Exciting changes in Explain Everything 4

I've been a huge fan of using Explain Everything since I started teaching and have definitely enjoyed the new features after installing the update late last week!  If, like me, you love using Explain Everything but are used to the old version, these great videos are worth three minutes of your time as they are a great overview of the new features.

 Having only created a few projects this weekend already here are some of my favourite new additions:

• The draw/fill option
• Adding a sound bite from within Explain Everything
• The ruler feature - my lines have always been just that little bit crooked ;)
• The eraser - so many times my learners have wanted to remove a part of the drawing they had added earlier and haven't been able to - until now! 

I'm really looking forward to using the new version over the coming weeks!

Interface XPO 2017 - Afternoon Sessions

Creating with iPads - hosted by Cyclone Computers

Moving from consumption to creation!

The SAMR model helps us determine what level of creativity with technology you are achieving. Most learning takes place above the line (transformation) - modification and redefinition!

While there are MANY apps, using a few apps extremely well is better than just touching on many.  Its not about the app - its the task!

PicKids - the same as PicCollage but more child friendly (not internet based).  

Some ideas for using this:

Letter/Number Scavenger Hunt

Story Sequencing

Homophones

Parts of Speech

Book Covers

Writing Displays for publishing

Timeline of events

Character Map

Book Creator

Some ways to use Book Creator:

Collaborative books

Books can include text/sounds/images

Sentence starters

Explain Everything
Some ways to use Explain Everything:
Explain learning by annotating and talking about instructions
Take a photo of a piece of writing to model editing and recrafting
Capture the voice of the learner

Afternoon Keynote
Coding using Gamefroot
A game creation tool for school children and educators to create games.  This web based creation tool uses scripts (similar to Scratch) to enable children to make and share their own games. Learners can draw their own backgrounds and images or choose from a full library.  You are able to have as many levels as you would like in a Gamefroot game.

Afternoon Session
Keeping Students safe using Google Suite for Education (GfE)

This recent report highlights the importance of digital technologies in education.  Various risks for children using the internet.

"More time teaching, less time teching" - Google.

G Suite - different settings for different users within in a domain.  Many of the features for G Suite are underused in GAFE domains and experts such as Cyclone can assist to ensure these are set up correctly.

Google Safety Center - free information for parents/teachers/educators


I've enjoyed my first Interface XPO.  It was also great to network with other teachers and IT techies throughout the day.

Interface 2017 XPO - Morning Sessions

My first visit to the Interface Xpo and I'm looking forward to being inspired with some great ideas.

Opening Session

A fast game of XPO Feud (based on Family Feud) to kick off the day - download the template and many others from Youth Downloads.  The game was followed by a few Keynote presentations:

Creativity in the Classroom with Adobe

65% of learners will end up in jobs that have yet to be created.

Adobe Creative Animator - great for learners who are shy and don't like appearing on camera

Adobe Spark Video - a free creativity tool that allows you to create videos or tell stories - personalise the voice, music, text and pictures to make a short movie.  App for iPad available or can be done online at spark.adobe.com.  Copyright free music is provided.

Adobe Spark Page - a free creativity tool to create a webpage.  Easy to use with free images, texts and layouts which you can include.

Breakout Session One

3P Learning - Mathletics and Reading Eggs

Mathletics and Reading Eggs are more than just lessons for students.  Check out the printable resources and group teaching resources (available through eBooks link).  Teaching resources are interactive.

Mathletics:

When completing activities:  "i" button or "?" button shows specific steps on how to get it right.

New questions are generated even if they get it completely right - giving depth of learning.

Demonstrations allows you to teach using the student view.

Reading Eggs:

While there is a focus on reading, it is a broader literacy resource.   Reading Express (focus 7 - 13 years old).  

Middle Keynote

GEO A.R. Games - Magical Park

Digital mobile outdoor games using augmented reality.

Different aspects to augmented reality - image recognition; tracking; geospatial (using GPS co-ordinates); 

Examples of augmented reality:

AR Book - Quiver Education

Skills Training - Zapbox

Benefits of Augmented Reality:

• More student engagement and higher motivation
• Learning at the student pace
• Higher creativity
• Solution focused thinking and problem-solving
• Leadership and collaboration

GAFE Day 2 - Afternoon sessions

This blog reflects the afternoon sessions I attended on Day 2 at GAFE.

Exploring Google Expeditions with Cardboard - Jim Sill

WOW!  First time really playing with cardboard and was great to get a free one - thanks Jim!
You will need to download the Expeditions app to your phone or iPad.  Virtual Reality is a chance to scale experimental learning.  This allows the teacher to bring the lesson to the learner.

The expeditions have some leading information and guiding questions (and answers) to assist the teacher in leading your journey.  The teacher can pause the journey.

You need to build a kit - you need devices (e.g. iPads, phones).  Ask for donations of old phones. You need a teacher device (e.g. iPad) and the device will push the image out to the learners.  You need to use a router (not connected to the internet) to share the images to your learners (as most schools block peer to peer sharing on their wi-fi networks).  Expeditions doesn't require the internet to work when we are running Expeditions.  Teacher is able to press and hold and direct learners to any part of the image.

Expeditions are able to be searched or you can browse different Expeditions on the first screen.

The teacher is able to use the experiences from the Expedition in the classroom to encourage rich discussions, great writing, extensive oral language and opportunities for further questions and explanations.

During the session we explored El Capitan in Yosemite National Park, USA; Observing the Gorilla in the Congo; 

Where to next? Google Teacher Certification - Kimberley Hall

Link to the Google for Education hub is here.

When doing the exams register for them using your personal gmail account as you are less likely to change your name than your school.

A few helpful hints for the Level 1 and 2 exams:

The exams are 3 hours long so you need to plan your time as once you start you can't pause.

The exam can take 24 hours to be sent to you after purchase to plan carefully.

Once you have purchased the exam, you have 7 days in which to complete it.

Recommendation:  Check out the review questions and exam sample questions first - it does help.

Presenting at GAFE - Day 2

Our second session that Clarelle and I presented today was our learning looks in the classroom.  Our full presentation is available here:

GAFE 2017 - Opening Keynote

Once again I'm lucky to be attending the GAFE Summit in Auckland, this time representing Lynmore School.  This blog post will document my thoughts and findings throughout the session.

Opening Keynote:  Iteration and Innovation in Education
- Jaime Casap

Why do we care so much about Education?  Education is what changes a family's destiny! Education disrupts poverty!  If you work hard, get a good education, anything is possible.  No matter how many years you teach, the impact you have on students goes on for generations.  It is possible to have an impact on students for years to come, on students that you possibly won't even meet!

We need to take the best of what education is and take it to the next level.  How can we do that using technology?  Our job is to prepare kids for the future.  We need to remember that the 21st century is already here!  Computer science in NZ is a huge part of this future.  Out of the top seven jobs in this country, six are information technology positions.  This is true throughout the world and why it is important to have computer science as a part of education.

We know what good learning looks like compared to the past.  Things such as personalisation, modern, motivating and engaging  are common place in the classroom today, allowing us to deliver education in different ways - thanks to technology!  Given where technology is today, how can we take the best ideas and bring it to life.

Do you remember when we had to call the internet, and the internet was busy!  What was your reward when you got online?  Today - how do our expectations differ?  Generation z learners are global, social, visual and technological.  How children today think about learning is different given the world they are born into.  Children today learn by exploring whereas we waited for someone to teach us.  We need to pay attention to that.  What is generation z facing?  The technology of today isn't close to what is coming.  They are able to visit places virtually that we never dreamt possible in the past.  Today we can merge the real world with the virtual world.

Skills that are needed in the workplace, in a technology world (as per big companies employing technology specialists):

• problem solving 
• team-working
• communications
• critical thinking
• collaboration
• creativity
• literacy
• digital literacy
• leadership
• foreign language
• emotional intelligence

The process of problem solving is what kids need to do as through this they will develop the learning they need to solve the problem.

Iteration is the result of critical thinking - feedback to take learners to the next level is more important than a grade.

Collaboration is how problems are solved - one of the things that Google looks for is collaboration skills.  The ability to listen, the ability to reach consensus, and to take a step back and let someone else lead.

We need digital leaders - if students don't learn how to be strong digital leaders in schools, they won't learn it anywhere else.  Can they tell the difference between a news site and a sponsored site?

There is therefore a need for a culture shift.  How do we bring education to the next level?  Converting information into intelligence is important.  There will always be a need to memorise but at some point information becomes a commodity with no value.  How do we ask questions that you can't look up on Google?  That is the challenge for us and our learners.  Student centered learning models give the learner the opportunity to explore their own learning.  A great teacher helps these students strive, with the use of technology, maker models and forward thinking.  

Iteration and innovation drive transformation!  Think how Google has changed.  It can happen anywhere!  It takes time and problem solving to make progress.  The future classroom starts on Monday - experiment, try new things, we are just getting started!  We are not behind, we are in the middle of change.  Only 40% of the world are online!  This is the most exciting time in Education.  To a 5 year old, the latest and greatest phone today is the worst piece of technology they will see in their life - it is their Commodore 64!  Do we have the right processes in place that they are going to need to thrive and build the skills to solve the problems of their world!

Exploring Seesaw

As part of my involvement with the Towards Transformation program, over the last few weeks I've been using the app Seesaw with my learners.  Seesaw is an app on my learners iPads and I use a web browser to access the material they have uploaded.   Because my class is not quite 1:1 with iPads yet, learners scan a QR code each time they want to upload some work and then select their name.

Initially we had a few small teething problems as learners forgot to log out and the next learner scanned the work without checking but I turned this into a teachable moment and explained the importance of always logging out.  The learners are enjoying being able to review their work so far this year as well as read the comments that I leave for them after each piece of work.

I have moderation set for each piece of work - this is great as I know which pieces I haven't looked at and can immediately see the next steps for learners that haven't quite mastered a strategy or concept that I have been teaching.  Seesaw also has the ability to share students works with their parents also, something we will be doing in Room 30 very shortly - they will also be able to leave comments as well as see what we are doing in class each day.

For me, there are some real benefits with using Seesaw.  These include:

• Notifications if I forget to approve work
• The ability for learners to record their voice from within the program - we have been publishing writing but learners also read their story too
• The ability to add video as well as images.  We have been sharing to the camera roll and then uploading from there.
• Being able to comment on my learners work and my learners receive a notification when they log in that they have new comments.
• The ability to share work with each learners parents.
• The ease with which learners can login and publish their work - we went over this in class a few times and all learners were confident within days.

I'm really looking forward to exploring Seesaw further over the coming weeks and sharing the learning that we are doing in class with our parents/whanau.

iPad Tools

Recently in my classroom I've been using a terrific Accessibility feature on the iPad, to help those learners who are lower in reading.  Often I include extensive instructions on particularly my Explain Everything activities to ensure learners remember what they are suppose to do after when they are working independently.  I have in the past used soundbites (using an app called Quickvoice) but I was reminded recently about the "speak" function where learners are able to highlight a piece of text and the iPad will read it to them.

To enable this function on the iPad, go to your Settings.  Under the 'General' option, choose Accessibility.  At the bottom of the first box, select "Speech" and enable the top option "Speak Selection".

My learners used this function within Explain Everything.  They simply highlight the piece of text they are unsure of and select "speak".  The text will be read to them and they know exactly what my instructions said.  NB:  In Explain Everything, the text cannot be locked down if you are wanting to use the speak function - I do occasionally forget this but my learners know to just unlock the text to use this function.

New Challenges ... Towards Transformation

This year I'm lucky enough to be part of a group of five teachers at Lynmore School receiving professional development as part of Apple's Towards Transformation project.

Last week we had our first session and as always its great to be shown different things and also reminded of tools and different ways these tools can be used.  As always, this blog post documents my learning from the session but also includes things I was already aware of but that my readers may benefit from.

Some of the iPad tools that were discussed during our session:

• Speech - accessed by going to the Settings, General, Accessibility and turning on "Speak Select" which is under Speech.  You are able to adjust the speaking rate - I have moved mine more towards the turtle so the speech is slower for my learners.  This allows you to highlight a word or piece of text on the iPad and select "speak" and the word/text will be read to you.  Great for learners who struggle to read your instructions in Explain Everything!
• Slide over - use this to move between two different apps - slide from the right of the screen and select the second app you'd like to have appear
• Edit photos on your iPad by selecting "Edit" and "Markup" allows you to add text to your photos, highlight or notate or even add drawings to emphasise a point - this is great to allow learners to photograph some materials and then document what they are doing (particularly in maths).

Some of the iPad apps which were discussed during our first session:

• Seesaw - a digital portfolio which integrates well with the iPads.  This allows students to share work with the teacher, allows parent access as well as for the teacher to send work to a group/individual student.  For me personally, I have found that I'm not able to send my Explain Everything projects via this portal at this stage, however its great for learners to screenshot or upload a video of their work and I get a feed of which work needs checking (and approving). Learners in my space scan a QR code (all catered for within the app) and select their name to sign in to send me their work.  I'm excited to try this out, particularly given the parent access that is available for each child.
• Grafio 3 Lite - a great brainstorming app which allows for the import of pictures.  Learners are easily able to draw shapes and add words as they brainstorm their ideas.  Importantly, they are able to export their brainstorm as an image which can be inserted into other apps if required.  They are also able to send me their brainstorm via the Seesaw portfolio so I can provide feedback to them.

To finish our first session with our Apple facilitator, we discussed how a writing lesson could be progressed, from the brainstorm (using Grafio 3 Lite, through to the writing (using Pages or Google Docs) and into publishing/presenting (using a suggested app called Over).  I really liked this idea and intend to implement the process this week, using Explain Everything (rather than Over) for the publishing stage - this is because my learners are still exploring Explain Everything and I want to give them as many opportunities to do this before introducing many other apps to them.  Watch this space to see the results of these lessons!

I really was inspired by the first session and can't wait for our second session next week.  It is great to be given new ideas (and reminded of tools) and to think about the ways I can explore these in my classroom.  As always, I use iPads in my classroom to make learning engaging and inspire the best from my learners.  Just as my learners are always learning, so am I - I'm excited to continue to evolve my pedagogy and can't wait to continue my own learning journey!

Congratulations .... You're an Apple Teacher!

Earlier today I completed the iPad requirements to become an Apple Teacher.  Having used iPads in my classroom for over three years now, it was great to cement the knowledge I have acquired.  As always, in working through the requirements I picked up more tips for using the iPads and got some great ideas for use in my own classroom.

I'd encourage others to undertake the Apple Teacher program and I definitely intend to further my education by completing the Mac requirements shortly.

ULearn 2016 Day 3

The final day and the sun comes out!  That will make walking between sessions so much easier :)

SESSION 6: iPads are HOT Tools!  Emilie O'Keefe and Casey Patuawa

Google Classroom - great to monitor who is doing their work and who isn't allowing for more accountability

Puppet Pals - ability to make their own puppet or use a photo of themselves and record voiceover as you move your puppets

Drawing pad/Draw and Tell - can draw as well as voice over
Odd one out task - which is the odd one out and why?  What can you do with these numbers?

Book Creator - create an inquiry presentation on a topic - gives learners ownership that they are an author

piZap - photography app; very similar to PicCollage but without the adverts - create a photo mosaic from photos that they have taken, add words to describe and then share to blog.  Would be great for this term when we are doing science experiments

Writing planning idea to scaffold ideas - describe a setting - use a picture and describe it with words around the outside.

Give learners "iExplore" time so they can explore the app - share back how they used it and what they found?  You can then fill in the gaps of what is necessary to use the app.

SESSION 7:  Dynamic Digital Technologies for Narrative Assessments - Diana Wilkes & Kyle Hattie

Narratives are written by the learning coaches (teacher) for the learners and shared on their blogs.  Different tools are used to craft these narratives.  The school is exploring having their learners write their own narratives using a standard format.

BreakOutEdu - a fun way of problem solving  -  a great way to check understanding on concepts and build on collaboration in the classroom.  Need multiple locks and clues.

EdPuzzle - possibly great for teachers - have questions throughout the video so that learners need to leave comments or answer questions about the videos

NearPOD - learners all use a PIN to enter the presentation - teacher drives how fast you move through, when teacher moves to the next slide, the learners device moves along with you

Comic Life - great for creating comics and creative posters/pages

Movenote - video in the side and presentation on the right



CLOSING KEYNOTE:  Karen Spencer - Beyond the echo chamber:  The extraordinary possibilities of a networked profession (@virtuallykaren)

"Weave the aho and the ideas together to achieve success."  Praxis makes perfect  -  exploring ideas and putting them into practice.  All the professional learning of today is driven by teachers - collaboration!  Teachers make the biggest difference in the lives of our learners.  Consider your conversations in terms of immediate value, potential value and applied value.  Of even more importance, think about the realised value (this can't be determined until we have talked to our learners), and the reframing value (changing an approach based on the feedback from our learners).  No single person has a monopoly on good ideas - this just reinforces the need for collaboration.

Methods Matter!

Karen shared three main ideas with us:

Find the Urgency - which is the area that YOUR learners need the most?
Hold our ideas lightly.  There is no solution - plan carefully before you introduce anything.  Teachers are constantly redesigning to find solutions to educational problems - it is therefore necessary that our time is spent on the most important things.  The NZ Curriculum is a great resource to help prioritise and identify ares of need.  Spend time trying to understand where the vision is already in evidence and where changes could be made so that the learners feel it more strongly.

See the story behind the data - listen to your learners, gather the voice/stories of your learners and treat them like a piece of art.  Bring the different viewpoints in order to look for what is really going on with the learners and where we can spend our time most usefully.

Embrace discomfort - we only see things through our own interpretations (or bias) and these guide our actions.  Part of being a modern educator is being comfortable with having our own bias' exposed and discussed.  There is often a pressure to conform through a fear of looking different.    What can we achieve if we embrace discomfort or include our devils advocate voice?  It is OK to have different views.  Our role is to look at how professional learning conversations allow people to safely air their views in ways that celebrate diversity and help people check the assumptions that are driving their actions.

What does the research say?  Look for evidence that your innovation is working - is it making a difference for your learners?  After all, we are teaching to make a difference in their lives of our learners - education doesn't change the world, education changes people and its people that change the world!

OTHER LEARNING:
As always happens, talking to other teachers can be really inspiring.  These are a few other ideas that I'd like to explore after talking to other teachers during the breaks:
Swift Playground - a coding environment that can be used on iPads as iOS10 and above
Ant Word Profiler - a freeware tool for profiling the vocabulary level and complexity of texts.
Discover first tweet  -  a tool to find your first ever tweet.


Would a great three days of Professional Development and I'm looking forward to taking some of the inspiring ideas back into my classroom - thanks to CORE Education and all the presenters, and also to Manaiakalani for the great opportunity!