Observation Clevedon #5

Rachael has fine tuned her Daily Five options and shared with the whole class. She is just working with Reading at the moment. Students are able to access this through Google Docs. Her aim is to develop independence and self management.

I worked with a reading group today in Rebecca's room, with a particularly difficult text on estuaries (The secret life of Estuaries. Connected 3 2006). Students had their iPads and journals and we worked at the TV Learning Zone. Students had the Dictionary app open so that they could look up words that they didn't know.

 When I do this activity again I will get students to record in Notability what words they checked, and a followup task would be to find the suitable dictionary meaning using Dictionary (or search in Google with search term being the 'word' and Define). They could write the sentence from the book and replace the dictionary word with a synonym if applicable.

Every now and then I would ask a student to mirror their iPad so that we could discuss the dictionary term they were looking at.

There were 2 diagrams in the story. I got them to take a photo of the first diagram and annotate the different parts of it. When we came to the next diagram they did the same thing. The diagrams were a visual aid of the text relating to the text they had just read. Some of them started to jot down some notes as they would have to write an explanation later.

Observation 'The Gardens' 12 March 2013

Evernote and Edmodo are being used by some of the teachers in this school. Tracy in particular has lead the movement amongst the e-Learning teachers with Edmodo. Most of her Year 5/6 class are in their second year of e-Learning and it shows. The students are very quick and adept with the technology.

Jan's Year 5/6 class has some boys that are 'blossoming' using iPads. They are more focussed, on task, engaged and interested in what they are doing. She had no problems setting up her room this year and feels very comfortable with the way it works. I noticed that the students were using the whiteboards for their learning rather than the teacher.

Jan wanted her students to practise their handwriting with Drawing apps on the iPad. The students mostly chose Drawing Pad. I suggested using Notability with lines and also suggested that they record themselves in Screen Chomp writing the alphabet so that they could see what letters they are not forming correctly. Once they had their practice in Notability, they could save into a Handwriting folder, their best pieces of writing could be shared to Evernote.
The last 2 years the e-Learning teachers have been using Google Sites for their digital portfolios. They have decided it was too cumbersome so they are using Evernote which can be used both on computers and devices. Most creative apps will share to Evernote, so students can store best evidence of their progress in notebooks in Evernote. Work that has been hand done can be photographed and added as well. Students can also use the recording option to record their feelings about their work.

During reading time students were creating their graphics in Drawing Pad based on their reading book Sea Witch. Once they made the individual pictures they added them to Comic Life.


 


One of Tracey's students showed me how to install the Evernote clipper to Safari on the iPad

• Go to http://mergy.org/2012/05/use-the-evernote-clipper-with-safari-on-ipad-and-iphone/ this has the instructions for the following
• In another tab go to http://www.evernote.com and bookmark it, rename it 'Evernote Clipper'
• Go to this link http://mergy.org/wp-content/uploads/2011/05/iOSEvernoteWebClipper.txt copy the code, tap on Bookmarks and Edit, tap on Evernote Clipper, paste code
• From now on when you select Bookmark - Evernote Clipper,  a new window will open where you can choose notebooks and tags
  

Observation Week Clevedon

The teachers are discovering that the Google Drive app is not perfect. You can't copy a document in Drive, students need to go to Chrome and open the desktop version. Students had problems signing in and you can't see the collaborators on your documents in real time, you have to tap sync to see what they have added. My suggestion is to use the Google Drive app for getting down ideas, editing,  and sharing. If the teachers want the students to do peer editing, it would be best to use the class laptops so that they can make full use of the commenting feature.

Students are making choices in what apps they use for their learning. One group of students were splitting words into syllables and several of them chose Notability, where they typed the words and use the pen tool to draw the lines. Others were writing in notes or writing in their books.

I liked this short maths starter called 10 pin bowling The students chose an app to record their answers and they had 5 minutes to get rid of all of the pins. Apps they could have used were Showme, Educreations, Screen Chomp or Notability.











The classroom wikis ( Rachael and Rebecca) are being referred to all of the time and resources are being added constantly for student use.

The teachers have been sharing PDF worksheets to Dropbox for the students to work from and students record their answers in their books. They could also import it to Notability and record their answers using the pencil or text tool.

The use of Evernote has started in one classroom where each student has a notebook where they save their research information. Students found out how to add graphics, type notes, add tags and they are going to learn how to use Evernote to reference their research.

To get to know the iPad one of the teachers has made up an iChallenge for both classes. Students had to fill in what they were able to do, they used the emoji symbols to record their answers. Following on from our discussion about monitoring the options students choose, Rachael is trialing this spreadsheet with a group to see if they can self manage themselves and their tasks. We look forward to the end of the term to evaluate how it worked.