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Tell me a story - by engaging and listening 

30/3/2015

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I have long been fascinated with the art that is involved in story telling. As an eLearning nerd I use countless Apps myself to tell stories - Steller, @tramblings twitter handle, Snapguide - but have been moved recently by a new one - Story Corps. 

Story Corps is a free App as is the genius of David Isay. It empowers users to record stories and share them globally. His story of how this evolved is intriguing and inspiring. 

Most importantly ISAY helps you have engaging conversations and highlights how essential it is to listen

The App also scaffolds the thinking and planning that goes into an interview - the why, the how and the what - along with providing some inspirational, humorous and thought provoking interviews to get excited by! 
Get STORY Corps
View the TED resource hub here  
http://www.ted.com/participate/ted-prize/prize-winning-wishes/storycorps-dave-isay 

It is important to note the ideas and planning resources contained in the App are suitable for use by primary aged students, and the idea of collecting and sharing a story is highly appropriate.  The content contained in the App is not always suitable for younger explorers. It is still a hugely valuable tool, however perhaps thinking needs to be done prior to using the App around who can post stories and how the resources can be adapted for use by primary and middle years students. 

WHAT NEXT?

I want to capture my excitement for this project with learners - young and less young -  sparking curiosity with their stories, the stories of those they know and  to help build Isay's idea. I want to help others discover, create and share stories -  because we are important, because we are powerful and because we exist. Anyone up for an e nerdy session? 
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thinking about why we use ICT 

24/3/2015

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DIscussions with peers about pre and post numeracy tests, socrative and why some things need to be hand written

Recently I was discussing with a colleague how they could work smarter - they had so much testing they did and whilst the data helped them inform their teaching, the corrections detracted from the time they had to prepare for the next phase of learning. So I worked with them to explore the possibility of using Socrative to run pre and post numeracy tests. We selected 2 tests from different topics and got started exploring. 

Click on an image above to view the tests we explored - Place Value & Money 
visit socrative.com
Take a numeracy place value pre test
To start the test enter the following room number 55ced47a
What is Socrative? 

Socrative is a free web based site (and there is an App version too) which allows teachers to create and administer quizzes online that where appropriate correct themselves. Teachers need an account and form that get a room number for students to "enter".   

Teachers generate and account and create quizzes. They can then run these quizzes at their pace, student pace, allowing for automatic feedback or extra hints or even as a game to exit the class. 

Once a quiz is stopped the teacher can receive the feedback as a coloured coded,  Excel spreadsheet.  Very quickly you can see patterns in responses and typical errors. Multiple teachers can share the one quiz. 

Students log into the teachers room (they don't need accounts) and complete the quiz.  They can not see their responses or those of others.  
Peer reflection - audio coming soon 

Discussion prompts

What do you like about using Socrative?

What challenges  do you for see?

Will it improve student learning? How or why not?

Why does the Money topic not work as a Socrative quiz?

How does Socrative fit in with the assessment as – for -of thinking?

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1 minute legends

20/3/2015

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Quick things to do with an iPAd to get your students creating 

App picker using Random Name Generator Lite (free) 

When enhancing learning through iPads in the classroom there will come a time when the students will get so savvy they won't know which App to use for the task they have been given - they will be confident across many! So to help I created a very simple App generator based on the type of tasks the students were doing so they could use this to quickly pick an App to use and get moving with their learning.  

The App can also be set up to randomly generate writing topics, circle time topics,  activities for reading journals etc 
Get Random name generator
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1 min experts - students teaching students (and the teacher!) 

When using an App for the first time I often ask the students to become 1 minute experts. They have 10 minutes to explore an App or in some cases an aspect I want them to find out more about in a particular App and then they have 1 minute to share what they know with their peers. They use the Apple TV to flip their screen up to show us what they know either as the do it in the App or to flip up their notes or ideas they identified. Here is an example of the task Year 5 students completed earlier this year using Lino. 
Ask an expert board - created using Padlet 

A great way to empower students  as facilitators of learning for themselves and others is to set up an expert board. That way when you discover students who are excelling at using a certain App or who know when or why to use it they can be called upon for this. I ask any student who thinks they are ready to be an expert to summarise in 1 minute what they know. If they showcase  a solid understanding they go onto the board. If they do not they get to have another go in a weeks time. There is no reason you could not add teacher to this as well - then teachers could call on other teachers to help them explore and learn! 

This idea also has the added bonus of providing students an audience to present to thus developing confidence in their ability to communicate and also empowers learners in the classroom to be more active in their problem solving rather than just relying on the teacher. And what a way to make the classroom learning student centred! Sitting with this kind of set up are some circle time discussions about how we ask for help, how we support others (learn with rather than learn for) and when we ask peers vs when we ask teachers. 

As a side the board is created using Padlet and only the owner of the board (in this case the teacher) can add/edit names. You can make this accessible by embedding it in a class Edmodo or as is the case for this one via a QR code.  That way when students need help they can scan the QR code, find out who can help them and visit them - and they already have their iPad with them! It is another way students can interact with their learning space. 
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The QR code to the left is live - scan it and you can visit the padlet or use the link below
Visit live board here
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It’s not OK to forget the milk and bread

18/3/2015

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A few ideas for organisation beyond a list 

A colleague told me a few weeks ago that it’s not OK to run out of both milk and bread.  You can run out of one or the other but not both. Which got me thinking. This is a problem. How does one remember not only to keep the weetbix juice flowing but also to have a backup plan in the form of vegemite holder and remember everything else we are meant to remember in our lives?  How can I help my colleagues and my students organise not just what they have to do, but what they need to do first, how to look at big tasks and how to organise efficiently to get things done? Here are some ideas to help you keep track of those important things to do. both of these can be set up by one person and used collaboratively or used by individuals. 
Gmail Tasks – most requests to do things for and with colleagues arrive to me via email.   Requests for help, meetings requests etc are all daily occurances. In Gmail you can create tasks lists – using the email so saving time in transferring info to a new list. You can have multiple lists (eg urgent work, not urgent work, weekend plans etc) and you can also share these lists. For example you may be working on a team project and you can break down tasks and share it with your team mates. 

Priority Matrix (free) – this App is useful for both teachers and students. It allows you to organise a larger task or range of things to do into categories that you can drag around. It promotes students and teachers thinking about time management and helping them manage their own learning and thinking visually.   It’s also doubles as a thinking tool and can help students reflect on their time management! 

Pros & Cons

Pros 
  • Simple interface
  • Can nest items below topic to create organisation 
  • Links to Google Calendar 
  • Can add notes to items
  • Easy to learn
  • Can share with others 
  • Set reminders 
Cons 
  • Can be frustrating to switch between task lists rather than single view model 
  • Works with Gmail, not edumail or other email unless routed through Gmail    
Pros & Cons 

Pros 
  • Excellent to break big tasks into smaller aspects or to establish priorities
  • Easy to move items around with drop/drag 
  • Can be used to reflect on progress and effort 
  • Can be shared with team
  • Can add notes to items 
  • Highly personalised
  • Can use for thinking and planning as well
  • Can share with others
  • Set reminders and gather summaries’ of weekly activity 

Cons
  • Need an account (with email) 
  • Lots of buttons to distract  - not suitable for younger primary learners 
  • Takes time to learn how to use it (not as intuitive as a list) 
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Making the boring bearable

17/3/2015

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Creating a Flipped and differentiated lesson for students at a senior school level.  

explore the actual lesson here
Having taught in various subjects at VCE (final year high school) level for 10 years, I can understand just how packed the curriculum is. So I started to explore the idea of giving students the content to learn at home. This in itself is not a new concept - flipped learning is become common place in many classrooms as teachers use things like iTunes U, Edmodo blogs and other solutions to get this happening. But often I found teachers working harder and not smarter, creating resources that already exist and reinventing the wheel.  So in comes ted.ed. A site that allows you to use an existing video to build a lesson around. 

How did I select the topic?
To be honest I picked what the students needed to know (essential concepts) that were boring or difficult.  Why? By providing students with access to tricky content and a way they can engage with it prior to coming to class made sense when it came to maximising face to face contact time. In Ted.ed I could also set up a question/inquiry space so I knew what students were curious about prior to them coming to class. They could watch it numerous times, check their understanding using the quiz and know where we were going with the content. 

Why ted.ed?
To be honest I use a range of content delivery options. I have wikis, Schoology/Edmodo groups, Google sites and iBooks and iTunes U course to name a few for a variety of purposes. Ted.ed is another option for teachers to get their curriculum to the learners. In this case I picked it because;

  • The students can watch a video, answer some questions and get instant feedback, think deeper and link to further resources on the topic and add their thoughts/questions in the one space for this particular topic 
  • I can see who has accessed and watched the video, completed the questions and I can check their responses 
  • There is a level of self direction, choice and accessibility implicit in the lesson where students who want to know more can dig deeper - a concept I encourage in learners and inquirers 
  • The multi choice questions prompt the students with a time point in the video the answer is if they get a  question incorrect to support their discovery of the correct answer
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Redefining how staff collaborate 

5/3/2015

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Using Google Sites and Drive school wide. 

Arriving at ENPS in late 2014 I was asked to think about how staff share curriculum and documents. Even in my first few weeks my inbox would quickly fill up with information from others that wanted to share it, and on occasions I had so many versions of files I was confused as to which one I was meant to be using!  So what do you do when staff want to be connected, long to share documents and have been craving somewhere to share and store their goodies? You get Google site making. 
This was a journey, as the school was already signed up for Google Apps for Ed and a lone ranger had been exploring and trialling a few sites with staff previously, however it was all new to me. In short this is how I went about it:

1. Study what exist already. I visited, pushed buttons and used the features of the existing server, existing intranet and visited the existing Google sites.  
2. Spoke to and took notes from key stakeholders - the Assistant Principal, the teachers (all Year levels and specialists) and the Admin staff were not always sure what they wanted, but they did know what they did not want and this was great data to start with. 
3. Establish a 3 concept design brief -  SIMPLE TO USE - HARD TO STUFF UP - SCHOOL WIDE TRANSPARENT
4. Get building!  
5.  Get staff onto it, support them to use it and then use feedback 6 months in to refine it, grown it, tweak it. 

You can see a quick tour of the ENPS Staff Hub here to the left.
To help staff access and use the ENPS Staff Hub I had to think creatively. You see I was not on hand to help them every time they had a request so I needed to support staff to use it and be empowered to teach others also. Based on the just in time PD model I developed and offered the following professional learning opportunities;
  • Whole Staff PD sessions showcasing the first features to be unveiled Padlet live update bulletin  and embedded Google Calendar 
  • Techie Breakky sessions to support staff accessing Hub and using basic features. These were matched to the staff who attended starting points so varied in content. 
  • Techie Breakky sessions for advanced users to share the role of Admin with a group of staff who could support each other and their peers 
  • Modelling how to use it just in time with teams who are running meetings or planning timelines, curriculum or other exciting teacher things 
  • Creation and sharing of site map, protocols for adding sections as well as instructions to Admin users to help with long term use and development 
  • Creation of Staff Hub iBook to help users learn at their point of need - featuring step by step instructions, movies and labelled diagrams! 

See the iBook here - ENPS Staff Hub iBook or watch a quick flick through below
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WHat to do with a giant zucchini

4/3/2015

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Telling a story using images and words

Last Friday a colleague gave me a giant zucchini. What a thoughtful and practical gift. So I set about working out what to do with a giant zucchini. So I started with a pointers board of giant zucchini recipes to help out those who often find themselves the recipient of overgrown, slightly humorous vegetable gifts. Pinterest is free and a great way to compile resources and references for visual learners. The best thing is students can create their own boards - if they are over 13 - or access yours and the images are referenced automatically.  By clicking on the image and you are sent to the original source - a great way to provide differentiated levels of exploration and for those who want to know more about what they are interested in the choice to.  So here is my zucchini recipe board link; https://www.pinterest.com/shellywhs/what-to-do-with-a-giant-zucchini/ 
Follow Shelly's board What to do with a giant zucchini on Pinterest.
So what now? I had my giant zucchini and my Pinterest board full of inspiration. It was time to get cooking and to share that with my kind green thumbed colleague. So I set the parameters of showing her my masterpiece of cooking skill through the medium of imagery. I opted to take 6 images and convert them into a story with no more than 3 sentences so she could bask in my greatness but also get on with her hectic day. Using the free App Steller I logged in and created my story - all the while looking like a design pro thanks to the App! I find when asking students to tell stories clear parameters around length, image requirements, word usage and time to create are all essential in setting up challenge based story telling that allows them a sense of freedom and creativity to tell a story in a digital literacy format. Stay tuned for the result soon...
I want steller
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    Author

    Shelly Casey
    Curious.
    Creative.

    iLearning.

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