Maths with an iPad

Check out Allanah's post about 1-1 counting and an activity from the Numeracy Project book: Addition & Subtraction - Flower Petals.

I wonder how many more of the Activities we do everyday can be improved using the tools available to us?

I find Allanah's list of 'must have' apps invaluable too!

App Love

I was doing my usual Saturday morning wander through blog posts, twitter and pinterest and checked in on what Greg Carroll has been sharing.  One of his posts grabbed my attention as it's something that's been on the back of my mind for a while...how easy could it be to create an app?  It seems that my own children and students in class love apps and the possibilities they open up.  As a parent and teacher I mostly enjoy the learning opportunities these afford them.  Anyway, back to the blog post I'm referring to: Teachers Making Apps - Really.  The video below sums it all up really.

Having watched this video, scanned the QR code (that took me to ibuildapp) and checked out the ibuild app page I am even more intrigued and thinking through the possibilities of this for teaching and learning with 5 year olds.  I wonder how this would work with students in relation to a class page or learning beyond the classroom?  They mostly just link to online content like youtube, prezi's etc.  If making one for a unit however it does take a week for apple to approve an app.

Here's another handy link - The Ultimate Teachers Guide to Creating Educational Apps

Bit scary that even a 10 year old could do it...

Hmm, now what to do with this information...

Ultranet Class Pages

Why have a class page?

 Check out THIS LINK it sums up for me many of the purposes of a class page. 

• Audience
• Reflection
• Internet Safety
• Digital Tools
• Global Community
• Our Global World
• Parental Involvement

Check out this Wiki page too.  This is the ideal, a place for students to interact, publish and for ongoing learning.  The concept of it being like an open day all year long is perhaps how we should see our class pages - a window into the learning experiences going on in our classes.

Currently my Year One class page is:

• a place for information for parents including word lists etc
• a place for students to click on learning activities or YouTube clips relevant to their group's current learning goals
• a place to share our reflections or something we have learned (students narrate their ideas and I type them in during a reflection time in class)

Essentially it is a portal into further learning opportunities for students and families.

Some things to think about...

What is the purpose of your class page?

Why keep it updated?

What do you need to put on it to create it into what you and your class decide it should be?

Our school uses Ultranet for our class pages.  It can seem a little daunting for a teacher to be faced with what they see when they log in but never fear, help is at hand!  In the form of 'help'.  If you scroll right down to the bottom of your class page and look to the bottom right, you will see an image of a lifesaver ring, click on the help and you will get answers to most of the questions or tasks you want to do on your Class Page.  THIS LINK is a good one to book mark as it gives you access to the general usage support articles.

Don't forget the resource you have at your finger tips of other class pages both within your own school and teachers nationally and internationally!

Smiles,
Lara

Joining the Dots

Just before term break students in my class were doing connect the dot activities in maths to practise ordering numbers to 20 and to 50.  They had to think about the next number after.  Some found this tricky, some found it less so.  In relation to this conference, connecting the dots was about mathematical literacy and how many school leavers (a million or so) don't have the required mathematical literacy to participate fully in society.  This is approximately 50% of the NZ workforce.  They are not numerate enough.  Gillian Thomas, NZ Maths shared the different directions that had developed in the teaching of mathematics.  To connect the dots, primary teachers need to build the foundations of mathematics literacy that can be built on or connected to as students move through primary, secondary, tertiary and the work force.

Some points to consider from this

• when doing 'independent activities' are your students talking about maths?
• We go to school to live a productive and active life, how then as teachers do we head students on the maths journey.
• if we are just skimming the understanding, kids drop off.  We need to make sure our groundwork is strong and then the other things can be learned reasonably easily.  Maths is about connections.
• check out ALIM, PACT (coming soon - supporting teachers to form an OTJ in a way that facilitates consistency and allows for progress to be tracked - will break maths into 8 key ideas) and E-Ako.

As well as listening to this keynote, I attended three other workshops - Integrating iPads into your Maths Programme, Home School Math Madness Month & How to use your Interactive Whiteboard effectively during math lessons.

Integrating iPads into your maths Programme
Jazz Rolton - New River Primary

You can find Jazz's presentation on her blog HERE.

Maths Madness Month
Narelle Collie, Heddon Bush School

Narelle shared with us how her school set up a home school partnership with maths evenings - presenting maths around games concepts to develop positive learning experiences to parents and caregivers.  Free games packs were given each night.

Much of the workshops were developed from the 2008 Home-School Partnership: Numeracy book.  You can download this book HERE.

Using your Interactive Whiteboard during maths lessons
Simon Clarke, Kaikorai Primary

A couple of key points

• develop a way to encourage staff to share Activboard presentations
• try to make it interactive for the students not for the teacher
• with a culture of sharing we need to be able to critique too
• lock objects so they don't move - put it on a background layer
• if you are sharing flipcharts, put notes in about it
• know where the maths tools are and how to add more
• when planning in teams, each team member to look in different places to share what they found e.g. someone go to Youtube, someone Promethean etc.

It was a cold day at the Symposium, I was reluctant to take my jacket off in the hall but the classrooms where the workshops were held were nice and cosy.

Photography 101 in Year One Classroom

I love photography.  I love teaching (most of the time *grin*).  How cool is it that over the next couple of weeks I get to explore photography with Year One students in our pod as part of our inquiry focus.  See, we are exploring the history of the Frankton area - did you know that there used to be a Market Garden where the Queenstown Airport is, and a couple hundred metres from school was the 'Brunswick Flour Mill' - the first one in Central Otago?  Well I am learning lots about our local area.  Due to both of these things being related to food...we are creating a recipe book to link our learning about the history to today. You have photos in recipe books.  I am guiding some young learners on taking great photos to illustrate our book.

Why teach a five year old to take good photos? Digital Photography for Kids gives lots of reasons why.

So what should I teach them?  Where do I start?  What is important to know?  As per usual I googled my questions and have came up with the following links:
13 Lessons to Teach Your Children About Photography
How to teach and introduce the wonders of photography
How to teach photography to your children
Hold the Camera Kid

And this is probably my fave:
Teaching Photography to a Five Year Old

My Kid Took These is an example of a three year olds photography.  Kids, National Geographic has some photo links too.  Check out the Little Photographers group in Flickr.

Right, armed with this information, off to plan some possible lines of direction for this inquiry within inquiry:-)

Smiles

The Treasure Tree

At the ILT Conference in Invercargill last year one of the key note speakers - Ali Mooney - spoke about personality types for adults and recommended 'The Treasure Tree' as a resource that can be used in the classroom or at home to help children recognise the different personality types in themselves and their peers and to value the contribution that each can make.  I downloaded the book on my iPad and have since shared it with each of my children at home (Miss 11, Miss 9 and Mr 8), each recognising themselves in the animals the story portrays.  This post:The Corner on Character describes what the book is about.  Weirdblog breaks down the personality types a bit more.

Here is a series of helpful ideas/tools that includes some information about the personality types in The Treasure Tree: Whole Child.

I wonder what the 'class of 2012' would think of this book?

iPod/iPad Stuff

There are so many cool uses of these tools in learning!  Thought I should link some in here for easy reference...
iPads in Education
Setting Parental Controls
Grant Braes School in Interface
Live Binders
kbs.school - click on the iPod image
vln.school
iPodsiPhones wiki
iPads a fad?
iPad podcast