Tuesday, 21 May 2013

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.




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