Thursday, November 4, 2010

Autumn Trees on Brushes





Here are some of the trees we painted in Brushes a week or so back. We were looking at colours and contrast, hence the backgrounds.
I think the kids did rather well.
Eat your heart out David Hockney!

iPad Update



We are back at school after a two week break which was full of some great trips.
Being back at school isn't so bad. We've hooked up with a school in Georgia, USA who are doing the same thing we are doing with the iPad. Fraser visited them last week and had a great time. I'm looking forward to sharing experiences and ideas with them.
On returning to school I've used an app which is cool. It's called 'TypeDrawing' amd basically does what it says on the tin _ enables you to paint with words.
The children in my class have been working grammar work which has a danger of becoming tedious. We've changed that by using 'TypeDrawing'.
The children came up with some great adjectives to describe themselves in a co-operative group lesson. They then chose chose the best of these and painted a picture of themselves using the adjectives that they had chosen.
It is a fun outcome which also keeps the thread of the learning which was at the core of the lesson
Thanks again iPad.

Monday, October 4, 2010

Results of Art Lesson

Here are some of the results of our recent art work:






- Posted using BlogPress from my iPad

Friday, October 1, 2010

Art Revolution

As previously discussed, in school this year we are looking at the following question:

'What was more important, the industrial revolution or the digital revolution?'

Today was scheduled to be an art lesson. We used the app 'Brushes'. The introduction to the lesson looked at the visual elements of form and composition. We discussed these and the children then began to look for images online that spoke to them of old, industrial or victorian times. They thought of pastimes, jobs etc that may produce memorable images. They then selected one image and, using Brushes, turned them into a silhouette. Then, on another layer, they inserted a contrasting picture that spoke of the modern, digital age. They learned a lot, were highly motivated for an extended period and produced some excellent results.

Thanks iPad!








Thursday, September 30, 2010

The Industrial Revolution in the Classroom

I've taught The Victorians before. An interesting topic. We looked at housing, work conditions, the reforms of Shaftesbury and friends, the pioneer explorers and philanthropists and discussed what life would have been like in the workhouse.
This time I'm teaching the topic slightly differently. Instead of a blanket title; 'The Victorians', we are trying to answer a key question:

'Which was more important, the industrial revolution or the digital revolution?'

A big question indeed for children of 10 and 11. A very relevant, big question in the light of the iPad introduction in school. So we began by looking at what we wanted to find out. I used co-operative learning techniques and mind mapped various areas we wanted to look at and then sent the class home with this task:

'Create a mood board on the industrial revolution using the iPad.'

I was so pleased with the results and reports from parents suggested that children who would often be difficult to enthuse with homework were really motivated to complete the task.

Thanks iPad!








iPad Orchestra Update

So the iPad orchestra project is underway and I get more excited about it by the day. Here's the model I am looking at.
I'm getting 10 splitter boxes made, each able to take up to 5 iPad connections. Each box will represent a 'section' in the orchestra. So we could have 10 different instruments or apps. eg
1x strings, 2x guitars, 1x bass, 3x percussion, 2x piano/keyboard/synth, 1x lead instrument
Each section can take up to 5 players so we could have up to 50 children playing at any one time.
Each box has a single line output which will feed directly to a 10 track mixer that we have at school. This will mean that we can mix the sound to get levels absolutely right. Really interested in finding quality and simple music apps. Here's what I have so far:

6 Strings - an excellent guitar and stringed instrument app.
Drums! - Beautiful sounding drums with a choice of three kits.
Percussive - Again, beautiful sample sounds of tuned percussion

If you know any more let me know!

More to follow!




Monday, September 27, 2010

Oh What A Great Idea!

I don't know how many times I've said or thought that in the past few weeks. 'We could do this!' or 'Now wouldn't that be cool!'
Today was no different.
Music is traditionally an area that is either taught very well by inspirational specialists or very badly by 'non - musical' teachers. I am musical and I love music but I do find it hard to teach core learning well, beyond just teaching songs and singing. I've been thinking of starting an iPad band in music and started looking at some apps to support this over the weekend. Man, what an opportunity, to teach the children key learning in music, keys, chords, progression and structure, without the need to have fingers that stretch round the neck of a guitar or press hard enough on a violin string or have the correct mouth shape to get a decent sound from a trumpet or clarinet.
So, cue the Cedars iPad Orchestra!
This year our Christmas play will be accompanied on the iPad. Guitars, mandolins, percussion, strings, all digital combined with keyboard and 'real' instruments.
It's an exciting project. Not just because the children can't wait to play as a band on the iPad although, as in many other areas, we are seeing the value of the tool as a motivational incentive, but because the potential is there for high quality learning.
Keep you posted...

Friday, September 24, 2010

Pages

Pages forms a major part of what, in the old lapt world, is called Apple's 'iwork' suite.
I have been using it ever since it replaced Appleworks as the Mac alternative to Microsoft Word.
Pages is in essence a tool for creating documents and already, having it in the hands of any pupil, any time is a powerful tool for transforming the way we teach.
I'll give you an example. At the bottom of this post I've included some pieces of writing by my P7 children. This was a follow up task to a lesson on adjectives and creative writing.
The lesson ran roughly as follows:

First we read together an extract from Tom's Midnight Garden, a well-known childrens book. Then we discussed in pairs, groups and as a wider group the way language made the passage successful and the use of adjectives and creative language.
The children then opened the iPad, opened Pages and planned an introduction to a story using a common theme: that an old grandfather clock became a tool for travelling back in time.
Once the plan was roughly drafted, they moved straight to writing the piece, with breaks every ten minutes or so for reflection and peer coaching.

This is substantially what I would have done in the old days of pencils and paper.

So what's the big deal?

Writing lessons traditionally involve a process: introducing, planning, writing, proofing and finally, re-drafting.
This has in the past been a long and protracted process involving a first draft, and final draft and possible some in between.
With every child on the iPad, we incorporated all these stages into our single lesson, kept the children highly motivated and produced excellent work, in a morning.

They then emailed their work to me to mark and post on the class blog when finished.

This represents but one use for an app that has many; templates, posters, personal writing, invitations and functional pieces and so on.
It has increased motivation, built typing skills, helped spelling and punctuation, enabled beautiful presentation and easy display, all in one beautiful little package!

Thanks Pages, thanks iPad!

An App A Day

I think this is how I will catch up with the revolution taking place in my classroom since the 1:1 deployment of the iPad:
I propose to loo at an app at a time and give an analysis and examples of what part it is playing in my classroom.
Today - Pages

Thursday, September 23, 2010

SLF 2010

I arrived back yesterday at about 8pm from the Scottish Learning Festival for 2010. It was an enjoyable day, mainly because it was nice to get a chance to have a days chat with Fraser Speirs, my old friend and colleague, and the inspiration behind the iPad project in Cedars School.
It was the fourth or fifth year I've visited the festival and every year throws up something different. There are always an eclectic mix of the great, good, silly, outdated and outlandish ideas to be hitting Scottish education.

The Scottish education minister, Mike Russell, gave a decent opening keynote, although he painted an overly positive picture of the changes that have come with A Curriculum for Excellence. His speech was rather notable for the absence of a mention of the current, or future, exam structure which I, as a parent, am starting to get concerned about for my own kids.

Apart from that we met the guys from Apple, which was nice. Also one or two representatives from other local authorities who seem keen to push forward the iPad project model. It must be hard in such massive numbers and difficult financial circumstances.
Aside from that, my only other lasting impression was one of extreme annoyance with a presentation by a young Scottish educational technology company who have a good idea and nicely produced resources but made a total hash of the launch of their latest offering. A lesson in what not to do!

This is Just The Beginning...

Ok so this is the beginning. The beginning of something really enormous.

The background:

I've been in education for all my life, one year at nursery, seven years at primary school, six years at secondary school, four years at university and for the past fifteen or so years (at the time of writing) as a teacher in the latter years of primary school.

It's a job I love. I love working with children, I love learning, I love theory, I love making a difference, I love working with great people, I love variety.

I expect I'll still be in education 30 years from now and I hope I'll still love it for all the same reasons.

There is, however, something major happening.

When I started nursery school in 1975 there were no home computers, no mobile telephones, no portable music players, no video cameras, no digital cameras, no internet and definitely nothing called an iPad. The day after my first birthday, April 1st 1976, Apple Computer Inc was established as a company in California. It was a time of flared trousers and 70's music that I lived through but cant remember. I look back through faded photos taken on polaroid cameras and wonder if was really that fat as a toddler!

Today I begin the day in my classroom by reading emails from the children I teach. These I file and then prepare lessons which centre around the iPads that every child in the class brings with them in their schoolbags. Language, Art, Maths, Geography, History, Problem Solving, Research Skills, Presentation Skills and more. It seems the applications to my class teaching unfold every day. It's only beginning.

My young niece has just started school at five years old. She is not screaming with excitement over her new iPad the way my older children are. For her, it's just part of going to school.

Schoolbag? Check,

Lunchbox? Check,

iPad? Check,

Pencil Case? ...


I know that I am fortunate in a way that very very few teachers are yet. I work in a school where every child has an iPad. In this blog I hope to document the experience of teaching in this new environment. I'll obviously not mention specific children but rather try and provide some kind of chronicle of the days when education becomes something new...