Engaging Students in Writing via iOS Devices and Gaming Part #1

Even though school has only been in session for a week, it looks like I have hooked my students into an activity that has caught their attention and given them some motivation to engage in some writing tasks.

Late last school year I read a blog post by David Andrews, a grade 6 teacher in the U.K.. David wrote about "Raising Standards in Boys' Writing using the iPad for Gaming" using a game called Bike Baron on the iPad. He followed up with a post entitled "Raising Standards in Boys’ Writing using the iPad for Gaming: Outcomes and Ways Forward". David's work caught my attention because the class I had last year would have seized this type of activity - both for the gaming component and the writing task. We had worked together to improve their writing and they enjoyed the integration of technology in our classroom community. If it wasn't for the fact that the end of our school year had arrived, I would have looked further into planning my teaching and their learning.

I recently came across an article entitled "Video Games in the Classroom: Building Skills in Literacy and Numeracy" by Drs. Emmanuel Duplàa and Shervin Shirmohammadi. I was pleased to read such positive information about Video Games from a document coming from the Ministry of Education in the Province which I teach in. Having read this article, I decided to move forward with a plan to teach my students how to write a journal entry using Bike Baron.

I recently showed the following picture to my students to help them with a brainstorming activity aimed to assist them with an idea development expectation:

http://itunes.apple.com/gb/app/bike-baron/id433847884?mt=8&uo=4

The students engaged in this activity in a way that really impressed me. I would say that it caused a rich discussion and a lot of useful data came from it. We recorded their ideas and they set off to brainstorm who this character might be and what he might be up to. As my students worked, I could instantly identify my writers and non-writers - providing me with valuable diagnostic data. The next day we revisited the Bike Baron via an interactive whiteboard lesson that was more detailed and provided the students with more information to revise their work.



5 W's to assist with idea development


 

More pictures of the Bike Baron with the middle one linked to a You Tube video of the Baron in action.

The students set off again to do some brainstorming - this time they had an anchor chart to refer to in order to get more information that they had discussed with a partner (elbow partners) and with the class.

 

 

The next day I came at them with a little more information to "prime" them around the writing task that we would undertake. I told them a story, made up by me, that the Bike Baron has a journal and writes in it after completing missions (levels in the game). I asked them if they would be interested in pretending to be the Bike Baron (point of view expectation) and write a journal entry (form of writing) after playing a bit of the game. They thought it was a great idea! :)

 

 

Moving forward, the plan is to create a formal learning goal and success criteria to go with it. We need to learn how to write a journal entry and have a model for what all of this will look like. The plan at the moment is to document what our goal is and how we are going to get there. We will share the experience together before I set them off to do it on their own. We will create our anchors and we will play the game and learn to document the required information to create our journal entry. My fingers are crossed and look forward to letting you know how it goes.

 

*I would like to note that none of my students have laid a finger on an iPad/iPod Touch and played this game in class. Everything I have written about above has been accomplished based on the pictures I have posted and the discussions we have had in class. The fact that they are as excited as they are without having even seen the game or the devices brings a smile to my face*

 

I welcome your comments/thoughts!

Why integrate technology in the classroom / curriculum?

As a teacher and a parent, I believe that we want our students to have opportunities to acquire and/or improve upon the skills that they need to be successful today, and tomorrow. Among other things, students need to be effective communicators who are confident, engaged, creative, collaborative, empowered, technologically literate, and are able to think about their thinking (meta-cognition).

Technology has revolutionized the way we think, work, and play. Integrating technology into the curriculum revolutionizes the learning process and provides our students with the preparation they require to be successful in our dynamic society. I have experienced, first hand, the improved student engagement and achievement that comes with appropriate integration of technology in the classroom & curriculum.

If my experience is not enough, simply look at the commitment my school board has made to integrating technology into the educational culture. Every classroom in my board has been equipped with BrightLink technology that allows for digital content to be presented to students and allows them the opportunity to interact with it. The step forward that my board has made will help students learn by emulating the technology they are familiar with and use every day.

It is no longer a surprise to hear about or see that most people are ‘connected’ (socially, physically, and emotionally). This ‘connection’ allows them to acquire knowledge easily and at their convenience. The technology is a tool that our students are familiar with. Integrating it into the classroom & curriculum shifts the focus from the tool to the critical thinking skills (e.g. problem-solving, use of information, etc)  that have become a necessity in our ever changing globalized society.

Twitter and my Self Directed PD

As I reflect upon the completion of my 11th year as an educational professional, I can't think of a better or more powerful PD tool than Twitter. Yes, you read that accurately, Twitter. When I tell my friends and colleagues this fact, they look at me in a way that makes me feel as though all my professional credibility is being stripped away. Nevertheless, I am leveraging Twitter to facilitate professional development (mine and others) and I am really enjoying doing so.

This is a recent tweet about why I use Twitter.

I have established a professional learning network and I am connecting with educators around the world everyday. The educators I am following are passionate about their teaching and learning. Many of these people have their own blogs where I can read about their practice and engage them in discourse around what they do, how they do it, and why they do it.

Here is an example of a conversation where one of the educators I follow tweeted about her blog, I read her blog post and included another individual in my reply, and was then tweeted back:

This is an example of how Twitter allows me to connect with others and to self direct my PD.

Both of the above mentioned individuals (K. Lirenman and Aviva Dunsiger) are progressive and often share their work on Twitter. They, among many other educators, have directly and indirectly influenced my attitudes and practice in my classroom - ultimately influencing my students positively and preparing them for the society they will lead.

Aside from being informed/directed to professional reading material, I have also been tweeting about the work that I have been doing in my classroom and the work that out TLLP (Teacher Learning and Leadership Program) team is engaged in.

This tweet informs my followers of the work my students and I were doing around writing and technology integration and where they can further read about it on my blog.

This tweet directs my followers to my blog where they can read about out TLLP progress.

Twitter has provided me with a forum to learn about, improve, and share my practice. It also allows me an avenue to interact with who I want (I choose who to follow) when I want (any time of day), and where I want (via mobile devices).

If you are on Twitter please feel free to check out my tweets (@Rchids). If you are not on Twitter, sign up and follow me....I will follow back!

TLLP Progress - June 2012

Our Project: The use of Apple iPads and iPod Touches to enhance the learning of Autistic students.

During the month of June the three students chosen to be part of the project formally visited my classroom once. June was a busy month and I was fortunate to have them visit and use the technology. Informally, I made every attempt to maximize opportunities to talk to them - transition times in the hall and outside at recesses.

Part of this project involves learning about students with autism - their common characteristics and effevtive ways to teach them. I was fortunate enough to attend a seminar entitled "Challenging the Myths of Autism" which turned out to be great PD. I will be reading "Challenging the Myths of Autism" by Jonathan Alderson (@Alderson_J) to continue to aquire an in depth understanding of the myths of Autism. I am also putting Twitter to work by following individuals like Jeff Schneider (@AutismAtHome) and Andrea (@AutismTips) whose tweets refer me to articles and blogs providing a variety of information about people living with Autism. 

During the month of June I was informed that the Ministry of Education had provided funding to cover the cost of registration and materials for educators to participate in the Geneva Centre for Autism's 28th Annual Autism Training Institute this August. I was very excited to learn that I had an opportunity to possibly attend fundamental training entitled "Autism Spectrum in the Classroom: Charting a Path to Success". Unfortunately I was not chosen as one of my school board's representatives at this years institute. Nevertheless, I continue to keep my eyes and ears open for learning opportunities that will benefit our TLLP and my PD as a classroom teacher.

TLLP Progress - May 2012

Engaging Students in Writing using Technology (iPad/iPod Touch)

On June 22, I blogged about embarking on a new journey with my students using the iPad and iPod Touch to assist with their writing ("Using the iPad/iPod Touch to Assist Students in meeting Writing Expectations"). In that post I identified the Ministry of Education expectations that would be addressed, the Learning Goal & Success Criteria for this unit, a model for them to follow, an achor chart about postcards, and a draft version of a postcard that had been submitted for review.  

The students had a great time working on their task - to create a postcard that is related to our school and to write to someone in our school community.

Here are some examples of the postcards that were created:

The students learned how to use the device camera, where to save photos, how to delete them, and how to manipulate them into the app. The stickers and postmarks you see on the postcards were placed on the postcards by the students. The students chose their own templates from the app and decided what they wanted to create and how they would create it. My role was to guide them through the creation of success criteria and anchors and to support them throughout the process in a technical fashion. They were very engaged and focussed on this task and the last couple of weeks at school were exciting and seemed to fly by!

This task will stand as a memorable one for me. We were able to incorporate the 21st Century Fluencies (solution fluency, information fluency, collaboration fluency, creativity fluency, and media fluency) that we have been talking about for quite some time now while treating each other as valuable members of our classroom community. It was a rich learning experiences for them and for myself and it was a fantastic way to lead us to the end of our time together.

Innovative teaching with iPads

Today’s post, by Ferdinand Krauss (@eLearnDiscourse ), is a summary of his observations of my students working with iPads in my classroom.

I had a chance to observe a colleague that used innovative teaching methods and the toontastic iPad app to engage grade 2 students in the task of creating a story retell about the challenges they faced in preparation for their first communion. Students were divided into groups of 4 or 5 and worked together on the iPad to represent a challenge they encountered. These ideas had previously been brainstormed with the class so that each group could spend their time creating animations for a particular situation, as opposed to identifying a challenge. When the project started the teacher gave the students an overview of the features of the toontastic app and the class co-created the success criteria for the animations.

As I walked around to the different groups, I asked the students what steps they took when they did not know how to do something. Their approach to figuring out how to do something was very playful in nature. They just started trying different things to see what effects were created.

The teacher's approach was similar to the flipped classroom model example. The students were empowered to direct their own learning by finding creative and different ways to express what they knew about a topic or situation. This is why I refer to it as innovative teaching because typically the teacher would be the one directing the process as opposed to facilitating it. 

When you look at the teacher's blog you can see that the iterative process documented by the educator. He recognizes that he needs to reflect on how to best facilitate the process given the specific needs and abilities of the learners with respect to the desired outcomes. 

The teacher referred to success criteria when reviewing the group animations. It gave him an opportunity to provide formative feedback so students know what and how they can improve by referring back to specific items in the success criteria that the class created. This also improves the meta cognition of students as they are becoming more aware of what constitutes a good story re-tell and what they need to do in their animations to meet that criteria.

Ferdinand Krauss, OCT, MDE, is the e-Learning Contact Support Teacher for the Waterloo Catholic District School Board. You can find him on Twitter (@eLearnDiscourse ) and reach him through his Blog.

Using the iPad/iPod Touch to Assist Students in meeting Writing Expectations

My students and I recently embarked on a new journey with the iPad/iPod Touch. I learned about an app called Lifecards - it allows users to create imaginative & creative postcards. With the end of the school year coming to a close many of my students will be travelling this summer so I thought it would be appropriate to put this app to the test!

The students will create a postcard that is related to our school, and write it to someone in our school community (e.g. friend, teacher, administrator, parent volunteer, etc). This app cost $2.99 and it works on the iPad and iPod Touch - this is an ideal situation.

The following Ministry of Education Writing expectations are addressed in this assignment:

• write short texts using several simple forms
• confirm spellings and word meanings or word choice using a few different types of resources
• make simple revisions to improve the content, clarity, and interest of their written work, using several types of strategies

We started off by taking a quick look at the app - I projected it onto the whiteboard to show them what it looked like. We then created our success criteria to guide our journey:

After the success criteria creation, I took some time to reflect on how to teach my students how to write a postcard (in a systematic way). After coming up with a 'rough' idea of an anchor chart that would support their learning, I created a model for them to follow:

After showing them the model, we took the time to create this anchor:

On Wednesday my students were formally taught how to use the camera that is built-in to the iPads/iPod's. We talked about the importance of being are able to explain why they chose the picture(s) that they end up using on their postcard (one of the expectations is that they are able to confidently explain the choices they make in creating their postcard). After teaching them how to use the camera and how to access/delete photos, we set off to take some pictures that may be used in their final product. It was a proud moment for me as I walked around the school (mainly the front foyer where our religious artifacts are kept) watching them use the technology and talk about their choices.

Today the students were hard at work with the 'text' portion of their postcards. It is very satisfying to see them so focused and working together. I am looking forward to posting some of their work so you can see where their imaginations led them. In fact, I have a rough draft for you to view -

The two students who created this will meet with me on Monday and we will talk about their work and compare it to the model I created, the anchor chart (how to write a postcard), and the success criteria - we will assess their work. After providing them with feedback, I will send them off to tweak their work and/or discuss their options before seeking me out to formally evaluate their work. Hopefully I will have some more postcards to share with you next week.

Feel free to leave comments/suggestions/questions if the mood strikes you!