Lockdown Drawing and Giving Feedback

 We are onto the drawing stage with my Y11 and Y12 classes now. Even though we are on lockdown, the show must go on. 

I have written a few blog posts about setting this up

• Setting Up for Teaching Drawing Online
• Using Lego for Cross Sectional Visual Aids

The school has sent out sketch books, pencils and coloured pencils, So I know that the students have some basics that we can be. using to move on with.

Yesterday and today, I have had a few students through my Year 12 class, who are all working on slightly different projects so I have been drawing with them individually or in small groups, targeting their specific project ideas. 

I have been uploading my examples that I do with them online into a folder so that they have access to them and can get a better close up view rather than just seeing them on a Google Meet. Link to folder here.

When it comes to feedback, it proved to be difficult for me to see their work clearly enough when they held it up to the camera during a meet. To overcome this, the students have been photographing their work and sending it to me so I can give them more detailed feedback as I can see it clearly.

I then used my camera set up to record me drawing for them so I can give them ideas on how to improve their work. This is what I would do if we were in the class. I would sit next to them and draw on a different piece of paper and give them ideas for improvement.

I have shared this with them on a Google presentation with some notes. My initial idea was to share a Google Drawing with them so I could annotate their photograph (Google Drawing is always my first thought!!). This was not a good option, however, as you can not embed a video directly onto a drawing (please sort this out Google!). I decided to go with a Google Presentation for feedback and have decided that this is a better option anyway as I can embed videos, give annotated feedback and we are able to keep the same presentation for all drawing feedback as we do it.

Here are two examples of feedback given today. I have shared these with the individual students. 

Multimodal set up for Year 8 3D Design on Tinkercad

 Tinkercad is awesome at any time but during lockdown it is great. My students can do 3D design from home and they are supported by the lessons that Tinkercad make, taking you step by step through individual skills. What is also really useful is the "class" that you can set up. This makes it super easy to see the work the students are doing without them having to share it with you.

I have tried to set up my class site with step by steps and videos to help them with skills to go along with the Tinkercad ones, They can then see the steps being done on video. My Y8 group have just started learning the skills so I have been working through tasks with them as well as making them videos that they can watch in their own time. I have tried to keep my videos nice and short and to the point so they are targeted to specific tasks and skills.

Link to page on class site

Great blog post from Deborah, explaining one of her Tinkercad lessons.

Using Lego for Cross Sectional Visual Aids

Some of my Year 12 class are ready to continue with their design work. We are onto design development and they need to include details like cross sectional views. When we are on site, I get the students to make shapes in 3D with plasticine to cut in half, so they have a visual understanding of where the cut surfaces are so they can draw them on paper.

I have set up my drawing area for online teaching, Blog post here, but I needed to find a way of explaining cross sectional. views in 3D for them.

I made some blocks out of Lego. One was a solid cube, one was a solid cube made in two sections and one was a hollow cube in two sections. I made them all the same size so i could relate them back to the original one that is not cut in two.

Here is a brief section from the lesson today. It was great to hear the students drawing and then showing me their drawings on the camera so we could see that everything was being undserstood.

Lego Algorithms

 My Year 7 coding class are learning what algorithms are. As we are on lockdown at the moment, I am thinking of things they can get stuck into at home.

As I am busy building Lego at the moment, following the instructions, I thought we could have a go at making our own Lego instructions for someone else to follow.

Here is where the work is set up on my class site.

They can choose what ever they like to build and break it down into what steps are needed to get it across clearly to someone else.

I have included a video for them so they can use remove.bg to get rid of the backgrounds in the photographs of their lego pieces.

Here is my example step by step to make yellow boy.

Setting Up for Teaching Drawing Online

 We have been on lockdown for getting on for 5 weeks now and my students need to get on with their drawing work. We have done loads of work that can be done online on Google docs etc but it is time for a few of them to move on. 

I had a chat with a couple of them last week about getting some drawing done in the next week and they are keen so it was time to get my set up sorted out.

On my desk I have arranged it so that I can draw live on a Google Meet with the students and also record my drawings for them to try in their own time.

I know being able to draw with the students next week will make me feel so much better.

Using Wordwall for Learning New Words

Today, Mr Cunard in our PE department played a game with use using the flip grip option on Wordwall. He then shared the link to the website. When I checked it out I found there was a load of options and templates to choose from.

I decided to try the Match Up template to have a go at a word game for my Y7 and Y8 coding classes.

It was easy to put the words and definitions.

You can send the link to students via their email, so they can play the game in a browser window or you can grab the embed code and put it onto your class website, which is what I've had a go at here.

I made a video to explain.

Prepping to Learn about Algorithms

 My two new intermediate coding classes have got to learn what an algorithm is. They have to know and show what this is both in a non digital and digital way.

Link to algorithms page on class site

I have started with them finding three things that they know about and breaking them down into input, algorithm, output. I have made an example for them to look at and made an explanation video for them to watch after the lesson to remind themselves what to do. I also found a good explanation video on YouTube.

The second activity on this page is to be done in their own time while we are in lockdown. They have to write instructions for someone else to follow. They then have to analyse how it went and write up any changes they would make to improve their instruction (debugging).

I have written these activities to line up with the tracking document linked to the Progress Outcomes. Blog post here about this tracking sheet These activities are linked directly to Progress Outcome 1.

At the top of the site page, I have included some extra reading for the students and extra activities for them to try.

Student Feedback on Support Videos

 

My inquiry is based around making the class site a much more supportive and multi modal environment for the students to use.  Blog post 1 here  Blog post 2 here  outlining how I see the inquiry problem.

Part of that recently was to make examples and support videos of the design brief process for my Year 12 students. I purposefully only did part of the process to see if there was any use for this support.

Link here to where this is on the class site - as of writing this blog post, I included support up to page 4 of the design brief document.

I have recently received feedback form two students from that class who are further ahead than the rest of the class.  

Student A was the first to get ahead of where I had included support. He comes to talk to me one to one a lot and we discuss together what he is working on at the time. I asked him if the support on the site had been helpful. He had used it but he still comes to me to talk one to one. Then I asked him if the support on the site was any good as he was talking to me a lot more than the rest of the class. Did I need to improve or change it to make it more useful. He does use the site but he really likes to talk one to one so he can go over his work in detail and get ongoing feedback so he knows he os on the right track.

Student B came to me this week as she had got as far as the support on the site had and was asking me where the next ones were. I asked here if she had been using the videos on the site up to now and she said she has been using all of them. She said they were really helpful. This student is very hard working and always likes to keep up to date with her work and she said the videos helped her with this. She is very self motivated and will work at home and email me regularly to check her work. 

When I look on YouTube, where I have uploaded the videos, there is definite evidence of the videos that I have made for the Year 12's so far this year being watched.