Change Page Size in Google Docs and Slides

As a regular user of Google Docs and Slides for teaching I often find I need their page sizes to be A4 to make printing easier. In this video I show you how to do this and also why I think Google Slides is a more versatile program to use than Google Docs.

eTap Smartphone App for Teachers

 Are you an eTap school? eTap is a popular student management system in New Zealand schools. You must have a personal eTap teacher login to access this app.

Recently while preparing to start the new school year I thought about how often I had logged into eTap on my iPhone browser to find contact details or do the afternoon roll on the run. So I searched and found this free eTap app here; there is also an Android app here (I haven't tried it but assuming it is the same). Additionally, they have a @school Mobile app for parents to get information.

 Notices is the first screen you see after downloading and signing into the app. There are three tabs: My Pupils, Notices, Calendar.

Pro
I like this because we use them regularly and it's the first thing I'll always see.

Con
I can't add notices and that would be helpful.

 Calendar should be useful if your school uses the eTap calander, many use a Google shared calander.

Pro
I can see the whole month and less like to miss those meetings...

Con
I can't add to it.

 The My Pupil tabs brings up a list of all the student lists you have set up in your school system. I can see mine as well the rest of my teams students by room. When I click on my room a list of my students pops up with: profile photo, full name, and an arrow to access more information.

Pro
I can learn new students name by using their photos, unless none are loaded or the photo is really old.
Easy to scroll through your list.

Con
I can't add photos but I think that should be controlled by admin anway.
I can't adjust the student list by first and surname.

  

 Pupil
The pupil page has a profile photo, full name, year level, and room number as a header with three tabs: General, Contact, Medical. You can see the range of information they provide from the screenshots.

Pro
I can see the medical information on a student quickly.
All contact information is easily available and phone and email links are clickable.

Con
I can't take attendance on the app.
I can't make changes but I think that should be controlled by admin anway.

Overall I'm quite excited about this app and it's potential for me to quickly and easily access information from our eTap accounts. Now to actually see it in action ...

Hour of Code

 

The Hour of Code is an international event aimed at introducing students and teachers to coding while demystifying the concept of coding and teaching them some basics. The idea is to expose students to at least one hour of coding which many consider a new literacy and an essential skill for the future. 

I'm a strong supporter of coding as a literacy, maths and thinking tool; so I organised an 'Hour of Code' for all the classes at my school. As we have a computer suite next to the library I arranged for every class to be booked in the computer suite in their library time and had the student led puzzles shown above loaded, as most teachers had no idea about coding. The three puzzles were based on popular games and movies and guided students to code using the Scratch block format.

The interesting part was not only did more students have fun learning to code for the first time but I spotted many teachers engrossed in the coding puzzles too. Now that's what I call success; planting the seeds of coding curiosity. Below is some of the student's feedback.

Talking Minecraft in Interface Magazine

I love sharing my knowledge and experience using Minecraft for teaching. I love the game but as you know it is more than that and it's basic structure is mathematical. I have used it mostly for oral, reading and writing with kids (usually disengaged boys) to inspire creative and informational writing. This month the INTERFACE magazine ran a special feature on Minecraft and I was lucky enough to be able to contribute to the article (below) as well as share a lesson idea.

We don’t have Minecraft at my school, but I’m an avid Minecrafter and spend lots of time discussing the intricacies and wonders of Minecraft with students all over the school. This led to some of my more reluctant readers and writers bringing in and sharing their Minecraft books, like the “Handbook” series and Blockopedia. We sometimes use a few pages for guided reading; the reference books are great for information text models. After finding key information they can create Minecraft Trading Cards. I have found Minecraft players of all ages and genders are really passionate about the game, they have taught me most of what I know about Minecraft and I try to use that passion and knowledge to teach the underlying literacy skills.

There are many opportunities for narrative writing about adventures in survival mode. In the past weeks we had been learning to use our knowledge of narratives to write our own stories, and use descriptive language to help our readers imagine the graphic details. My kids take liberties with their genre choices; some wrote narratives, others mixed in informational text, and then a whole group collaborated on building a class Minecraft knowledge base which is an ongoing project: I just give advice on that one (this is a great collaborative project in which you can be the guide on the side).

With one small group of boys I did a shared writing of what it was like to be killed by a creeper, (it sounds macabre but it’s not in a block world) still the experience is intense, I know! Then we discussed the other mobs and they decided to rewrite the ending as if it had been another mob creature that killed them. As every mob acts and attacks differently their reference books were handy here too. Of course all of this writing was preceded with lots of shared oral storytelling, that’s where teachers get to learn about MInecraft. I question and challenge my students about details all the time, the others will correct any inaccuracies very quickly; these kids usually pride themselves on their knowledge. However a great site to check facts and settle disputes is the http://minecraft.gamepedia.com/Minecraft_Wiki which also includes short informational videos.

To fuel the excitement I have copies of the “Junior Interface Awards 2015” on both my classroom doors and the word is spreading; we are entering the Minecraft competition. I plan to continue to use Minecraft to engage with those kids that love it. It has so many rich reading, writing, maths, science, engineering, art and even coding opportunities. My message to teachers is: let your  students be the experts at Minecraft, use their knowledge and passion to teach the skills you want them to use.

Photo Stories

The MADE Awards provide many exciting creative learning opportunities. This year I trained a mixed group of creative and talented kids in photography storytelling, using iPads. We were going to enter the new category in the MADE Awards; The Photo Essay. The Photo Essay is storytelling with photos (between 4 and 7).  The judging criteria were:

• Demonstrate good photography techniques and composition.
• Have a visual impact on the viewer – grab attention.
• Have a relationship and a flow between the elements.
• Being combined into a collage and saved as one image file.
• Containing between 4 and 7 photographs.
• Telling a clear, compelling story, or illustrate an emotion, event, or key competency.

Each of the four lessons started with discussions about our photography tips, we looked at images in google and discussed them. After a topic brainstorm, they would spend the majority of the time creating a photo story in small groups (one ipad per group). The last 15 minutes each group shared their photos and we discussed them in relation to our photography tips. Rule of Thirds was part of every discussion: did you know you can turn on a rule of thirds grid on the iPad?

Some kids really got into coaching good emotion for the camera. Lastly, they edited their photos with the iPad camera function and used Pic Collage app to present them as a narrative.

Our photography tips:

• Rule of Thirds: the rule for taking powerful photographs.
• Light: keep it to your back - keep light levels even.
• Background: check what's in your backgrounds - does it affect your photo's message?
• Camera angle: try different angles for effect.
• Get in close: can provide impact.
• Point of interest: make the main part of the photo stand out.
• Make message clear!
• EXPERIMENT!

These are their final entries into the MADE Awards Photo Essay competition. 

Students planned their photo narratives using this graphic organiser I made up; feel free to use and modify it.

I plan to use photo storytelling next term with my whole class and develop it into writing. Have you had any good experiences using photography to teach?

Coding with Kids

I was lucky enough to be able to take a Gifted and Talented group this term, and I had been scratching to teach them coding using Scratch. I wanted to show them the basics so they could take their coding creations to new levels. However, I felt it important they end with a finished product to demonstrate the learning and give them a sense of achievement. 

I wanted the students to feel like they had created something with a purpose, but still challenging to them. The maths game seemed a way they could give back to their school friends by helping them with their Maths. The coding was also understandable to me when I tested it out. I like to understand the basic coding and why it works, the kids then extend and add their ideas as they play with code possibilities. It always comes back to critical thinking, if something is not working we say, "why?" and start looking at the logic of our code. That's deep thinking, it's reading, writing and maths; and it's just the beginning. My Maths students also started doing collaborative projects, designing games many groups decided to use Scratch as their game design, and their creativity and coding logic have truly impressed me.

Over fours days during the term the group met with me, I guided them through a series of basics then moved towards exploring a maths game model. Each week we learnt more skills to apply to the games. The students really personalised their games and tried to push the coding to get the game to do what we wanted. We learnt so much but also so many ways the code won't work!

After finishing the G&T group, I was convinced that my Maths students would benefit from learning to code. I dedicated one Maths block a week to coding. I started them on the same coding basic training as the other group, but then I gave them mini coding lessons based on the concepts (position and orientation) we have been learning. Most used my teaching and took the coding to new levels; we had some challenging conversations and I said, "I don't know" a lot, or I'd use other kids as experts which didn't take long. They have just finished their projects, and I'll create a special page on our wiki for their games. I want them to have a say in who gets their games, perhaps I should get them to try "sell" them to other teachers. 

The G&T students created maths games which were put on our school website for others to play, as well as embedding them on their own blogs as evidence. They particularly enjoyed the critical thinking and creating their own designs from code.

My Maths group created some quite diverse games with impressive coding which is the result of giving them complete control. We currently have the final games on our Maths wiki page here. All my students want to keep coding, it's challenging, a great way to problem solve collaboratively and they love it.
The previous group plus my Maths students have shown tremendous growth in critical thinking and problem solving. We have encountered some tricky code, and together we solved some 'glitches' but others we had to put on hold till next time. Learning to code is a process; you get better as you play and learn. So we will keep coding. 

And isn't it great that Scratch projects are so easy to embed?

Runner Up of NZ's Most Inspiring Teacher 2015

We work so hard all year to not only teach our wonderful students but to help them grow into kind, respectable and overall great young people. Seeing one of my students go to the effort to nominate me for Most Inspiring Teacher, and then persuade so many others to take up his cause really touches me deeply and makes me realise why I teach and how lucky I am to be at such an awesome school surrounded by such supportive students and staff.

Thank you "C" and all my other kind voters out there. As a runner-up I'll continue to do my best to inspire students to be and achieve their dreams.

The Most Inspiring Teacher Award: a blog post written by my students.

Below is his nomination.

ROTORUA Daily Post

Teacher recognised for dedication

By stephanie.worsop@dailypost.co.nz, Stephanie Arthur-Worsop

9:00 AM Saturday Sep 26, 2015