Stepping out with the iPod Touch

Our K2 Team have been at it again! They continue to actively look at new ways of integrating technology into their programme.

Teaching about non-standard measurement is one of the K2 Maths expectations, and Louise & Andrea had the inspired idea of using the pedometer app StepTrakLite on the iPod Touch to make it more interesting for their students.

Andrea created a recording sheet for them, and had them estimate the distance (in steps) from one place to another, then check it using StepTrakLite. Louise got her kids to make their own recording sheet. Both approaches worked brilliantly, and the kids had a great time. Here is Andrea’s recording sheet:

Measuring With StepTrakLite Using iPod Touches

Here’s a video of the kids excitedly measuring their steps using StepTrakLite

Stepping out with the iPod Touch

Our K2 Team have been at it again! They continue to actively look at new ways of integrating technology into their programme.

Teaching about non-standard measurement is one of the K2 Maths expectations, and Louise & Andrea had the inspired idea of using the pedometer app StepTrakLite on the iPod Touch to make it more interesting for their students.

Andrea created a recording sheet for them, and had them estimate the distance (in steps) from one place to another, then check it using StepTrakLite. Louise got her kids to make their own recording sheet. Both approaches worked brilliantly, and the kids had a great time. Here is Andrea’s recording sheet:

Measuring With StepTrakLite Using iPod Touches

Here’s a video of the kids excitedly measuring their steps using StepTrakLite

Mini-Bloggers

People have a tendency to underestimate small children. A couple of years ago, I’d probably have been one of them. The combination of having my own kids and having an opportunity to teach younger and younger kids at school means I’m now a complete believer that there are no limits to their capabilities.

Like many people, I have been keeping a family blog (with the intention of keeping my family back home up-to-date with our goings-on) since 2005, when my daughter Scarlett was born. I have managed to keep blogging over the years, and it has been a wonderful reminder of events and day-to-day happenings that I would have forgotten about otherwise. The baby books I keep for the kids are somewhat embarrassing in comparison – lots of blank pages and photos falling out…

I thought about what a great way of documenting learning a blog is – I have a post about the time Scarlett first learned to crawl, learned to walk, wrote her name etc – and how that might translate to the classroom. I figured it would be handy to try this out myself before using it with others, so in the time-honored tradition of teachers everywhere, I decided to use my own daughter as a guinea pig!

I had already purchased domain names for my 2 children (together with Gmail accounts for both – a fact which my fellow ADEs found amusing during a session Jeff & Chrissy initiated over dinner one evening – “what’s the geekiest thing you’ve done?”) so setting Scarlett up with a blog was not going to be a huge drama. I knew exactly which blog platform I wanted to use – I simply haven’t found anything easier for kids than the drag-and-drop interface of Weebly. I wanted something Scarlett would be able to manipulate herself (with assistance from me of course).

I wanted Scarlett to be as involved in the process of blogging as she could be. Given that she is four years old, this meant that instead of predominantly typing, we recorded her explanations of pictures using my iPhone, which we then emailed to my address, and uploaded to the blog from there.

Scarlett has done the vast majority of the clicking (and dragging). She has typed parts too (that she has said and I have transcribed for her) and taken some of the photographs. Each time we do an entry together, she is getting better and better.

The impact on her literacy and numeracy, together with her geographical knowledge is encouraging. The other day, we went to the site and she said, “Oh look Mummy! Two comments!” though I’ve never taught her the word ‘comments’ before. She also wanted to look at her map (the clustrmap I set up to show her the location of her visitors) to see the dots around the world. She pointed out New Zealand (where our family is from), and Singapore, and then we talked about the other places people have visited from. The hit-counter has got up to 179 at last count, which was more than she could count, but now she knows past 100.

Thanks to my fantastic PLN, Scarlett has enjoyed getting comments from all sorts of lovely people around the world. It is amazing that she has had the opportunity to hear from such a diverse group of people. What a motivating experience! I’m sure it is largely due to them that Scarlett has been coming to me saying, “Mummy, I want to do my blog.”

I am also glad to help capture her voice (both literally and figuratively) explaining her world, as I am sure it will be something she will look back on fondly in years to come.

Scarlett’s not the only little kid out there blogging – I found out about Owen in HK through his Dad, and Kaia’s an inspirational photographer too (with tips from her Dad). Maddie and her Mum in Shanghai blog about their life overseas & Oscar in Hanoi makes movies that hope to improve the lives of disadvantaged kids in Hanoi (with help from his Mum & Dad).

I’m sure these parents would agree with me when I say that blogging with your child is a great activity to do together. It’s nice to spend time talking about events in your child’s life, organising content and reflecting on experiences together.

I truly believe if Scarlett and I can do this, anyone can! I would love to hear about other success stories out there.

Finally, please visit Scarlett’s Blog to leave a red dot from your country on the map. I can tell you – honestly – she will be excited to see it! A comment may even tip her over the edge..!

Mini-Bloggers

People have a tendency to underestimate small children. A couple of years ago, I’d probably have been one of them. The combination of having my own kids and having an opportunity to teach younger and younger kids at school means I’m now a complete believer that there are no limits to their capabilities.

Like many people, I have been keeping a family blog (with the intention of keeping my family back home up-to-date with our goings-on) since 2005, when my daughter Scarlett was born. I have managed to keep blogging over the years, and it has been a wonderful reminder of events and day-to-day happenings that I would have forgotten about otherwise. The baby books I keep for the kids are somewhat embarrassing in comparison – lots of blank pages and photos falling out…

I thought about what a great way of documenting learning a blog is – I have a post about the time Scarlett first learned to crawl, learned to walk, wrote her name etc – and how that might translate to the classroom. I figured it would be handy to try this out myself before using it with others, so in the time-honored tradition of teachers everywhere, I decided to use my own daughter as a guinea pig!

I had already purchased domain names for my 2 children (together with Gmail accounts for both – a fact which my fellow ADEs found amusing during a session Jeff & Chrissy initiated over dinner one evening – “what’s the geekiest thing you’ve done?”) so setting Scarlett up with a blog was not going to be a huge drama. I knew exactly which blog platform I wanted to use – I simply haven’t found anything easier for kids than the drag-and-drop interface of Weebly. I wanted something Scarlett would be able to manipulate herself (with assistance from me of course).

I wanted Scarlett to be as involved in the process of blogging as she could be. Given that she is four years old, this meant that instead of predominantly typing, we recorded her explanations of pictures using my iPhone, which we then emailed to my address, and uploaded to the blog from there.

Scarlett has done the vast majority of the clicking (and dragging). She has typed parts too (that she has said and I have transcribed for her) and taken some of the photographs. Each time we do an entry together, she is getting better and better.

The impact on her literacy and numeracy, together with her geographical knowledge is encouraging. The other day, we went to the site and she said, “Oh look Mummy! Two comments!” though I’ve never taught her the word ‘comments’ before. She also wanted to look at her map (the clustrmap I set up to show her the location of her visitors) to see the dots around the world. She pointed out New Zealand (where our family is from), and Singapore, and then we talked about the other places people have visited from. The hit-counter has got up to 179 at last count, which was more than she could count, but now she knows past 100.

Thanks to my fantastic PLN, Scarlett has enjoyed getting comments from all sorts of lovely people around the world. It is amazing that she has had the opportunity to hear from such a diverse group of people. What a motivating experience! I’m sure it is largely due to them that Scarlett has been coming to me saying, “Mummy, I want to do my blog.”

I am also glad to help capture her voice (both literally and figuratively) explaining her world, as I am sure it will be something she will look back on fondly in years to come.

Scarlett’s not the only little kid out there blogging – I found out about Owen in HK through his Dad, and Kaia’s an inspirational photographer too (with tips from her Dad). Maddie and her Mum in Shanghai blog about their life overseas & Oscar in Hanoi makes movies that hope to improve the lives of disadvantaged kids in Hanoi (with help from his Mum & Dad).

I’m sure these parents would agree with me when I say that blogging with your child is a great activity to do together. It’s nice to spend time talking about events in your child’s life, organising content and reflecting on experiences together.

I truly believe if Scarlett and I can do this, anyone can! I would love to hear about other success stories out there.

Finally, please visit Scarlett’s Blog to leave a red dot from your country on the map. I can tell you – honestly – she will be excited to see it! A comment may even tip her over the edge..!

Kindergarten: Have passport, will travel

I have been back in the Kindergarten with Ms Louise (and the other wonderful teachers on our K2 team), using Google Earth with the K2 students.

What is great about using Google Earth is that it gives the students practice with logging onto the computers, keyboard familiarisation and mouse-control skills in a thoroughly engaging context.

I  did an initial lesson with Ms Louise’s class, showing how to navigate and input places into the search bar, and we also checked out some places using Street View. The students really enjoyed experimenting with zooming, going to locations they had been on holiday, and finding our school.

Ms Louise’s brilliant idea (which tied in with their unit on Journeys) was to create task cards for a number of famous places around the world, which the students would have to ‘travel’ to in order to get a stamp in their passport.

Using Jing, she created the task cards (see below), which were an enormous success, as they helped scaffold the learning for the students. The text they had to type was on each task card, and a picture of the place they had to find was also included. When their screen showed what we could see on the task card, then they got a stamp in their passport.

Some were harder than others, requiring a bit of searching, zooming and clicking-and-dragging to find the locations. This just helped us reinforce the skills we were hoping to cover in this unit.

It also gave us an opportunity to talk about commas and spaces, as both were needed when typing in locations. The students quickly learned that after each comma, you need a space.

I know the K2 teachers were impressed with how much the students could accomplish in a few short lessons. The levels of enthusiasm have been great, and some poor teachers have been hounded by students wanting to complete their passport.

We have had neat feedback from a number of K2 parents saying how their children are making them use Google Earth at home, so it’s lovely to hear of the home-school connections that this type of lesson is creating. It reinforces to me how fabulous it is to use an open-source, cross-platform tool such as Google Earth to make links between home and school.

With Ms Louise’s permission, I have included the Google Earth Task Cards & Passport below. I hope you take the time to try it out!

Google Earth Task Cards

Google Earth Passport

**If you are using the same computers with different children, then I would encourage you to get them to click on Edit then Clear Search History at the beginning of each session, so that the place names don’t start appearing automatically!**