Attack of the Androids!

As part of Samsung in Schools our class of 24 Year 1 students has the use of 8 Samsung Notes.  It has been quite a big learning curve for me going from iPads/iPhones to the Samsung Notes and having to give up some of the apps I love for the possibilities they give students e.g. Puppet Pals and Rubber Chicken Apps, hasn't been easy.

The kids love getting on them!

Today I sat with a group of students and we visited the Google Play store to find some apps that we can use to help us achieve some of our learning goals in Maths.  We already have Mathletics.  We wrote down the learning goals and then when we checked out the store we looked at different game options on the projector screen and looked at the reviews from others too - the kids quickly identified the good ones had 4 or more stars!  We wrote down the ones we thought could help our learning under the goals that they related to.  Being Mathematics, many of them were 'skill and drill' or 'glorified worksheets' but they were there to help us learn our basic facts.

There are some things I like more about the Samsung Notes...

• I love that I can have apps in more than one folder e.g. I can put a maths app in add/sub as well as in counting
• The quality of video and photo footage is an improvement
• Multitasking with split screens is very handy
• The plug in keypad that came with them is handy
• the S-Pen is a brilliant stylus

iPads to Support & Motivate Learners

So they find reading and writing a hard slog and put it off as much as possible?

What can you do about it?

Change it up!

Support them to find ways to tell their stories, read their books and grow a love of reading and writing.  It might not be the way you are used to teaching, you learn alongside the student.

Accross the board...I love using Educreations.  I can record a guided session with students in any curriculum area and post these to our class page for students to refer back to them when they are practising or at home to reinforce their learnjng.  Gives parents a glimpse into what we are doing too.  Similar apps are Explain Everything (even more bells and whistles) or a simpler feee one 'Screen Chomp'.  Students can use these apps to show you their thinking or to create a tutorial for someone else to learna from or as proof that they have met their sucess criteria.

Reading

iBooks 
Lots of ways to work with iBooks to support students in their reading.  They can highlight words, make notes, click on words and get definitions and ask the book to read some words to you - great for trying to understand aspects of a story and developing vocabulary.

Storytelling

Puppet Pals HD or Puppet Pals 2
Creative way for students to create and tell stories.  They can retell a story read, make up their own story, explain a concept, model a thinking strategy or tool... the possibilities are endless and they don't have to do it face to face - great way to present for students who prefer not to be up front and obvious.

Kidspiration/inspiration

This app allows students to create bubble maps, add pictures, graphics and even voice recordings.  These can then be put in list form which can be used as the structure for an essay or story.

Skitch

An easy app for all students to take a picture and add words, lines etc to develop vocab or simole labelling skills.  Because the photo can be one they have taken, or a screen shot they have a vested interest to motivate their work on it.

Notability

Similar in ways to evernote.  It can include videos, voice recordings, pictures, drawings etc to record notes during a workshop or lesson.

Scribble Press

Templates for telling stories and students can illustrate with drawings or photographs and feel successful as a writer.

Book Creator

This app creates books for iBooks.  When on the computer there are more options in the creating of these with more interactive possibilities however the iPad or android apps are pretty awesome too.

Success Makers

(opportunities to create without failure)

Echograph

Create glifs with one part moving and the rest still.

Silent Film

Old style film, telling a story with no talking.

I Can Animate

Heaps of applications!

Time Lapse

Similar uses to I Can Animate

Learning and doing

I posed a question to my class of 24 Year 1 students..."What do you need to learn in Maths this week?" Their first answers were the games they liked playing e.g. I need to learn the dominoes. I explained that the dominoes are more of a tool to learn other things in maths. Students then identified the number patterns on the dominoes and counting as their learning goals as they could use the dominoes for this (they love building with the dominoes).

This exercise led to another question...How do we know what we know? Good thing it's a week of assessments...an opportunity to have learning conversations with students about what they know and decide together the next learning to focus on.

Writing Rewired and some other fun stuff

On Monday it was inspiring to hear other teachers talk about the ways they are making learning more exciting, accessible and challenging for the students in their classes at a Writing Rewired Workshop in Cromwell for the eCentral Cluster.

Making the Writing Programme Fun was a google doc that was shared with us and has been compiled by teachers from all over NZ and was added to on Monday.

I had a few key take-away points

• get creative with current songs that interest students and use them in our learning - Thanks Danella
• re-read Clarity in the Classroom - Thanks Claire
• explore Hattie's work on Visible Learning further (part of our staff Teacher Inquiry too)
• Consider ways for the students to 'collect their evidence' - digital or paper? both?

There were lots of other things I am still 'processing' and are tucked away for a little later in the year when the class is more established.

Today I had a visiting teacher from Auckland in our class.  The focus was how eLearning tools are being used in a Year 1 classroom.  Our class has only had devices for 3 days - today was the third day!  This was a fabulous opportunity to share some of what I am developing with students using tools - things that will grow and change over 2014 as the needs of the learners change too.
Things we are establishing

• Mathletics on Samsung Notes (entering usernames and passwords takes up a big part of the time here).
• Letter Formation videos using our Casey Caterpillar shapes on QR codes so students can scan these with Samsung Notes to practise the letters they need to work on 
• Skitch - students have been working on character descriptions in our reading and writing after looking at the Gruffalo dvd they were photographing our class Gruffalo and then writing a description of it or labels on the picture - working with a partner for this (mixed groupings)
• PM reading on laptops with headphones - students are using their reading rocks (colour wheel based) to know what level they are reading at and selecting their reading level to explore the books and related activities.  Teaching students mostly used to touch screens how to use a lap top mouse pad has been interesting to say the least

I was amazed at how focused the students were on their learning when it was using different devices - is this because they are new to them?  Will the interest/hook/engagement continue?

Caves, Campfires & Watering Holes

There's lots being shared about flexible learning spaces and their links to caves, campfires & watering holes.  Our school is just over 3 years old and when it was being developed our Principal and Board took on ideas about these different spaces and utilised concepts of educational architect Prakash Nair to ensure these different spaces are available for our learners.

When we set up our classes each year we do this with our students - the spaces belong to the whole class - not just the teacher.  We talk about the different learning spaces we need and what we need to use the spaces in our pods for e.g. mathematics & literacy.  In small groups the students in the class I teach this year put together their ideas on what these spaces look like to show their understanding of how we use the spaces.  Each Summit group moved around the different sheets of paper and added their ideas.  Love that they saw what other groups had done and added their own person to the different spaces.

Mathletics Ambassador Training

      

On Friday last week I was invited to participate in the Mathletics Ambassador Training with one of our students who has consistently worked hard at Mathletics since he was 7 but I'll leave that story for him to share on his Ambassador blog posts perhaps.

Liam, Karen & Debbie met us at Sky City Auckland and took us up the tower for the New Zealand Ambassadors photo, strong back lighting meant the photo opportunities were limited but nothing a green screen, Godzilla, some kiwis and a ledge couldn't fix.

From there we walked to the Unicef Offices where we learned about School in a Box Kits.

Participation in the World Education Games linked with fundraising for School in a Box is a fabulous combination.  Education and the tools for it are things our students take for granted, for other children it is like a dream come true especially in times of trauma or emergency.

We then met in an amazing space 'Movers & Shakers' where pallets formed individual workspaces, a 'brain' sat in the centre of the warehouse space and a board room was up the other end.  These spaces provided many different ways to work for our Mathletics Ambassadors as they received training and support in the art of blog writing and interview techniques to prepare them for their roles as ambassadors in their schools and communities.

At the end of the day Liam presented the Four Ambassadors with a Samsung 10.1 Galaxy note tablet for their use over the year as Ambassadors - Samsung don't want them back.  The Ambassadors couldn't be happier at that moment.

As a Maths Lead Teacher the challenge is to now support Willem in his role as Ambassador leading up to the World Education Games 2013 and with Mathletics throughout the year. I am also interested in how he finds his Samsung Tablet

Movers & Shakers

Today I am in Auckland. Made possible by 3P Learning, an amazing Mathletics student and our Principal. Willem won NZ Maths Day for Mathletics in 2012 and was invited to be an Ambassador for Mathletics leading up to the World Education Games in March. I was invited tomattend with Willem and his mum. We have been up the Sky Tower, learned about 'School in a Box' with Unicef and are now having a PR and Marketing Session in the fabulous space shown in the photos. Soon these students will be 'presented' with a very cool 'Samsung Product', I have some guesses about what this might be but won't say just yet!

The Movers and Shakers space we are in takes the concept of caves, campfires and watering holes to a whole new level. Pallets form individual workspaces, the boardroom is a fabulous campfire space and the watering hole is a very cool 'brain'. Fun space.