Screen Cast

Sometimes when I have met with parents to discuss their child's progress they have said to my that their son or daughter has sometimes expressed a lack of understanding in how to answer the different questions they have to complete in their Religious Studies lessons. This is a completely understandable issue. I have been thinking recently about the concept of flipped learning. By this the learning is done at home in preparation for the lesson and in the lesson instead of doing the teaching you are able to do fun and creative activities in order to demonstrate what has been understood.

I am a little daunted by trying this out, but in my reading one thing which struck me was the importance given to videos as a means through which information could be shared with the class. I have already written about how much I love that here. I thought therefore that it might be sensible to create some videos explaining the different answering structures we use and how they could be deployed. Encouragingly in one of my lessons I said to a class I had made one, and one of the boys in there said he had already watched it. Result. I plan to make some more for each of the different questions so that in homework time I can encourage the classes to watch over the videos as a reminder of what they should be doing.

To do this I used a tool called Screen Cast O-Matic. It's terribly simple; just open it up, pull the recording area to the right amount of your screen and hit record. You can even record a voiceover of you awkwardly explaining something. I am the Queen of Awkward so this of course was right up my alley.

Post-It Plus

I came across a fun new App just before half term. Do you think App should be with a capital? I don't know. Feels appropriate though. I was so excited, and maybe also disorganised that I downloaded it a lesson and then worked out how to use it and then did. I mean, yes I am like totally dramatic. Maybe also a tiny bit bad at grammar. So....sue me.

This app is called Post-it Plus; tagline from the website is 'Moving great ideas forward, from start to finish.' Whatever that means. Basic premise though, and I literally have no idea how they did this is that you can get your class to write their ideas on a post-it note. Perhaps you are brainstorming a question, or discussing what has been covered and learnt in the class. You can then take a picture of this on your iPad and the App recognises the post-its and scans them in.

This App works with my Apple tv, so I can airplay my iPad. Obviously it would be very difficult to read what these say as they are tiny. You can then double tap on them and a gallery opens. So you are able to flick through what the class has written. I like doing this to consider ideas for answers and then we bin the less good ones and keep the ones we all agree on.

If what you have done in the lesson has been worthwhile and you'd like the children to have access to the information you can then share the page. I often upload it to a shared Google Drive folder.

So there we have it, Post-it Plus. A useful App to have in the classroom.

FYI I used a new App to anotate my iPad pictures. Need to work out how to unborder my text!

Adsy: App design

One of the things I love most about twitter is the chance to hear about new technology early on. It makes me seem cutting edge to my friends pupils the fact that most of the time I am pretty much a total dork. While doing some late night twittering due to my food poisoning last week I came across some mentions of a website called adsy. It promised to be a web platform through which I could make apps. I checked it out, and having watched the instructional video managed to understand it.

While what you can achieve is simple; you can only include text, pictures of videos but there is no way to give the user a way to input their own text, what I do like about it is the way it teaches children some of the basics of how one would go about building an app. In my PSHE lessons where we had been discussing revision as the school exams are looming I let them spend some time having a go at designing one as a revision tool. It was very easy and once set up they were able to get on with their apps on our school ipads. In my pipedream I had imagined they would all finish in 1/2 hour and we could share them with each other. It did take a lot longer and none of them finished but I think it was still a worthwhile exercise. There were a couple of children who thought it was seriously exciting. Best for me was the girls who got into it. I was reading today about the digital apartheid which will exist for those who do not understand how to code.

#ISCICT @IanYorston outlines the future problem in relation to those who can code and those that cannot. pic.twitter.com/JyBHCtilYQ

— Nick Dennis (@nickdennis) November 5, 2014

This morning I was reading all about Reshma Saujani who set up Girls who code an initiative which tries to get girls to learn to code. I feel like my use of adsy with my girls was a chance to get them to see that coding isn't something done by spotty boys in hoodies, it can be done by them too. They were seriously excited about their creations, about putting in videos and music, and as yesterday was Teach Girls to code day, that seemed apt!

If you are interested, here is a link to the app I made with one of the boys. We were so keen we finished it in break time. Score.

Have you tried adsy? I would love to see any of the apps you have made.

TextHelp: This is amazing

Every so often I come across software and I cannot quite comprehend the different it will make to my teaching. I came across something recently and I could not wait to share it with the SenCo at school so we could start using it. The name: TextHelp. Quite simply, revolutionary software for dyslexic pupils in order to help them access reading and writing. This is a subject which it is hugely important to be discussing this week, as it is dyslexia awareness week. All week I have seen tweets about why dyslexia matters. It really matters to me. I care passionately that everyone in my classroom should be able to access what we are learning about because I want everyone to feel equally welcomed in classroom and to have confidence in what they can achieve.

You can either download this as a Chrome extension or there is an app called ireadwrite.

This is what the toolbar looks like.

It has many different uses:

• Picture dictionary

If there is a word you do not understand you can highlight it and look at a picture to help you understand the meaning.

• Predictive words

It suggests the word you might want to write next which will significantly help you speed up your writing ability.

• Change the colour and highlight

Highlight words you have struggled with or need help with. You can then collect these in a separate document.

• Translation

Highlight a word and you can have it translated into a number of different languages which are read out for you. How great would this be for EFL students. We get a lot of spanish children coming to my school and I know how useful this would be for them.

• Text input

You can even speak to your computer and it will record and write in what you have said to it. Fantastic for those children who struggle to write but have lots of ideas they want to share in the lessons.

There is even a possibility of reading webpages aloud and you can take a pdf picture of a textbook and upload it too! I really cannot get over how useful I think this would be.

I'm not sure how quickly we can use this extension as we are not currently using chrome. But I'm hoping we can make good use of the app on our iPads. Here is a video explaining how it can be used:

It is so important for educators to be using currently technology to help provide access for SEND pupils, I think this will be fantastic.

Is your school currently using this app, or the extension? How is it going?

Copy of an article I wrote for Satips Magazine

I wrote an article about using IT in the classroom and it was published. A very exciting day for me..... http://t.co/mrXBXAgsiB

— Kate Pellereau (@whatkatepdoes) September 18, 2014

An article I wrote for Saptips magazine

If someone had labeled me as someone who encouraged collaboration back in the 1940s it would have been an enormous insult. At that time the only use of the term would have been to suggest assistance with the enemy during the last war. How things have changed! Within the Technology community this is one of the current buzzwords. On a recent Google in Education conference this was a big theme. I have lost track of the amount of articles I have read where new ways to collaborate within education are explained. If we take a moment to think about our teaching, I am sure we would realize that collaboration has become important. Perhaps we encourage it though group work, paired work or by setting a homework where pupils are working together on a presentation for the rest of the class. A new way in which collaboration is becoming more possible is through our use of ICT.

Technology within education is an emerging market that even traditional private schools are starting to embrace. At my school we have iPads, laptops and two ICT rooms. We have not gone along the 1:1 route, preferring instead to educate staff in what they could be using in their classrooms believing they are able to make the decision about what is relevant and useful for them. I am involved in this training providing one to one sessions focused on the particular needs a teacher has. I have begun regularly attending lessons with a few staff assisting them as they try to integrate ICT in their lessons as well as running INSET sessions for staff. For me this has been a fascinating journey that began only in September when 20 iPads appeared in my building. I picked one up, did some research, found some good apps and began using them. I teach Religious Studies, not a traditional subject to be linked with Tech. I found that as my understanding and knowledge of what was available grew, I was able to bring in easier ways to do things, and started having some wow lessons where pupils were engaged, excited and interested in what we were learning.

My experiences this year have lead to some reflections on the role that Technology can have in a Prep School. I am not a teacher who believes that the lesson changes to fit the technology; instead my lessons are enhanced by what I am able to do. Dare I say it; sometimes I am able to save time too!

What I like most is the fact that my pupils are able to learn from one another. In my view the time where the only way to teach was to stand up at the front and recite information is gone. While didactic teaching can have its place; this is not the only way to learn. For myself, lessons are a time when we come together to discuss a topic. Everyone can learn from everyone and often I find myself leaning on the table and saying ‘gosh, I had not thought of that!’ We do research together on iPads as we begin a topic and then pull our ideas together. Or I might set them a competition and they have to quickly find the answer to a question from the Internet. I am fortunate to Apple TV in my classroom, which is invaluable for this. With older children if we are trying to work out how to answer a particular Common Entrance question I might set up a Padlet wall and they log onto it and offer a response. After everyone has contributed we can look through and together decide which are the strongest. Being able to learn from one another encourages a positive working environment and setting Internet challenges teaches research skills. Those who might not have the confidence to put their hand up during a question and answer session might gain the confidence they need to speak from the knowledge their answer comes from the Internet.

The second reason I think the use of Technology is important is because it engages the pupils. Everyone in our school loves a lesson when they are using iPads. My year 7s have just completed a piece of coursework using Google Drive where they have shared their work with me and I have been able to make live comments on it; highlighting different sections that I was not happy with and making suggestions for improvements. They’ve been able to research easily, import pictures easily and even cite their sources easily. Another class enjoyed making presentations after visiting different places of cultural significance from around the world using the Google Cultural Institute. Our year 3s have even made Popplet mind maps about what they think Jesus is like after choosing and importing a picture they liked from the Internet. For these children technology is normal. Many of those I teach are fortunate enough to own a tablet and they will sit at home doing all kinds of cool things on them. What I want to do is bring that sense of wow into the lessons. I try to teach how the children want to learn; For a tech savvy generation that means bringing in use of ICT.

My final benefit for the use of ICT is the time saving it can offer staff. This I had not fully anticipated, but have very much been reaping the benefits of. The coursework already mentioned usually fills the entire Summer term, with some pupils catching up during the holidays. This has not happened this year. All of them are finished and the reason for this is the swift responses I have been able to make to their work through our use of Google Apps. Other time saving comes through simple apps which we use to make posters for our display boards. Or a member of staff might set up a quiz online which self marks and then the results are emailed to the teacher for them to input in their mark book.

Something I have recently been trying out has been personalized work for lower ability pupils. Using iPads I am able to set them a worksheet that has been changed to suite their learning needs. If they struggle to write sometimes completing this on an iPad is extremely profitable as their typing speed might be quicker than their writing speed. On the whole they enjoy this, and it boosts their confidence to not always be the last to finish a task. The proficiency they might have with ICT means that for once they might be able to help a peer with something. I had a lovely lesson recently when we took some year 8s down to a year 3 class and they helped one another to use Padlet.

Making the effort to use technology in the classroom is only worthwhile if there are benefits.