Menu
Cross-Curricular ICT
One of the fantastic opportunities that SeeSaw provides is instant feedback to groups of children, or individuals, in both visual and audio format. This feedback is sent, in my classes case, directly to the parents who can then see what they have to reinforce, or, more frequently, to celebrate the achievements of the child. How do you find the time?The most common question asked, and yes, initially it starts off being time consuming until... a) The children get used to the routine - They will grasp things quickly and understand what is happening and relish the opportunity to be part of it. b) You have a few devices to use. - Getting the children to upload to their accounts while you record another person speeds things up, my children have learnt to hunt me down with a device as I'm working with others! c) You target individuals. - You can't expect to get all the kids done all the time - but you can target groups and ensure that everyone has something over time. d) They take control of their own uploads - Getting the children to learn how to use the QR codes to then upload their own content to look at later. Content needs to be approved so will stay unseen until it is. I'd rather talk to the children...Great! You are! With the additional benefit of making what you've said available after the event to reflect on further, should they wish. If linked to the parents they can then help support immediately after the event, again should they choose to.
0 Comments
Titanic 1912 Themed Pictures You can find more information about using the tools and site on this Year 4 Blog Post about PicMonkey, and the same video is below. We'll put slideshows of the examples of work they've done here soon. Snapseed - iPads
Finding ways for PUPILS to save and share digital content quickly and efficiently from the iPads has been something of a struggle, with things like Dropbox and Google Drive needing accounts to function. Now in a situation where one-to-one devices may exist, these are fundamental, and will form the bedrock of storage and access. However in the here and now, when it comes to storing video clips or images, SeeSaw has provided a quick and easy set up that almost all the children can access and upload within a few minutes. I'll admit that the continual clicking to approve content via the app can be quite tiresome, but the ability now to actually upload content directly to a space, that is accessible, has improved the availability of these to see exactly what the children have achieved.
In the cross curricular use of the iPads, I can clearly gauge that child A can export a video onto a camera roll and upload into a secure space, or that child B has exceptional directing skills in their 'movie' and that child C has great comic timing! It's so much more that the use of technical ICT skills on show, you can review their practical work, SEE them in action again, and save it as an aide memoir. Once more pupils and parents can revel in their verbal ability, in the child's personality and confidence, that may not be evident in their written or recorded work. It opens up the discussion between class and home and hopefully provides a focal point for celebration and where the next steps for improvement are.
It's been a busy week uploading content onto the SeeSaw Accounts, but as the days have gone on the children have become much more fluid at using the QR codes to log in and then snapshotting and saving their work. One feature we've utilised the uploading our English and some of our Computing work on Minecraft is the Audio and Pen tool, where children have been able to annotate and talk through what they have done, or even amendments they are going to make, to create a 'video' to upload to their wall.
How could we do it?
|
|
|
I then trialled it using my School iPad and the old iPhone (which I use as a Wifi device for photos etc in school). This way I can talk to one child, recording the discussion and leave them to upload while moving to the next child ​with the other device. This is not really any different to what you would do when skirting round the class providing feedback, only you have the problem of holding the camera still on their work while chatting!
You could just take a snapshot of a sample of work and use the audio and editing pen tool to work with the child and talk them through edits on the iPad together for 2 min, then leave them to upload that while moving on to the next child.
In an English session where I was feeding back to pupils, I attempted to get round to all the children in a 40min session. Getting to all proved to be impossible, but feel that you could get feedback to just over half the class if you were slick and used two devices, Even if you couldn't, after getting a flavour from your observations, you could create a quick checklist from those you saw to send out to the whole class, or targeted groups, as an aide memoire to recap at home ready for the next session.
You could just take a snapshot of a sample of work and use the audio and editing pen tool to work with the child and talk them through edits on the iPad together for 2 min, then leave them to upload that while moving on to the next child.
In an English session where I was feeding back to pupils, I attempted to get round to all the children in a 40min session. Getting to all proved to be impossible, but feel that you could get feedback to just over half the class if you were slick and used two devices, Even if you couldn't, after getting a flavour from your observations, you could create a quick checklist from those you saw to send out to the whole class, or targeted groups, as an aide memoire to recap at home ready for the next session.
|
|
2) Pupil Upload
During a maths session I got the children to complete some work on the whiteboard cards I'd designed for the session, using a fraction wall, and asked the pupils to find equivalent fractions to 1/2 and 1/4. They did this successfully on their board on the whole and then were given the task of recording their findings and explaining what they had done using the SeeSaw recording tool. They could also just upload their work or practical session as a photo and comment on it to show they understood a concept. (or not if that was the case, but it lead to dialogue!)
The Slideshow below shows how to upload content to the classroom as a child user via the SeeSaw App. on the iPad.
|
|
Pupils were also able to snapshot some of their work in Computing that had a Humanities cross-curricular element when working on the Anglo-Saxons and gave a running commentary on what they had done, how they had done it and WHY. This was great for determining how well they understand the reasoning behind what they are doing but also allows for assessment in that area. The audio clip also allows children to show what they know without the constraints of writing, which in the videos below, enabled a great level of explanation and discussion to be achieved that would not have happened if writing had taken it's place.
|
|
The real acid test will be when you roll out to parents and get their viewpoints from it. What will parents make of it? One thing that is clear is it's capacity to store and share digital content as well as general classwork instantly. It also has the capacity to dramatically reduce paper consumption and waste by setting digitally recorded tasks that can be accessed for evidence.
I'm hoping to spend next week popping into specialist lessons and seeing how the app could be used to record class and pupil attainment using video and audio tools. Hopefully aspects such as PE, Music, Arabic and French will really benefit from it!
As part of their Arabic session, some 4 students worked on Google translate, finding adjectives to describe their likes and dislikes in food, animals and sports. They could then write down the word, double check and insert it into their phrases/sentences.
Author
I've had a passion for ICT and its use in education over a number of years. With the exciting development of Moble Technology entering the classroom, it's a perfect opportunity to try new things out and enhance our pupils, and teachers, experiences!
Archives
April 2016
February 2016
January 2016
November 2015
Categories
Proudly powered by Weebly