Scaffolding individual learning ... using QR codes

Once again I've used QR codes as a way of learners having some choice in their learning.  Our team wide inquiry topic is "What animals need to survive?", which was supported by our trip to the zoo in week 3.

Using You Tube clips which are age appropriate for my learners, I've created an inquiry topic board and once again used QR codes so learners are able to have some choice about which animals they are exploring.

The first time I unpacked this as a class last week the learners were very excited.  We watched one clip (all clips are around 2 minutes long) and then had a rich discussion around what we had seen in the video clip and what they learnt.  Learners then had some time to go away and learn about animals of their choice.  Initially I buddied children together (mixed ability groupings) so that learners were able to discuss their animal with a critical friend and then bring the information they had learnt back to a whole class sharing session to round out the lesson.

In order to minimise the noise in the classroom, some learners were able to work outside.

Although I've used QR codes with my class throughout the year, this was to link to Tiny Tap activities I'd created and this was the first time they had some choice in the inquiry area.  The learners were extremely engaged and keen to explore and share.

I'm now being constantly asked when we can have another lesson with the QR Codes!  It's great that the learners are able to turn this enthusiasm into learning and I look forward to sharing some of that on my blog over the coming weeks!

Tiny Tap magic

I've discovered a new app which allows me to create purposeful activities for my learners and tells them they are correct!  While I love using Explain Everything in the classroom, one of the things that somewhat frustrates me, are projects where learners can practice things but I need to provide feedback as to whether they are "right" - after all there is no point in them continually practicing ordering of numbers from 1 - 10 if they are not getting it right.  In the past I often use collaboration - other learners in the class who are secure on a concept or skill, providing peer feedback to others.

The Tiny Tap app allows me to create projects which provide learners with feedback if they get something right, and prompts them to try again if they are not correct.  The receive instant feedback that they have got the answer right and can continually practice to improve their accuracy and embed the learning.  I've created several projects so far, specifically looking at the needs of my learners on things that 'repetition' will help with - counting to 10, high frequency words, ordering numbers, number identification!

When I introduced the activity to my learners last week they were immediately engaged - there is a "gaming aspect" to it - it has bells, whistles and sounds which my 5 year olds really enjoy! Importantly however, they are engaged at doing the same game/activity again and again and their accuracy improves the more they play.

So - how am I managing this in the classroom in order to make the learning personalised, whilst also being manageable with 18 learners?  I've created my own Tiny Tap account and have labelled all my games as "PES Rm 19" for easy identification!  So far I've created eight games, but intend to create many more after the successes of the last week - all the games are public and available for anyone to play or download through the app (or a browser on a computer).  As I found with creating Explain Everything projects, I get quicker at creating the games, the more I do.


My next step was to find a way for my five year olds to be playing the game that best matched their learning needs - without asking 5 year olds to perform complication searches!  Drawing on my experiences from last year once again, I've decided to implement the use of QR codes - and it works!  I've created a QR code for each game that I've made (with a picture of the game next to it so that its easy for me to identify which QR code is which).  The very first time a learner plays a game they are prompted to "get" the game after scanning the QR code (I've done this for the learners so the games at each learners' level are already downloaded to their device).   My learners now scan the QR code, press the green "play" button and the Tiny Tap app opens with the game ready to play.


I'm looking forward to seeing if this engaged, personalised repetition helps learners to remember things such as high frequency words and number identification.  It's also great to get ideas from other teachers in the Tiny Tap community which may help my learners.  As I get faster at creating projects I look forward to being even more personalised to the needs of my learners and to further supporting their learning acceleration.

GAFE presentations: Visible, Engaging Learning & HTML

I'm excited to be presenting at GAFE North Island Summit today with my fellow Pt England MDTA, Matt Goodwin.  We are co-presenting two sessions and I'm sharing our presentations on my blog!  I look forward to including my thoughts from the two sessions during my GAFE Day 2 roundup!

GEG NZ Presentation

It was a pleasure (and yes slightly nerve-wracking) to join my mentor Michelle George in presenting at tonight's GEG NZ hangout on air, showcasing the 1:1 iPad pilot we're undertaking in our Year 1 classroom.

I've had an amazing year to date and the privilege to work with such a great teacher and mentor on this incredible journey.

Check out our presentation here or watch the recording of the hangout:

Art Attack!

As I head into my last term of team teaching with Michelle George I want to draw on the successes I’ve had with our learners over the past three terms and the growth I’ve experienced as a Beginning Teacher.

I continually feel lucky to be part of the MDTA (Manaiakalani Digital Teacher Academy) programme and know that I’ve experienced a different (and probably more supported) pathway than a usual BT.   I’ve been well scaffolded and had a great role model into the pedagogies of Pt England School and also had support in developing my own personal teaching style.   Having this level of support helped me try things that I may not have, and also allowed me to be involved in a 1:1 pilot class with iPads in my very first year of teaching – for someone with such a passion for digital learning environments, this has been an amazing challenge and allowed me to grow even further.

Last term I created a site for our Integrated Learning topic – Game On.  The learners accessed the site pages through the use of QR codes, which proved to be extremely popular and successful.  It gave the learners an opportunity to take control of their own learning and make decisions on what they wanted to learn about within a modeled and supported learning environment.

The beauty of using a Google Site was that I was able to add to it throughout the term.  This was highlighted during the Commonwealth Games opening ceremony – the learners were hooked and wanted to explore independently and were able to choose to do this with the additional page.   As we explored and used the site throughout the term I also made modifications and took note of things that could be improved, or weren’t as successful. 

As we begin our last term, the Integrated Learning topic is “Art Attack” – focusing on The Arts curriculum area and based around a trip we have in week 2 to the local river.  Initially I thought this topic would be a challenge to create a “Site” for – let alone integrate with QR codes (the learners all asked for QR codes again this term)!  However, the wealth of available material on You Tube around art has made it relatively easy for me to create several pages that learners can explore, giving them ideas on different types of art and ways to create it.   The viewing of these clips will help enhance their vocabulary with topic specific words, which will feed into their writing.  Once again we have a rich topic wall with vocabulary, images and QR codes for learners to refer to and explore throughout the term. 

It’s been great to be able to go to some of the resources I created during my teacher training (never throw anything away) as both displays and inspirations for the term.   Art is not a curriculum area I have strength in, but I look forward to undertaking this learning challenge and to sharing the results of our Art Attack later this term!

Term three review .... three quarters complete!

With the school year three quarters over, I'm again taking the opportunity to reflect on my amazing year to date and my personal growth as a teacher!

My Provisional Teacher goals for this term were around behaviour management and taking a lead on our Integrated Learning topic - both were a challenge but also an opportunity to test things and further my learning.

My highlights of the Term:

• An amazing school wide Commonwealth Games day to finish the term
• Whole team trip to Lloyd Elsmore Park for our own Commonwealth Games events
• Creating healthy snacks in class
• Visiting the Life Education bus early in the term
• Using the QR codes to explore the Commonwealth Integrated Learning site
• Using Explain Everything to scaffold story writing by recording the story orally prior to writing
• Amazing reading improvements which were highlighted through reading graph and running records
• Trip to Samsung to explore the amazing technology they have on offer (and play with some tablets!) 
• Implementation of the "monster madness" behaviour management within the class
• More solo teaching time - although working with Michelle is amazing!
• Pt England School staff and the MDTA team - they continually amaze me with their professionalism, collaborative nature and willingness to go the extra mile for our learners - I'm so proud to be part of these amazing teams of teaching professionals.
• Creating a movie for the Manaiakalani Film Festival - but I can't say more - watch this space later in November!

My challenges of the Term:

• Balancing family, work and study commitments continues to be a challenge, however with my last assignment for the year due just after these holidays, I'm looking forward to a temporary break from study.  That said, I'm excited about my proposed research topic for next year!
• Effectiveness of the Integrated Learning topic site when related to the time it took to create - again an area for learning and once created the site exists forever, but I need to carefully plan and consider how much to include in future sites.  The engagement effect of the QR codes however continues to amaze - and I was constantly asked when taking down our display if we'd be using QR codes again next term!
• Sickness - unfortunately working around five year olds, it can be a challenge to stay "healthy" and I definitely experienced this during the term.  While I managed to escape with just two days off during the term, I was definitely not at 100% for many more - here's hoping my immunity kicks in soon!

So, looking forward ....

As I enter into what could be my last term of "team teaching" with Michelle, I want to continue to explore and improve my own teaching practice and pedagogy.  Our school wide topic has an art focus - something which I admit is not a strength - so it will be a small step outside my comfort zone as I look at ways to inspire creativity in my learners.  With my study commitments complete for the year I expect to have a more controlled work/life balance and am looking forward to putting a little extra time into Explain Everything projects to extend the learners.

We have an extremely busy term ahead, with the Film Festival, a team trip, athletics day and prizegivings at the end of the year.  In combination with these great events is the end of year testing and I'm contributing to Toolkits and a Hangout session to highlight the piloting journey I've contributed to this year.  I constantly get told that Term Four is the busiest in the whole year, and I just can't wait to get it started!

Game On ..... a personal review!

After using my Game On site for seven weeks now, I thought it was timely to review how its gone from both a teaching and learning perspective.  The site was time intensive to create (although much of the work could easily transfer into a new site in the future) but did it achieve the outcomes I intended?

• The use of QR Codes for learners to navigate to the pages - extremely easy for five year olds to use, highly engaging (they were always keen to use them) and were very simple to create and display on our integrated learning wall.  I would definitely use these again, in fact the learners are already asking if we will have them again next term!
• You Tube clips on the site for learners to view and hear the information - again, extremely successful (although a little noisy in the classroom) but many viewed the same clips more than once and were able to remember and report back on what they had viewed.  
• The world map with links to the Commonwealth Countries we intended to investigate - this worked really well and provided a visual link for the learners as to where each country was in relation to New Zealand!  I feel I didn't unpack this map as well as I could have and this is a "need to work on" for next time.
• Ability to add additional pages to the Google Site - so easy!!  After focusing on the Opening Ceremony during our class time I easily added a page to the site to include some of the images we'd discussed in class.  Creating an additional QR code and adding it to our display wall saw the learners being able to access the page the very next day!
• Ease of creating a Google Site and sharing it with multiple teachers - again, so easy!  I was able to give Michelle editing rights to the site and she could add and edit our site.  Other teachers in the school also indicated they intended to use some of the site for their learning.

• Topic specific words with corresponding pictures - these made our inquiry display in the classroom visually appealing but I feel I didn't unpack these words with the learners so they could benefit from this rich vocabulary.  Something to improve on next term!
• You Tube clips on every page - because I had a You Tube clip on every page, it was impossible to have students exploring the site at various times as the noise was extremely distracting for other learners.  This wasn't a huge problem for this topic as we all explored the site at the same time (it was a little noisy!) but it definitely is something to remember for future sites if the intention is to explore it at varying times throughout the day.  In the more reliable summer months, there is always the option to head outside and listen to clips.

• You Tube clips relating to the 20th Commonwealth Games - when I created the site I added clips from previous Commonwealth Games as a starting point, with the intention to upload additional clips as the games got under way (I created the site during the Term holidays before the CG started). However, I didn't expect such limited access to You Tube clips once the games got under way.  Even clips from the Opening Ceremony were extremely limited except for those on NZ news sites (Stuff, TVNZ) which were much harder to link to directly.  This meant while we were able to play content for the learners on the Apple TV (using the Stuff & TVNZ sites) I wasn't able to add these to my site and have learners look at them independently.
• How many site pages did we need?  I'd created pages for six commonwealth countries and five of the commonwealth games sports.  This gave the learners a huge selection to choose from but took a significant amount of time to create.  While this variety was great for the learners, it could easily be scaled back to be more manageable from a creation perspective.
• Height of the QR codes - oops!  While visually appealing to have the QR codes at different heights, in reality this made it hard for learners to scan them.  We had a number of work-arounds throughout the term - some learners standing on chairs, me moving them down temporarily so they could be scanned, but the big message for next term - KEEP the QR codes lower!
• Explain Everything projects linked to QR codes - this just did not work.  It was a great idea, but when learners scanned the QR code linking to the Explain Everything project (despite intensive testing) there were always problems, such as it not linking into the Explain Everything app, taking too long to load, or just not opening at all and displaying an error.  It was worth trying, but definitely Teacher Dashboard remains the best way for sharing these projects.

As we evaluate the learning that has occurred this term about "What Makes a Champion", much of the learning has come from the information provided on the site.  While it is impossible to tell if the learners would have 'learnt it anyway', it was extremely obvious that they were very engaged and motivated in their learning when using the site.  They were able to share things they had discovered independently, with the class and revisit the information when required.  There are definite areas for me to improve on with future Integrated Learning sites, but for a first attempt I'm extremely pleased with how the site was used.  I'm confident that using QR codes with this age group makes the learning more accessible and will continue with this system into Term 4 and my teaching in 2015.  Overall, a grade of ...

QR SUCCESS and some tweaks :)

Yesterday afternoon we discussed QR codes and how they worked.  Using the Apple TV we used just one of the codes for our Commonwealth website (New Zealand) and I modelled how to scan the code to bring up the webpage.  After having a brief look at that page as a whole class on the Apple TV, all students had a go reading the QR code and exploring the page on their individual device.

Today, was an opportunity for the learners to explore the rest of the site, using their iPads to select a QR code from our topic wall.

The enthusiasm and engagement both Michelle and I observed in the learners over the 45 minute session was amazing!  Not only were they keen to use the QR Reader, but they had the opportunity to choose which code they scanned.  In giving the learners this choice, it was interesting to see the selections that were made - some learners made their choice based on the images around the code, while others randomly selected a code.  Others were influenced by what their peers had scanned with several learners coming back to the topic board to be shown which code to scan.  Importantly, the learners were equally as engaged when they were interacting with the material on the webpages as when they were scanning the codes!

As with anything tried for the first time, there were a few things that needed to be tweaked!  One of the codes didn't work - I'd blue tacked the codes to the wall so it was easy to take that code down until I could replace it tomorrow.  I also discovered that the Explain Everything projects embedded onto the bottom of the pages were not able to be downloaded (despite testing)!  After some thought I've circumvented this problem by creating QR codes that link learners directly to the projects in Google Drive - these codes will be blue so they are easily recognisable and we can have learners scan the blue codes when we are ready for them to complete these activities!

I think I was the most unpopular teacher at Pt England School this afternoon when I told the learners they had to pack up for the day - just as well we have a whole term to explore!  Based on today, QR codes are here to stay in Class 20!

Our Commonwealth Site was created using Google Sites.  We are using QR Code Reader by Scan, Inc on our iPads.  I used QR Code Generator to create out QR codes.