Finding a way ... thinking outside the square!

Learners in Class 20 have been really enthusiastic about using ScratchJr since we had Class 12 visit and show us how it works (and they've created some AMAZING animations!)

Today we created animations from our school-wide athletics day using ScratchJr, as a way of showing which events we enjoyed the most!

We shared many of the examples to the Apple TV and peers really enjoyed seeing what others had created!  One of my learners really wanted to share his great animations with his Dad - can you please put it on the blog Mrs Belt?  Great that they use our class blog and understand they can use this to show their whanau what we've been doing in class!   But .... there is currently no function for sharing to either our blog or as a video file to the learners Google Accounts (although the ScratchJr website says this feature is "coming" - we can't wait!)  How to explain that one to a five year old that was so proud of what he'd created and really wanted to share?

I wondered if I could find a way?  Thinking outside the square tonight,  I was delighted to make this post on our class blog!  I used a screen casting program to airplay the screen of the learners iPad to my MacBook and then used Quicktime to take a screen recording of the animation - yes, its not ideal and a little more time consuming than just pushing an embed button, but its enabled me to capture this learners animation and share it on our blog as well as share an example of the animations that are being created by my learners!



NB:  There is no sound on this animation

Learning from older peers

Today we had Year 3/4 learners come to our classroom to share what they'd been learning and teach our students how to use the ScratchJr app.  It was great to see the absolute engagement of both my learners and their older 'teachers' for 90 minutes this morning.

The Year 3/4 learners were very adept at using the app and were confident and articulate in sharing their knowledge with my 5 year olds.  I buddied two of my learners with one 'expert' and circulated the groups to listen to the conversations and observe the modelling which was occurring.  The older students were able to scaffold the activity and support their younger peers to ensure they all completed an amazing animation!  It was great to hear and see the older learners demonstrating and then watching and guiding as the younger learners tried things out with patience and a supportive attitude!

We concluded the lesson using our Apple TV where learners were able to showcase what they had created as a result of today's learning.  The older learners were also keen to share which gave us some great ideas for using the app in the future.

For me, this session reinforced the importance of removing the traditional teacher/learner barriers and thinking outside the square about how to convey knowledge.  Sure, I could have taught my learners how to use this app quite successfully, but the success of the peer teaching goes deeper than that.  The Year 3/4 students had to scaffold their approach to suit my younger learners, which they did with amazing success.  They were able to reinforce their own learning through teaching others and see others create as a result of this teaching.  Ultimately, the Learn-Create-Share framework which is the backbone of our school philosophy was highlighted today, not through blogging or something visual, but through sharing their knowledge with others in the school, which in turn enables them to Create to demonstrate their own Learning - and so the cycle continues!

Exploring Scratch

As part of our MDTA immersion day, we explored the Maker Space movement.  I chose to investigate Scratch and created a small animation as I learnt how it works.  Scratch is an exciting way for learners to "create", an integral part of the Manaiakalani "Learn, Create, Share" framework.

My simple animation took less than thirty minutes to create, and I'm sure I will be using this great Maker Space tool in the future.



If the project does not load above as it is an unauthenticated script, please use this link: http://scratch.mit.edu/projects/30767218/