Embedding New Learning ...

With my intermediate class this morning, we were learning how to use TinkerCad.
We went through a simple some simple skills that will take them through more complex tasks :-

• Workplanes
• Grouping shapes
• Using holes

These are the tasks we went through today ...


We made small skill videos with the iPads after this where the students could pick which element they wanted to highlight and record the screen and themselves talking. We then shared those videos in our class shared folder on Google Drive so the students can see each others videos and remind themselves of what was covered today.

This was a good way to get them to talk about what they had been doing during the session as it makes it clearer to them as they plan what they are going to say. Here are todays videos :-

Getting Students to Test Design Apps

I have had my eye on an iPad app for a while. It is called Astropad. Link Here.
This app mirrors what you see on the computer screen so you can draw into programmes like Photoshop and Illustrator that you have installed on your computer in a much more natural way.
Students find it tricky to use the wacom graphics tablets as they have to look at the screen while drawing on the tablet. This takes a lot of getting used to as you are not looking at your "pen" tip as you draw, and this does not feel natural at all.
Another negative of the graphics tablets is that we have a couple of missing pens, which renders the tablets useless.
The Astropad app means they can look at the iPad while they draw and their work displays on the computer screen at the same time.
I put this on my iPad the other day and had a little go with it. I let a couple of my Year 12 DVC students have a go on it today to get their feedback and thoughts. They really enjoyed using it and found it very easy to draw with both in Adobe Photoshop and Adobe Illustrator on my laptop.
I think this will definitely be on my budget request for next year to install on the 5 iPads we have in DVC.
I really enjoyed getting their feedback today, as it is all very well me liking an app but it is them that is going to be using it the most!! ( and "K" discovered it works on games too .....sigh.... )

Can an Evaluation Speak for Itself?

A small group of my Level 1 students have being having a go with Explain Everything on the iPads. They have completed their final poster designs on Adobe Illustrator and I wanted to see if we could do the final evaluation as a spoken rather than typed thing.
Blog post about setting up the template here.

Our first attempt last week was a complete disaster, as they could not read the questions and answer them straight away. It was an interesting leaning curve for me, as their teacher, as I realised that they needed the same help and scaffolding when they speak their analysis as I would give them when they type it.

The second attempt showed a really good session at writing the script with help sentences and key words, which was thwarted by wireless issues so we couldn't get the files onto the iPads.

The third attempt was today. We were ready. We had fabulous scripts!! We had wireless. We were good to go.

Here are the 3 that were completed today...

Student 1

Student 2




Student 3




Feedback from the students :-


Which did you prefer ?

• Writing

What was good about writing?

• You have more confidence when writing rather than saying it.
• It's faster because you can stop when you want and you don't have to rewind unlike the video recorder you have to stop and start again every time you make a mistake. 

What was good about speaking?

• You don't need to type.

What were the worst parts?

• Being nervous while speaking
• Having to except the fact that we HAD to record ourselves talking. 

Would you do a spoken analysis again?

• Yes. It is much more better to say than write
• Yes, only if it's to do with credits :D

Key things that were highlighted for me....

• Students were very nervous of doing this to start with. Will they get used to it and find it easier to do?
• Get the image on the right way to start with as once the recording was done, every time we tried to turn it, it went back to sideways on saving.
• Scaffold exactly the same as we would if they were writing the evaluation / analysis.
• It meant that the students actually did BOTH - writing and speaking as they wrote their script.
• Using the teacher dashboard to share the original template file was easy, even though we didn't use them in the end.
• The students saving their work into their drive then retrieving it on the app was easy ( once the wireless was playing ball ).
• We learned how to use the app as we went along, especially when things went wrong. One of the students did a mostly great recording, got flustered and ended that section on a HUGE swear word.  So, rather than him start the whole thing again, we learned how to edit just one section of the recording and delete it. 

I really appreciated these guys giving this a go. It has given me a lot to think about moving forward with this, especially with its use within a totally online course.

Can students record an audio analysis / evaluation with what ever app / equipment they have, outside of the classroom, without on-hand teacher help.

Ako Tamaki

When the students get their netbooks re-imaged, part of that image is a shortcut to the Khan Academy. This is a great online learning space where students can learn about all sorts of topics.

It got me thinking. Can our students create their own "academy" where the leaners become the teachers of the following year?

In a bid to start exploring this idea, I took one of my Manaiaikalani days today and had a varied selection of students out of class creating videos centred on teaching something to someone who knows nothing about the topic.

I have had discussions with the HODs of all the subject areas so they could choose a couple of students for each area. They had to make sure that they came with the subject knowledge that they needed to get across as I would be no help there.

I made a couple of examples myself, to show them 1 or 2 ways they could use if they wanted to, but these were in no way the only ways I wanted them to work today.

The first method I showed them was the sticky note method. I was quite happy with this method as I had experimented on my Maths class a couple of weeks ago.

The second method was similar but using drawn, coloured and cut out elements.




After showing the group the two methods, showing them the site that I had set up to present it all on and arming them with an iPad for the day, we were off.

Some students were happy to use the methods I had shown them and stayed in the room and worked on that. Others wanted more live action shots and either took themselves away for filming or shouted at everyone to be quiet when they needed to. Some went and sat on the stairs to get some quiet for making screen casts.

Here are some photos from the day....

It took them a while to get going this morning, planning on paper first about what ideas they could do and what script they would need to say.

Once they got started on the filming, there was no stopping them. They were frustrated at first by the "no editing" rule, but soon got used to the idea of it all being done in one take. We kept them nice and short, so any do overs were not taking for ever to do.

Here is a link to the Ako Tamaki site.

I am still in the process of uploading the student's videos that they made today onto the site.

My plan is to present this to the whole staff and get some feedback from them as to what they think and if they think it is an idea that could move foreword.

I am seeing this as a long term view in regards to seeing the benefits. The videos that are being made now will only be used next year when the students new to the topic are needing this information. The bonus for the students making the videos now though, is that this process cements the knowledge into their heads.

We had a great time today making these videos and as a little bit of silly as we left the room, we positioned the funky shaped furniture into a particular pattern.

Live Editing and Blogging with an iPad...

It was Year 8 open day at Tamaki College today, with all the Year 8 students in the surrounding intermediate schools coming for a college experience day.
As the person in charge of TCTV, the school blog site, I decided to try a first on the day, and shoot, edit, upload to YouTube and put onto the blog all from one of the school iPads throughout the day in a series of instalments. Previous to this, we have done all the editing etc on macs after the events, not during.
The boys doing the presenting were up for the challenge so we gave it a go.
The iPad already had what we needed installed, Safari and iMovie for iPad.

It all went smoothly. It was easy to shoot the video, with the sound coming through surprisingly well. Editing was ok on iMovie, although we could have done with some headphones or ear buds as there was always a lot of noise around while trying to do the editing. Transferring from iMovie straight up to the school YouTube account was generally smooth with one wrinkle when it decided to not play the game. At this point we ignored it, went and shot some more video and came back to it when it had stopped sulking.
The one fly in the ointment today was the inability to get the embed code for the uploaded videos from YouTube on the iPad. When we hit the share button, the embed option was there but it would not work.
So, we had to cheat a little on our original plan and take a chrome book around with us too so we could do that final stage of putting the video from YouTube onto the blog.

Visit TCTV here, if you want to see our efforts today.

The team.... John Campbell and Paul Henry apparently.... !! ( alias Samsom and Eli )

Putting Photos on Your Google Site using an iPad

I have been experimenting recently with putting multiple photographs on a Google site using an iPad. This was originally in response to a question I was trying to help with and then today I was asked to do a blog post about it to help others.
These are screen shots of the process I went through.
I have used a combination of the Google Drive app and the Chrome app, both of which are free.
Make sure that the photos you want to use are on the iPad.

I started by using the Google Drive app for the iPad.

Click on the + symbol on the top right and choose new folder. Then name your new folder.

Open your new folder from the drive list and click the + button again. This time choose to upload photos or videos.

It will ask to have access to your photos on your iPad.

Open the photo album choice and tick the photos you want to upload into the new folder.

Your nicely uploaded photo files will now be sitting nicely in their new folder.

Next, I used the Chrome app to work on my site.

Open the site page that you want to put the photo folder, and click on the pencil to edit the page.

On the insert menu, choose drive, then folder.

Tick the folder that you have just created and put pictures into.

Next, make sure you tick the option for the grid view. This way, you get a preview of your photos when the folder is embedded on the site page.

You embedded folder looks like a normal Google gadget when your page is in edit mode.

When you save your page, you can see the embedded folder with the photos that you uploaded. These photos are shown in thumbnail mode due to you ticking the grid choice.