Digital Portfolios

It is a tradition in early childhood classes to send each child home at the end of the year with a portfolio that documents the fun and learning that they experienced over the course of the school year.  These generally contain multiple photos, work samples and description of learning outcomes.

I recently attended a digital portfolio workshop with the intention of discovering a better tool to use to create digital portfolios than what I was already suggesting. We did look at a couple of tools but my preferred one is still Book Creator as it is so simple to use.

With a digital portfolio, not only can you add photos of students and photos of work samples you can also add audio recordings, video recordings, digital creations and audio or written notes from the teacher.

Books made in Book Creator can also be shared with parents in a couple of ways:

The first is as an e.pub that can be viewed on any device - this could be shared with parents using GoogleDrive or DropBox.

The second is as a printed or emailed PDF - in PDF form, digital recordings and digital creations can be shared via QR Codes.

If I was in an early childhood class I would set up a book in Book Creator for each student in my class and add content along the way. No gluing, no cutting, no bulky books.

Apps for Inquiry Based Learning

When looking at inquiry based learning it helps to think about the types of apps that could you useful at each stage. Here are some apps that we either already use at KPS or are free. For upper primary students this may be a list that they could use to make their own decisions about the most useful apps.

PDF of apps for inquiry based learning

Two Eyes, Two Feet

I came across the following section of a post that I really liked under the title of:

5 Tips for Classroom Management With Mobile Devices

Posted by The Committed Sardine Blog on March 10, 2014

Two Eyes, Two Feet

Carl Hooker, an educational technology innovator on the cutting edge, coined the phrase “the two eyes, two feet app” in response to faculty and administration concerned about inappropriate use on cell phones, tablets, and/or laptops. The biggest shift for educators when technology enters the classroom is that you cannot be static or stable. The best way to ensure that students stay on task is to walk around the room, look at the work they are doing, discuss and engage with them about their progress. The more active and mobile you are in the classroom, the easier it is to ensure that your students are on working on what they should be. If you notice that children are quickly closing browsers windows when you come near or “double tapping” the home button on their iPad (a sign that they’re switching apps) then take the time to investigate what the student is doing and have a discussion with them if necessary.

Week 5 iCafe

In iCafe in week 5 we looked at some ways of using iPads to create content for students, some ways of using iPads to assess and finished up with a bit of a look at students creating book reviews.

Creating Content
Apps that are ideal for creating differentiated content that is totally personalised include TinyTap, Zondle, Explain Everything and Educreations. With Zondle the content is developed on a PC and then accessed by the students through the App. Another fantastic way to create personalised content is by creating Beat the Teacher Resources. My favourite way to do this is be creating the pages first in Keynote, taking screenshots of the full page and then adding audio in SonicPics and sending the completed slide show to the camera roll. Beat the Teachers can be used for any problems that students need to work out mentally such as sight words, times tables and mental maths. They are a terrific resource that can be shared across iPads via the camera roll.

Assessing
The fact that it is an all in one device makes the iPad the perfect tool for assessment. The camera can be used to take still shots or movies of students or their work. These can be used to map progress or provide evidence of achievement. Screenshots can also be used to monitor progress when students are working on apps or a photo of screen is needed but cannot be sent by the app. Explain Everything and Educreations can also be used to record students explaining their reasoning as they work through a problem. An excellent way to compile evidence such as photos, movies and screenshots is using a book making app such as Book Creator. Creating a book for each student in the class would be an excellent way of creating a digital portfolio on each child. Text and audio notes can be added.

Book Reviews
I love the idea of having students review the class books, create QR Codes from those reviews and place the QR Codes on the front of the books to share with others. Verbal reviews can be created using audio recordings developed through most voice memo apps. iMovie Trailers are an excellent way for students to create book trailers and give their opinion of the book at the same time.

That was pretty much week 5 iCafe in a nutshell (or should I say - in an iPad case)

More on Nearpod

After a couple of weeks using Nearpod with a paid Gold Membership I am convinced it is worth the money. Using the "homework" option for lessons in class has allowed, particularly the older students, to work at their own pace and has totally freed me up to work with those who are struggling or those who need extra support with their behaviour.

Nearpod is definitely the right option for me, as a specialist across the school, because there are no class lists or student log-ins. They simply join the session with a 5 letter code and then add their name as they join. If I had my own class I would definitely give Blendspace more of a go but, as I already said, I am very happy with Nearpod as a resource in a blended learning environment.

Book Creator for Anecdotal Records

I watched a presentation by a teacher named Gabrielle Trinca on the AITSL Website - The Learning Collective. It was an extremely interesting presentation about contemporary teaching and project based learning. One thing she mentioned, though, that was quite unrelated was an idea with book creating Apps that I hadn't actually considered. At KPS we use Book Creator to create books for students and to have students create books. Another idea is to use Book Creator to keep records about students. A book can be created for each class member and photos, videos, written notes and audio notes can be added to the book. What a great way to keep digital records and have evidence for assessment!

Quizzes

After such fantastic success with Kahootit the first couple of times I used it, I have now encountered some difficulties. The last two times I attempted to use it the students couldn't join - very disappointing but I will try again.

This week I have been trying out NearPod which, like many of my favourites is an app and also browser based. Excellent for blended learning and similar to Blendspace, but with less options for uploading material but more options for quizzes, NearPod is quite easy to use. You need to make the lessons in the browser version, easier on a PC, and then students can log into your lesson through the app or browser. They need no ID etc which makes life easier, you just start the lesson and they type in a short code. I used it with groups from year 1 to 7 with very good results - 100% engagement. With a free membership you can do all of the above but I am going to sign up to a gold membership for a month. This allows you to set the lessons for homework. I will use this to make the lessons more self paced, particularly for the older students.

Quizzes in a Blended Learning Environment

For the last couple of weeks I have been really exploring the various ways I can use technology to present quizzes. My current purpose is to pre-test the students but I have found that there are some really good formats for a variety of purposes. I thought I would share what I have discovered so far.

I had great fun with Web-based Kahoot today. This is a type of student response system. You need to create an account and then create your quizzes. These are multiple choice and would be fantastic for mental maths, spelling and many other things. The presenter displays the quiz on an IWB or even a screen mirrored from their iPad and students log into Kahootit and use the game pin shown. They read the question and answers on the big screen and the select the corresponding answer on their computer or iPad screen. When all students have answered it shows a leaderboard and is ready for you to move on. Students get a higher score for answering quickly and it shows them if they were correct or incorrect on their scree . Teachers can download the results to excel. The boys loved the competition side of it!

Socrative is an app that is specific to quizzes and feedback. There is a teacher version and a student version and both are free. You can develop multiple choice questions as wells as short answer questions that can include images. This, too, works on iPads or computers and responses can be displayed on the board as they are entered. Socrative quizzes can be student paced, so they move on after each student has answered, or teacher paced. Results can be downloaded.

Quizzes that you can make on Edmodo have a nice range of options for the types of questions you can use such as multiple choice, short answer, fill the blanks, matching the answer. You can also add web links and files.

Blendspace is an excellent tool for blended learning. In the lessons you create you can include a huge range of resources such as YouTube clips, Educreations, photos, we pages, files from Dropbox and a Google Drive and you can add text. The quizzes you can make in Blendspace are just basic multiple choice but excellent to check for understanding. Blendspace is also a free app that is available in Edmodo and once you have assigned the app to your class or to your groups you can create resources and share them through Edmodo.

I will continue to explore tools for creating quizzes and other blended learning resources and hopefully add some more information as I discover it.