Movember

At UWCSEA East, we do rather like to get behind a great cause, and Movember is certainly worthy of support. From the official website:

Movember (the month formerly known as November) is a moustache growing charity event held during November each year that raises funds and awareness for men’s health.

Nearly every male staff member at our school has grown a Mo in support of men’s health. While we don’t have an official team linked to the website above, we are doing our little bit to help. Check out this year’s candidates!

The ed-tech people out there might be wondering what this has to do with technology – the answer is wait and see! I hope that in sharing what our school is doing, other schools might take up the charge to raise funds next year.

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I have already mentioned what the men are doing, but the support does not stop there! On the last day of Movember, students can make a $1 donation to get a Mo painted on them. We then take Pro-Mo photos afterwards, so they feel like rock stars.

We came across an exciting find the other day using the iPod Touch. The $2.99 Strip Designer app (which is excellent and you should totally get regardless) has a whole set of moustache stickers that you can add to photos. On our version 4 iPod Touch set, it works perfectly with the dual-facing camera. The image of me above was made using Strip Designer.

This year it would be great if we can extend the use of Strip Designer and get some more people into the Movember spirit.

Why not try it yourself!

Creative Commons Project – Grade 6

Using Creative Commons images and music is something I am quite passionate about as an educator. I believe if students can develop a sound understanding of the licenses at a young age, then they will be the sort of people who are more likely to share their work in the future.

At Learning 2.0 in Shanghai, Kim Cofino & Darren Kuropatwa had participants in the Future of Learning Cohort create a slide (see Future of Learning wiki for details) using a Creative Commons image, and upload it to the very interesting Great Quotes about Learning and Change pool on Flickr.

This gave me an idea to use with my Grade 6s – create a slide with a quote that means something to them using a Creative Commons image, reference it correctly, and upload it to our class Google Presentation so it can be shared with others.

Technologically speaking, there are a number of skills that students are utilizing in order to do what seems like a simple task. They needed to:

• Learn about Creative Commons and develop an understanding of the various licenses
• Search for a Creative Commons image that is suitable for reuse with modification
• Find a quote that is meaningful to them
• Work within a presentation programme (some used Keynote, some used Google Presentations) to add a picture, text, format the background, font size, colour, add a hyperlink etc
• Those who used Keynote had to export their slide as an image and import it to the class Google presentation
• Those who used Google Presentations had to import their slide to the class Google Presentation
• Add speaker notes with more details about the link to the image, the photographer’s photostream and reference the quote.

I was incredibly impressed with their work. The quotes are as good as the ones on the Great Quotes about Learning and Change pool (in my opinion!).

The next step in the process was to evaluate another student’s slide. This helped consolidate their understanding of the licenses and helped develop some other technology skills.

I created a Google Doc to structure their peer feedback, which students made a copy of and completed their evaluation. They shared the finished document with me (as their teacher) and with the student they were evaluating.

What they uncovered was that some people had used copyright images, some had pasted links incorrectly, some had linked to the wrong image or were missing links entirely. It clearly showed who understood the task and whether or not they had mastered the skills to complete the task or not. This helped me identify which students needed more support, and with a bit more time, all students were able to understand the objectives of the task.

Here is a sampling of what the students created – it would be great if you had the time to give them some feedback.
(if the iFrame is not showing, click here for full presentation).

Early Years Literacy with the iPod Touch

For this year’s Hands On Literacy conference, my teaching colleague Louise Phinney and I teamed up (again!) to present about Early Years Literacy with the iPod Touch.

Thankfully, our school recently purchased the latest version of the iPod Touch – which comes complete with a dual-facing HD camera/video. I consider this a complete game-changer, especially in the Early Years, as it opens up so many ways for students and teachers to document learning.

One of the links I was pleased to share with people was our ever-increasing list of iPod Touch apps we are currently using at UWCSEA East. They are loosely arranged into categories (which we have as folders on our iPod Touches), so students and teachers can find apps easily.

Louise has been doing some fantastic work in the Early Years at our school, so it was great to share what has been going on inside our classrooms. Although we would like share our presentation and include all images and videos, due to some restrictions on the use of student images, we are unable to do so at this time (with the exception of my K1 daughter – I’ll happily post her modeling what we’ve been doing!). In the meantime, here is a highlights package of what we shared:

Not just One-Hit Wonders

As Digital Literacy teachers, we are always on the look out for apps that go beyond being a “One-Hit Wonder” and have versatility across subject disciplines and grade levels. Here are a few of our favourites:

	Comic Touch $2.99 This app works fantastically with the dual-facing camera on the iPod Touch. We used this with our K1s, who are currently exploring feelings as a part of their unit of inquiry into Who We Are.  Students took pictures of themselves showing different emotions/feelings, then added a speech bubble naming the feeling.
	Strip Designer $2.99 This neat app allows you to make a variety of comic strips, however we used the most basic ‘title page’ format to create a visual dictionary of ‘M words’ with some K2 students. Our K2s blew me away with their picture taking ability – check out the example to the right! Again, this app has the potential to be used at many different grade levels for different purposes.
	QR Code Reader for iPhone Free Much has been written about QR Codes lately, and this was our big WOW exciting thing to share. We showed this video on how a High School in the states are using QR Codes, then shared some task cards Louise had created to consolidate phonics, literacy and mathematics work in the classroom. I will share the examples in another post, but suffice to say our participants seemed impressed  🙂 To generate our QR Codes, we used the Kaywa QR Code Generator.
	Sonic Pics $2.99 This easy-to-use app lets you create narrated slideshows of photos you have taken. Our G1 students went on a shape hunt, and took photos of shapes in the environment around them. They selected the best images, and explained the properties of each of the shapes shown. The list of ideas one could use this app with is endless. Students could photograph their work (e.g. a piece of art they are constructing from start to finish, and explain the process, narrate field trips, explain a solution to a maths problem and many more.

Presenting with Louise was relaxing and enjoyable, and I am looking forward to our next workshop – whatever it may entail..!

Early Years Literacy with the iPod Touch

For this year’s Hands On Literacy conference, my teaching colleague Louise Phinney and I teamed up (again!) to present about Early Years Literacy with the iPod Touch.

Thankfully, our school recently purchased the latest version of the iPod Touch – which comes complete with a dual-facing HD camera/video. I consider this a complete game-changer, especially in the Early Years, as it opens up so many ways for students and teachers to document learning.

One of the links I was pleased to share with people was our ever-increasing list of iPod Touch apps we are currently using at UWCSEA East. They are loosely arranged into categories (which we have as folders on our iPod Touches), so students and teachers can find apps easily.

Louise has been doing some fantastic work in the Early Years at our school, so it was great to share what has been going on inside our classrooms. Although we would like share our presentation and include all images and videos, due to some restrictions on the use of student images, we are unable to do so at this time (with the exception of my K1 daughter – I’ll happily post her modeling what we’ve been doing!). In the meantime, here is a highlights package of what we shared:

Not just One-Hit Wonders

As Digital Literacy teachers, we are always on the look out for apps that go beyond being a “One-Hit Wonder” and have versatility across subject disciplines and grade levels. Here are a few of our favourites:

	Comic Touch $2.99 This app works fantastically with the dual-facing camera on the iPod Touch. We used this with our K1s, who are currently exploring feelings as a part of their unit of inquiry into Who We Are.  Students took pictures of themselves showing different emotions/feelings, then added a speech bubble naming the feeling.
	Strip Designer $2.99 This neat app allows you to make a variety of comic strips, however we used the most basic ‘title page’ format to create a visual dictionary of ‘M words’ with some K2 students. Our K2s blew me away with their picture taking ability – check out the example to the right! Again, this app has the potential to be used at many different grade levels for different purposes.
	QR Code Reader for iPhone Free Much has been written about QR Codes lately, and this was our big WOW exciting thing to share. We showed this video on how a High School in the states are using QR Codes, then shared some task cards Louise had created to consolidate phonics, literacy and mathematics work in the classroom. I will share the examples in another post, but suffice to say our participants seemed impressed  🙂 To generate our QR Codes, we used the Kaywa QR Code Generator.
	Sonic Pics $2.99 This easy-to-use app lets you create narrated slideshows of photos you have taken. Our G1 students went on a shape hunt, and took photos of shapes in the environment around them. They selected the best images, and explained the properties of each of the shapes shown. The list of ideas one could use this app with is endless. Students could photograph their work (e.g. a piece of art they are constructing from start to finish, and explain the process, narrate field trips, explain a solution to a maths problem and many more.

Presenting with Louise was relaxing and enjoyable, and I am looking forward to our next workshop – whatever it may entail..!