Storyboard or Storyjumper

Last year I had the children writing collaboratively using a website called Storyjumper. They wrote little books using characters provided. However the characters they tended to choose had very limited story lines and plots. I found another website where they had a lot more choice - settings, characters, text styles etc. 
Again I offered it during the Daily 5 reading rotation and called it Buddy Writing. It was very popular, however the end product of a 6 - 10 page book was a long time coming for some. There were too many distractions and too much choice - lots of discussion and collaborating. They boys especially spent much of their time choosing characters, talking through ideas and making changes rather than actually writing. 
2014 - offer it as a before school collaborative activity?

Facebook

Is there a place for Facebook in schools? Should schools have a Facebook page? Most schools with Facebook pages use them as a notification service or as another way of informing parents of what's going on at school.
How different is a Facebook page different to a class Twitter feed? 
The Chelsea School Facebook page that was set up before Christmas has certainly got a number of friends who are actively following the posts and liking and commenting.

The holiday competition sending in photos of interesting places to read a book has certainly flourished with Facebook as an outlet for viewing all the entry photos - it's been a very positive use of Facebook and a great success!
I am now an administrator as well and can also post events and news items. I will be posting happenings in the Bachelor Syndicate such as 

Maths Apps for the iPad

Slide Maths - a great free app - up to 4 players can play at once! 

Bitsboard 
- a free app
A huge range of games for every curric area - load the board with your choice of topic 

Sumdog
- now has some iPad friendly apps - go to the app store and search under Sumdog
(See a much bigger range of games on the Sumdog website - make a class account with individual logins)

Hoodamath
 Another free app with a range of games - some great logic games that would be good for extension activities
(Also available on their website)

More iPad apps

Fresh Pick - at a supermarket - the reviews are positive as an app that requires application of knowledge via problem solving

The chn love this app - it requires a certain amount of thinking to solve a range of problems

- giving directions to get to a product

- giving change

- buying products - how many apples at 50c each for $2

- using the language of position of products on shelves

- a memory game

Daisy the Dinosaur

Daisy the Dinosaur - reviews say this app gives children the beginnings of basics in software programming

- you have to make Daisy move across the screen to a target - you can programme her to do all sorts of moves  - spin, turn, jump, roll, walk forwards, backwards, programme her to do repeats of various routines

So very much a problem solving, thinking app

Popplet - a simple, fun way to get chn to write!
A great brainstorming app. I saw Year 5/6 children using very successfully it to show their research on a topic at Point England School when I visited during October this year.

Little boxes that link together - add text via keypad or drawing and add photos.

Educreations

 Our new FREE web tool – a special iPad app or use a laptop – http://www.educreations.com/

It is an interactive whiteboard that creates video lessons or explanations in a slideshow format. From a teacher’s point of view it has unlimited possibilities for children to become confident talking about their learning and sharing it in an exciting, motivating, e-learning way.

The features of Educreations:

• Write text or draw lines or pictures with a pen using different colours
• Write text with a keyboard
• Take photos or import photos from a folder or your camera roll
• Import pictures from the web
•  Add more pages to your slideshow
•  Add audio or talk along with your slides
• Save and share your slideshow – email, Twitter, embed it into a blog or wiki page
• You will need to sign up with an email account to share it

Ways we could use Educreations 

• share research about a zoo animal
•  explain how to solve a maths problem
• share a book that has been read
• explain how to make something

It's best to plan the slideshow - load up each page with photos, text, practise what to say or write it down, then add voice for each page

The 2 weaknesses I can see are:

 Having to record all slides in one session – you can’t go back and edit once saved

 If you make a mistake with your voice recording you have to start all over again

Only disadvantage is that you can't save the talk for each page - you have to delete the whole voice recording if you make a mistake

Maths -
Talking through / explaining maths learning - eg showing doubles, mult problems, evidence from weighing activities - photos, diagrams, add voice
Literacy Ideas -

Book review - captions, photos, story with pictures/ photos, photos with captions + voice
http://www.educreations.com/lesson/view/maori-places/9197099/
http://www.educreations.com/lesson/view/zoo-animal-tagxedos-by-zach-thomas-and-kartik/8950885/
http://www.educreations.com/lesson/view/ipads-please/9073114/

Audioboo - another favourite to use again in 2014

248 boos for 2013! Wow what a lot of fun and it shows how popular and easy this app is to use. We used it as an activity in our Daily 5 reading rotation - read a poem and record on Audioboo using the iPad, listen to your recording and self assess whether you want to save it or rerecord - or listen to someone else's boo. 

Everyone few days we would choose a few boos to listen to and using our 'Star and a Wish' system we would assess them - by the end of the year the children were quite used to hearing their own voice without feeling embarrassed and were taking on board the advice of their peers.

A Star = something good about the reading
A Wish = something to improve for next time

The children would often choose to embed a boo onto their Kidblog page or would often want to tweet it.

The other use for Audioboo was to record the children reading during a running record. I never did play it to a parent during a meeting but it was useful for me or for a child to listen to the change over time - comparison from the beginning of the year to the end of the year.

Wallwisher/Padlet - An Oldie But A Good One

This is one of my favourite apps to use in the classroom! It is an old faithful from way back in the early days of hooking children and parents into sharing the learning that happens in the classroom with home. Luckily it has updated itself. It is simple, versatile, iPad friendly, free and can be used by individuals or be used as a collaborative class project. 

Created with Padlet

2014 - Using The Blogger iPad App

Student voice and all that - the children will be rostered on to take a daily photo of classroom learning and be responsible for writing the caption. Hopefully this will take the blog into more homes and will mean more parents will use the blog and maybe leave comments and feed back for the children - an authentic audience for their writing. The Blogger app for the iPad has made posting photos and captions so easy that all I need to do is check and edit the writing before publishing.

Blogger - Our Class Blog

http://www.chelseabachelors.blogspot.co.nz/

I still see a need for a class blog and Blogger still seems to be the best platform to share with the parent community what the class or Syndicate is doing. 2013 saw The Bachelors' Blog become a Syndicate blog where I was in control of what was posted. Usually weekly I would post a least one photo with a caption to show what the learning for the week was. I would always update the Star of The Week photo too. A weekly commitment but that's what a blog is all about - regular communication with the parent community.

Kidblog - sharing an individual child's work online

http://kidblog.org/Space10sBlog/

Half way through the year I was having doubts about our class Wikispace pages. I was always fixing errors with the children's posts. They found it hard to remember to write posts chronologically and I would find their writing in all sorts of mixed up places on their page. Uploading photos and leaving comments was messy too. I feel wikispaces is probably suited to children older than my 6-7 year olds. Kidblog seems to be a cross between Blogger and Wikispaces, allowing a teacher to set up individual pages for each child in a class while still having control over each page. (Using Blogger meant having individual email accounts which seemed too big a step for Year 2s.) Writing posts was more organised and leaving comments was a lot easier.

2014 - Using Skitch with Evernote

Problem: The only concern I have had with online writing has been how to show first drafts and further editing by the writer or feedback from me as part of the writing process! 

Solution: Use Evernote and Skitch together. By taking an image of their first draft and adding notes in Skitch seems an ideal way to overcome this problem - it sounds as if it will work - 2014 we'll see?

Evernote - Our Online Writing Books

https://www.evernote.com

Problem: How to use our 5 iPads and 6 PCs/laptops during our writing sessions? 

Solution: Evernote has become our writing book. After trialling Notes on the iPad or writing directly onto their wiki page I discovered that Evernote is much more manageable. Children can be rostered onto Evernote on the PCs and iPads and can access their pages anywhere, even from home if they wished. All children have their own page. They plan and brainstorm ideas and words, then draft their stories, edit themselves or easily peer edit and then conference with me. I can also check up from home - no messy piles of draft books around and then plan who I need to conference with the next day. Then it's easy for them to publish - copy and save with a photo or other image to their Kidblog page or wiki page to share. So half the class is writing online while the other half are using their traditional writing books. 

Click image to enlarge - Impressive writing by Raina - One of the more talented writers in the class 

2014 - Twitter

I will set up a roster so that each day the children will become responsible for remembering to tweet and share our learning. Another easy example of creating a purpose for writing that will be read by an authentic audience and for promoting "student voice" in the classroom. As well as following the Year 1 and 2 classes from Pinehill School we have found 2 other classes of 6-7 year olds in the US who are tweeting their learning on a daily basis who we will follow.

Mrs D's 1st graders      @RamblerStars

Mrs Mastin's 1st graders    @Mastin1stgrade
Pinehill Room 11    @Pinehill11
Pinehill Room 22    @Room22Superstars
Pinehill Room 8      @Pinehill_Room8 

Twitter in the Classroom @Chelseakids10

I was amazed at how enthusiastic the children became with this social media tool. There were 6 or 7 children in the class who became regular users and would constantly want to tweet the photo of their work. They created their own Twitter accounts at home and were regular followers. the Stars of the Week photos were always tweeted to the world! Thank you Thomas and Ayden for remembering each Friday. They also enjoyed seeing what the other classes we followed were doing and would often try out the apps they had used.

The End of 2013 - Reflections

A VERY busy year! Heaps of new learning courtesy of the Learning and Assessment Team working in our school.

• so lots of trialing new ideas and modifying old ones - observations, student conferencing, videoing lessons, giving feedback to staff, children self and peer assessing, target and focus learners, writing and reading progressions, LLP and NZ Curric and National Standards resources, inquiry planning cycle, clarity of learning intentions, co-constructing success criteria, next steps.....  
• being given 4 new iPads to use making 5 in total plus 6 PCs and laptops meant Space 10 was a trial digital learning class - no pressure to maximize the use of all this hardware! Watch the Educreation slideshow the class made to request more iPads - very persuasive and it worked!

• trying to keep my own e-learning PD going as well as encouraging staff by keeping the gentle reminders going regarding the e-learning that should be happening in classes
• working on an e-learning strategic plan for the school with David Kinane and Clare

Keeping this blog updated has suffered from my time being taken up with these other commitments. So to make up for lost time the following posts are reflections on what I trialed in 2013 and my next steps for including and modifying for the new class of eager learners in 2014!