they were able to edit on their Chromebooks, and all could see at the same time on the large screen
• TV was great for playing Youtube movies on Egypt, excellent clear picture and great sound
• Chromebooks worked well for all students, easy to use and access
• using iPad apps as teaching tools i.e. Explain Everything
• kids teaching kids, I could start them off and leave them to it
• kids not wanting to stop writing, and letting them do just that...I called reading groups as I wanted and the others could keep on writing
• the self pacing maths doc, kids working at their own speed on activities that they wanted to do
• kids making choices about their learning
• kids knowing what they were learning and were able to articulate it when asked

And probably a whole lot more that I will remember later. The only 'not so successful' was

• getting Chromecast to work, but hopefully that will be solved soon
• the occasional internet slow down but that could be due to all the devices being connected and used at the same time (along with all the teachers who were visiting and their devices that they were using courtesy of the school's Daily Passcode)

All in all, a great few days for the students, teachers and myself!

Day Three 'Walk the Talk' Alfriston School

It was another great day in Room 9 at Alfriston School with motivated, industrious students!

Writing
Writing time was phenomenal today. The students did not want to stop writing. Most are writing their stories using their frameworks for reference. Some are at the editing and proof reading stage. Reading generally follows writing so today we said to the students, you can continue writing during reading time if you wish, except for the group I need to see for a reading workshop. All chose to keep writing!












I started a workshop with another group today. Here is the Writing Assessment Checker.

And this is the Workshop. I started them on the 'Telescopic Text' which they had already used with their amazing teacher Bonnie. I gave them the sentence 'Prince Theseus went to Crete' and guided them through expanding and making the sentence better. Their goal is to improve at least 3 sentences in the same way.


 The second workshop was with  a group who is working on paragraphs. One of the student's said he was ready to conference so I was able to go through the Writing Assessment Checker with the whole group. He soon realised that he needed to proof reading his writing again!and here is the workshop. The students played a paragraph game and then we mirrored one of the student's narratives up onto the TV. I encouraged the students to critique and peer edit his work, looking at their Writing Assessment Checker to proof read and edit his story. After a short time l left them to it. After his story was checked, they looked at the others in the group.


 Reading
I met with the 2 journal groups that I started with yesterday and finished the workshop and shared their final activities.
I then met with the 'Percy Jackson' reading group. This was the first time that students had worked with me on this book. We looked at their Vocab Log. I chose a word from one of the student's logs, and showed them how they could use the Search function on Kindle, how to find a dictionary meaning, and how to read in context. That is the focus for their reading from now on is to work on their Vocab log.

Maths
The students now know that straight after morning tea, they come straight into the room, get their books, a device and start on their Maths task Doc. There is no fuss and no time wasted, they just get straight into it. I call a workshop, name the targeted students and allow an open invitation for any others who want to attend.
Today I briefly saw the 'Finding fractions of a number' group. They all knew how to solve fractions of a number, we looked through the rest of the workshop which they said was too easy! So they moved off to work on their Maths Task Doc. I have set myself the goal of finding some harder activities for them.
The second workshop today was improper fractions. The first couple of slides of the games I chose confused them, so I have removed them and found new ones to use tomorrow. Over half of the group got the strategy, I will work with the rest tomorrow with the new activities I have found.


 Inquiry
Today was still about keywords. We looked at Slide 6 and discussed the number of hits.

On slide 8 the students were in groups and used the keywords to see how many hits they got, they recorded these in their topic book, one group recorded on the whiteboard table. They did really well thinking about something they would like to research and coming up with appropriate keywords.
After  that we talked about internet addresses, domain names and URLs

Day Two 'Walk the Talk' Alfriston

This was the first day of teacher visits to observe 'Walk the Talk' in action. The students were not phased at all and worked extremely well all day. The teachers were most impressed with how they were working and how they knew exactly what they were supposed to be doing.

Writing
The children got back their printouts of their Inspiration or Google Doc Narrative frameworks. Their task was to now write their own version of 'Theseus and the Minotaur on Google Docs, using the framework they had worked on yesterday. During this time I took two writing groups.
This is the first group's Writing Assessment Checker...

And this is my version of a modelling book - A Writing Workshop. This is a work in progress, I add slides as I work with the students and identify what they need to know and what resources I can find to support that. In the example below, we are working on structure, looking particularly at Opening statements.



This is the second group's Writing Assessment Checker



And the Writing Workshop. In this workshop I have started off with some websites to see how well the children do with full stops and capital letters. They managed quite well with these so I will look at Slide 5, apostrophes, commas, speech marks. I will add some slides once I have looked at their writing, copied their writing and use that as a teaching slide.



Reading
Today I worked with the 2 journal groups. The first group's workshop was about summarising ideas in text. This workshop goes over 2 days. The reason why I do this is because we look at other resources at the same time, articles, news reports, factual information from the internet that has something to do with the story we are reading. If a country, city, town is mentioned in a book then I like to show where it is in the world and compare where NZ is in relation to the country we are looking at.



The second group was looking at skimming and scanning.

This is my version of  a 'Modelling Book'. I add slides as I work through the Journal stories with them, if I see a teachable moment, I include it in the workshop. If I can find a youtube movie or an internet page that relates then I add that as well. In the above workshop you will see that we looked at the Parthenon and the Acropolis by using the Tools - Research in Google Presentation, this showed us the pictures and gave us more information about them, that we couldn't get from the journal story.

Maths
Today I ran the equivalent workshop again and the students showed they understood everything they had learned so I sent them to the Whiteboard table for 10 minutes to play the game.
Everyday Mathematics - Equivalent Fractions App. They took one iPad and used the whiteboard table to reduce fractions they weren't sure of.

The second workshop I ran was Finding Fractions of a number.

This went really well with students coming with no idea of how to solve the problems to successfully solving them in minutes. The youtube movie on the second slide did a great explanation and then students started doing the problems I had added to the page in their books. I passed around the iPad and everybody had a turn at solving it while the others wrote in their books. They were sent off to continue with their Maths Tasks doc.
While I was taking the workshops the rest of the students worked on their Maths Tasks Doc, choosing their own learning for the day, recording  and reflecting on what they had done.

Inquiry

Today we worked at the Redefinition stage. Students went to the Inquiry page on the wiki, they clicked on the links to open up the individual Google docs, they made a copy and then highlighted all the keywords that answered the question at the top of the doc.

At the same time they also had open the Class Collaborative Doc and added their keywords to the columns, they had to ensure that they put in new keywords, there were to be no repeats. They did a great job on this and now they have a doc that they can refer to when they plan their own research question with lots of keywords to choose from.

Tools we have used before and forgot about #2

Wallwisher (now known as Padlet) was another old familiar tool I came across recently. I stopped using it as it was not always reliable, but it has had a revamp and seems to be working quite well. What I especially like about it is that it also works on iPads, iPhones and iPod Touches. It is not an app but you can access it through the Safari app by going to http://padlet.com/ if you are starting a new one, the URL that designates the Padlet you have created or as a QR code (try out the one to the right) which is generated for you within Padlet. You do need to set up an account to create a Padlet but your students do not need logins or accounts to access it.
You can add text, graphics, movies, maps, slideshows, documents and photos from webcams.
You can embed the Padlet in a wiki or or a blog.

Below is a Padlet wall that I have had for a few years with some ideas of how to use Padlets in the classroom. Please feel free to add to it.

Created with Padlet

Walk the Talk Day Eight

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.



This student is reading her next Myth and 'writing' down the facts/information on a piece of paper!














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 students 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.





Reading
I really think the Kindle App has been a huge success for reading. Gradually students are starting to use the dictionary within the app to help them to decipher meaning and how it fits into the context of the sentence. They are also being exposed to the 'there is more than one meaning for that word'. They read the meaning then look to see if it fits in the context of the story, if it doesn't then read the next definition etc.
I showed one student today how to take notes within the story and then she went on to share with the rest of the group. They are expected to come with some notes on the next chapter when we have our novel study group meeting.

Maths
Rebecca, the teacher of the class, started the Transformation Workshop using the projector with the group of students who had identified as their learning goals 'translation, rotation and reflection. It wasn't long before she was able to leave them to carry on as they were managing their learning well, working together as a collaborative group. She was then able to move around the class working with individuals and small groups, whilst still being able to keep an eye on the Transformation Group.

Transformation workshop from Jacqui Sharp

I ran a voluntary 'Tessellation with Pages' group (instructions in above Workshop) Those students that attended learned how to translate, rotate, flip, duplicate etc in Pages on their iPads. Their task is to see how many shapes they can get to tessellate with each other. They can use the computers as well which will give them more choices. On Friday I will show them how they can draw their own shapes and tessellate them as well using Escher Images as examples.


Topic
Most of the students are able to collect their information, reference it and store it in Notability.



A few are more excited by the prospect of presenting their work in which ever way they would like...mostly Minecraft! I have said to them that they have to collect all information first, and then tell me how they are going to be able to present this in a way, that will inform viewers about 'What were the Systems Ancient Romans invented?' One child has started in Minecraft by creating his drainage system with sign posts that give you the information about how it was done!

Walk the Talk Day Seven

Writing
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.

Reading

The Apple TV and the TV screen has been a fabulous teaching station. I have really enjoyed working with the Kindle App and it has proved to be an invaluable teaching tool.  Many of the teachers who have observed me teaching have been able to see the worth of the application. The students love it as well, they like being able to highlight words and sentences, find dictionary meanings instantly and write notes.
One of the activities I have set up for the Artemis Fowl Book, was to set up a Gnomish (Gnommish) book in Google Presentation called 'Our Fairy Book. Students can click on the link and they can add their messages. The first student added their message today.

Maths

I was moving around and talking to students during Maths time. The question I was asking was 'What have you learned today?' This student was able to tell me that his 'Position and Orientation' task was quite difficult until he worked out what the x and y axis meant and that he had to search in a different way that was not obvious. You have to love it when students work things out for themselves.

I had a teacher today say 'How do you keep ahead of the kids?' My reply was "why do I need to?' I used Minecraft as an example. Students are able to create their graphics and later their Ancient Civilisation worlds. I don't know how to do it, as long as they can explain to me the 'what and why' I am happy for them to use the app.

Topic

Students were starting to copy information today. We talked about referencing books, websites, movies etc using Notability, Evernote or Notes. I demonstrated how to take notes through a movie clip... play, pause, type, play. By the end of the session, students were very conscious of the importance of referencing where they got information from. Next, they will be looking at how to turn that information into their own words.

Walk the Talk Day Six

Another busy day with excited, motivated students.

Writing
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

Maths
We had an internet outage for about 15 minutes today, but students were able to carry on with non digital activities or ones on the iPad or computer that do not need internet. One of the activities was to make Maori patterns (tessellations). I had suggested some programmes students could use, but I had one student come up and show me how he had used the iOrnament app for his patterns.
Pretty Good I thought!

Topic
Part of the research process today was to find resources on the 'systems' of Rome and note down titles, authors, page numbers and URLs if they are from the Internet. It was interesting to note that nearly all of the students went for the books first rather than the websites. Most of the students used Notability to store their references.

Walk the Talk Day Five

Five days have gone past so fast and I am half way through my time at Clevedon. We have had lots more visitors today and the students were only to happy to share their learning with them. Quite a few of the boys are coming everyday with their new 'Ancient Civilisations' minecraft creations. They very proudly showed the visiting teachers some of their ideas. It was lovely to see how interested and excited the other children were as the minecraft students presented via Apple TV. This example is one where the student has made a model of Poseidon in Minecraft. Below, this student is experimenting with temples. I have said to the children that they can take screen captures of their creations and use them as graphics for their publishing and presenting.

Google Teacher Dashboard
I now have access to student work through the Google Teacher Dashboard. What I really like about this is being able see all of the students work in one place, what they have updated and when!


Writing
This morning we sorted the children into groups of 3 and assigned them a computer. I set them a task of expanding the sentence 'Prince Theseus went to Crete.' They had to do this on Telescopic Text. I did use a little bribery by saying the best group writers would get five Dojo points each. They took to the task with great enthusiasm and when they shared 15 minutes later, we were amazed at the quality of writing, structure, descriptive words and thought that the students had put into their work. It was fabulous to watch the collaboration that was going on. Here is what they wrote (please bear in mind that they were not worried about spelling and punctuation so much, they were trying to get their ideas down)

Reading
The students are using the dictionaries within the Kindle app more often now for helping them to find meaning. The Vocab Log is working well, as I am using it as a teaching tool. I put ? next to the words that students have made an incorrect sentence or meaning and we look it up in the 'search' on the  Kindle app, look at the word in context and then look at the meaning and decipher what it means in the story.

Maths
The independent workshops are starting to work better, but I think in future I would not try to use Mathletics, Studyladder and Rainforest Maths for collaborative work. The activities themselves are great and fit right in with our NZ maths but are too hard too navigate to in a group situation. They will have to continue to be used as independent activities with individual sign ins. The students enjoy the workshops and is one of the noisiest parts of the classroom as they all chime in at the same time calling the answers. The best way I have found to use this workshop is to start it off myself, leave them to carry on and go back to set up for the next slide when they are ready. Other workshops I have made for other strands go straight to other websites with no logins or sign ins, so students can work collaboratively through the workshops without a teacher.

Shape workshop from Jacqui Sharp

Topic
Today we recapped on yesterdays 'Fact Recall' and what students knew about Ancient Rome and they had to do a 'Finding Keywords' for their mini inquiry on 'What were the systems the Ancient Romans invented?'
I talked about Keywords and what they were. I will be using the following slideshow to teach research skills to the students.

How to be a better researcher from Jacqui Sharp