Fotobabble

Another successful app to use with young children.  A great way to record student voice - giving children the opportunity to publish their writing or to express their opinion about something they have learnt. It is easy for them to take a photo and to record, then listen and rerecord if they wish. Then this can be shared - via email to their parents or the link is copied and uploaded to their Padlet page (I am doing this for them at this point in time.)

 
Samantha explaining her garden plan; Scarlett talking about how a food pyramid keeps us healthy; Cooper counting in 5s.
Here are examples of how fotobabble can be used to record student learning - it also gives children the opportunity to talk to or about a topic without having to read a script - which is an important skill in itself!

Blogger - Our Class Blog

So simple! Using the iPad Blogger app has made it easy for the children to write a new post each day on our class blog. I was determined that by the end of Term One they would take responsibility for choosing the learning of the day that they wanted to share and be able to publish the post themselves. 
To achieve this I had to:

• set aside time each day to show 2 children how to take/choose a photo, write a title, write the caption, write their names as the labels
• suggest the photo/learning to share
• suggest an appropriate title, they could usually think of a sentence to write on the topic
• be available to edit their writing before publishing
• make sure that the task was shared around ans that everyone had a turn
• make sure that there were 4 children that were shown 

Padlet - Term 1 2014

This has turned out to be the most successful app for the beginning of the year for my Year 2 class. It is so versatile and has enthused and motivated the children into taking photos, videos and writing and then sharing their learning with their parents.

As an introduction to Padlet we had class pages where we all wrote on the same page.
Now:

everyone in the class has their own Padlet page 

each page is uploaded to the class blog -  http://www.chelseabachelors.blogspot.co.nz/

it is then able to be accessed from home as well - several children have taken off with this and have added photos and captions of themselves at home

writing on their Padlet page has become part of the Daily 5 reading rotation 

writing on their Padlet page has become part of the writing rotation

children choose what they want to write about - choose or take their own photo, write their own title and write their own sentence/caption

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!

The L & A Team

L&A - (Leadership and Assessment)
As part of the catch up for 10 years of little PD in the school and to bring us up to date we have started this contract. Wow - a big time learning curve! 
Classroom teaching strategies are under close inspection - clarity of learning intentions, clear success criteria co-constructed with the children, planning using the teaching as inquiry cycle, focus learners, student voice, teaching based on evidence and data, reflective teachers, modeling books, reflective learners setting their own goals and learning, Team Leaders observing their teachers and both reflecting on teaching practice, Team meetings becoming PD sessions - just some of the new look happenings around the place!

Out with the old (thank goodness!) and in with the new!
But not enough TIME to do it all quickly enough!
Hence why I've been re-energized to keep this blog, that is tracking my learning as a teacher, going - it is a great way to be a reflective teacher! 

Our Class Wiki

http://chelseaschoolspace102013.wikispaces.com/

A place for the children to share their work in an authentic environment. David Kinane helped us all to set up a class wikis so children could have their own page as place to record their learning. Only 2 classes have seen the light and the benefits of  it at the moment.
I set the students in my class a holiday task - record using text and photos - something you did in the holidays -so far 6 children have added to their page. It's great - I have set it up so that I am emailed every time the wiki is changed. By monitoring it this way I can easily see who has worked on their wiki - one of the advantages of a wiki over a blog - you can also rescue anything that is deleted.
I encourage the children by commenting on their wiki post - a commitment you have to buy into when you start a wiki or blog - it's a 24 hour job - I couldn't just leave commenting on the work they had done till after the holidays!

Our Class Blog - 2012

These days our class blog is on our 4 class computers at all time. It forms part of the daily programme. If the children want to go on the computers before school they have find something to do on the blog.

It contains all the links to websites that I use for learning activities during the day. The children learn to navigate their way around the blog to get to maths, spelling, writing, reading, COT links and any other websites we use. I try to keep it up to date with current happenings around the world that they might be interested in. At the moment there is a link to the world record free fall jump from space.

Click this link to take you toThe Chelsea Bachelors Blog as it is today



End of Term 3 - September 2012

This year - 2012, I have become a lot more confident experimenting and trialling new web tools to share on our class blog. The ISTE conference and following educators on Twitter has helped sort what web tools to use.

You will find examples of the following throughout our class blog -

-       fotobabble

-       wallwisher

-       picasa web album slideshows and movies

-       voki

-    Wordle

-       Storybird

-       Glogster

-       Go!Animate

-       Blabber

-    YouTube videos (our own)

There are further detailed explanations and examples on the separate pages found on the right hand side bar of this blog.

The Arrival of a TV!

Yeah a technology break through!  March 2011 - Blog post announcing the arrival of the new TV in the class.

 

The arrival of a 32” Samsung TV in the class helped motivate the children to share the blog with family at home. From that point on the blog has become an important part of my class programme. Everything we did I recorded with photos and each week I added a post of our learning on the blog. Often the children helped with the captions. It is my goal to have a kids blog running where the children are responsible for taking the photos and writing the blogs posts.

The blog has proved very successful and it’s encouraging to hear the positive feedback from parents, grandparents and other staff. It’s hard work and time consuming keeping the blog up to date but it is addictive!