ICT Mentors’ Explorations, AC and Digital Technologies

Today I had an ICT Mentor meeting with students who have nominated to be involved in this leadership group.

The students have been tasked with the role of introducing Beebots to the students and supporting the younger students inquiry. The students will work in pairs to teach and support the younger students learn about basic programming using the Beebots.

We have purchased a variety of ‘maps’  to support this inquiry, as well as the Beetbots and iPads with the Beebot app.

Street map

BB road map 3

 

World map

BB world map 2

and we have a ‘blank’ map with 15x 15 size squares. Sparkle Box has many fantastic resources for the blank map.

Later in the term these students will work with the younger students to use the Beebots. One possible approach to conducting these sessions is to connect with a picture book and then use the Beebots as a supporting tool.

1) Students will read the book (or use a video of it being read).

2) Students teach the basics of the Beebots and the commands.

3) Students use the blank map to explore the concepts further.

For example, adapt the ‘I went shopping’ game and  turn it  into ‘One day the Hungry Caterpillar ate _____’.

This photo below has the templates for The Very Hungry Caterpillar by Eric Carle.

VHC map

Looking forward to this!

Additional note:

These skills and processes not only connect to developing students’ leadership skills, they also support the Learner Profile and Attitudes of the IB Primary Years Programme. From the teacher perspective this will link into many curriculum  areas. Finally, it provides us with ways to introduce the TECHNOLOGIES curriculum (for Digital Technologies) to students and staff before implementation in 2014.

Specific to the Digital Technologies curriculum

Digital Technologies processes and production skills

Foundation to Year 2 Content Descriptions

Follow, describe and represent a sequence of steps and decisions (algorithms) needed to solve simple problems (ACTDIP004)

Year 3 and 4 Content Descriptions

Define simple problems, and describe and follow a sequence of steps and decisions (algorithms) needed to solve them (ACTDIP010)

 

 

 

Want to have a play?

Bee Bots supporting inquiry

We have spent some of our reward points from Scholastic Book Fairs and we have purchased some Bee Bots. Bee Bots are some programmable robots that are excellent to use across the curriculum (lower primary). These are hassle free ICT tools for supporting the Technologies curriculum as well.

In the JS Staffroom we have the Bee Bots on a world map ready for your explorations. We have ordered more maps – just waiting on delivery!

Bee Bots in action

See this blog post Beebots Downunder for some ideas about how these are being used in classes.

Great for literacy, maths, problem solving and geography! (Perfect for mapping UOI Year 2/3).

Name our beebots

We have six Bee Bots and they need names!

Please come and have a play with your class and suggest a name (and reason why).

Beebots (2)

 

Post your responses below.

 

Screencasting in Literacy Rotations

Year 6 students will be exploring two apps that are sometimes known as Screencasting apps.

See Kathy Schrock’s Guide to Screencasting here and an iTunesU screencasting collection.

Students will consider the features of the apps and select one to create a demonstration video on a topic of their choosing. We will then share these with other students using Augmented Reality and add to a tutorial wall with student recommended apps.

The two apps we have identified are ShowMe and Explain Everything. There are many more that you could use to create a similar result. Both apps allow you to annotate, animate, and narrate a presentation.

See this guide for Teaching and recording a process using an iPad (@iPadWells).

Before students actually create their tutorial they need to plan their presentation using a story board.

 

Read this post before you start Steps in Creation.

 

ShowMe App Tutorials

Explore the ShowMe community to learn from others.

ShowMe PDF

Explain Everything App Tutorials

Explain Everything PDF 

Excellent tutorials and resources are  also available at the STiLT website  (see a few links below):

Navigating the home screen
Building your project
Recording narration
Exporting and saving your project

 

These resources are also available on the Year 6 Literacy Rotations page in Moodle.

 

Apps for Lower Primary Students: Implementation, Reviews and lists

Places for find educational apps

Consider the following two websites as excellent starting points:

Kathy Schrock’s iPads in the Classroom

and EdTechTeacher’s iPad As

I want my students to… series 

I want my students to

 

 

 

 

21 things for 4 iPads – excellent place to start as an educator

 

 

IMPLEMENTATION RESOURCES

Slidetolearn resources

 iPads in Education

21st steps – Victorian Government

Kolbe Catholic College

iPad Kolbe Catholic College

Redlands College

West Moreton Anglican and More Apps

iPad Implementation – Larkin

Tony Vincent iPads

Interesting ways….

iPads in Primary Education

 

APP REVIEWS

IER App review

iPads for Education

http://www.diigo.com/user/jssalc/ipads

1,000 Education Apps Organized By Subject & Price | Edudemic
http://edudemic.com/2012/02/1000-apps/

Appitic (searchable by subject area)

Quixely 

Commonsense Media 

UKEdChat EduApps

Apps for Teachers

 

SOME LISTS

Apps for Prep, Year 1 & 2 students

App list from Manor Lakes

 40 apps for young learners

Apps for learning 

Learning Tools – Pre School/Prep

Pinterest Year 5-6 year olds

Geeks for Juniors – Year 1 apps

Essential Apps Ages 2-6

 

 

 

Random Sharing – research, websites, apps and Geography!

Some great new finds…..

 RANDOM SHARE

Research tools and websites, Goolge Docs and Apps for Geography.

STUDY VIBE – Fantastic site!

 

Resources for teachers

 

 

GOOGLE DOCS FOR LEARNING

 

Slideshare – Geography and Apps.

Sharing the planet: Using apps to express and explore

The Prep students have been growing a garden as a part of their inquiry into Sharing the Planet.The students have been using tellagami, Scootle and iPads to share their learning.

20131109-081259.jpg


 

See below for links to these apps and some tutorials.

Apps

Tellagami

Scootle

Using Scootle in Education Ed Of ICT wikispaces resources

Qwiki

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Telling our stories

Year 1 have been inquirying into stories and storytellling.

The central idea is:

People use a variety of stories for different purposes.

Some of the students have written wonderful stories that we have ‘published’ using apps.

So far we have experimented with the following apps

  • MyStory
  • StoryKit
  • PixnTell

 

See below for some examples for the stories.

StoryKit  – click on the audio icon to hear the students reading their story aloud.

StoryKit App 

Story 1

Story 2

Story 3

Click here for a StoryKit tutorial.

My Story – Book Maker for Kids

My Story app

Story 1

Story 2

Story 3

PixnTell

PixnTell app

The Pixn Tell app allows you to design your story and then publish it. Once published it is created into an audio file (MP4).

Story 1

Story 2

Story 3

Story 4

 

There are so many fantastic tools for creating digital stories.

Some of my other resources about teaching this can be found at my diggo digital storytelling links and Online Stories page at my JSSALC wikispaces.