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https://docs.google.com/presentation/d/1yN3eJB9Wr7W6vFDEXNItvIsIlj7X_hKVq5PIYU9-FfA/edit?usp=sharing
I’m still getting to grips with slides I must say and so I really only did a more traditional PowerPoint rather than a digital interactive story. I hope to spend more time working on this as the summer progresses.
For me, the tool I have found most useful has been classroom. It is the one I feel most comfortable with and look forward to using. Forms is also very user friendly and is a very nice tool to incorporate into your assessment. But to me classroom has been the best. I hope to be able to incorporate it into my work this year if my principal is agreeable as it is certainly far better than Seesaw and other platforms. Having the ability to set and correct work with far more collaboration with the children and the added bonus of genuine parental involvement has really impressed me. The added bonus of having drive as well will improve the experience of online learning for me and the children.
As Colin mentioned above, the use of google docs is great for collaboration and digital learning. It’s so simple but not something I would have considered using. It is very difficult, it not impossible, to assign genuine group work for homework, or it can often be frustrating when kids are really enjoying a group project or activity for this to be limited to school and the loss of that sense of urgency and purpose and enjoyment of learning. Being able to facilitate genuine online groupwork is very exciting. I’m ashamed to say I hadn’t considered Google Docs for this!!
The most important lesson for me in this course has been the use of the simple in facilitating digital and online learning. There is nothing revelatory about any of the tools but with a clear goal in mind, the simplest of apps or tools can help you achieve it. I suppose I have been too quick to say x can’t be done or y is too difficult to do. But this course has shown that even with minimal resources, there are many tools available to us.
https://docs.google.com/forms/d/1anYOOkTzlSOM9xaga8B3AnSs-KJZdjWFjnbzqN7NfMs/prefill
I did a short quiz on 1916 to get a feel for using forms. I really liked the mix of open ended versus closed questions and I tried to incorporate both into my quiz. While this quiz is still very basic and wouldn’t challenge many students, I did appreciate the need to try to cover the need to assess the learning through some right or wrong questions as well as the need to allow the children to express their own ideas on the topic. I don’t feel I achieved that with this quiz necessarily but I now feel that with a bit more exposure to forms and continuing experimentation with it, I will be able to use it as an effective assessment tool. From reading the paper, it’s clear there is a need to move away from solely using traditional forms of assessment and the benefit to learners is considerable. I’m still of the opinion there is a place for it, but there is a need to broaden our understanding and that is clear to me in my own practice. I think I need to really get to grips with my own approach to assessment in the coming year to better understand the arguments of the paper.
The skill I chose was solving complex, multidisciplinary, open ended problems. I chose this one as I feel it is one of the skills that can be harnessed both in the digital space as well as in the child’s physical environment. This made it the most interesting one for me. What is so interesting about many of the Workspace and the resources available, is that it facilitates problem solving and working in a multidisciplinary way. For instance, I would be interested in setting the children a task and allowing them to chose the method of completing it, e.g. by video, traditional writing, art, design etc. By using the rubric feature, the children would know what qualifies as successfully achieving the learning outcome but it would be their choice as to how to do this. This would also be achieved by keeping the task open ended as the skill suggests. As a fairly traditional teacher, I suppose I might have been hung up on closed questions and this paper has allowed me to question that. I certainly feel that creating more open ended forms of questioning and assessment, will allow the children to develop this important skill.
I was totally new to classroom and have to say, I was very surprised at how easy it was to set up. I really liked the rubrik setting which would be very useful. In terms of SSE, for me the use that would be gained from it would be the assessment of and for learning that it facilitates. Regardless of the curricular area you were using as your focus of SSE, it would easily allow for genuine assessment of the strength of your intervention.
It is certainly a more useful tool than Seesaw or other digital learning platforms. While Seesaw is good for posting work and correcting, it doesn’t really facilitate genuine digital learning. In contrast, classroom is much more engaging and allows for the children to work like they would in class through collaboration and teacher prompting and questioning. Like others, I’m wary of the children’s ability to comment but I feel this isn’t a reason not to go with it. I’m looking forward tio giving it a go anyway!
I really liked this resource as a way to take away the monotony that can result from the writing process. Even though, its the best approach to writing, sometimes it can get a tad repetitive. This resource is simple and user friendly and includes engaging little videos as well to aid the children. It also, takes the children through the process sequentially, thus allowing them to work at their own pace.
For me the best use of this resource would be for differentiation. It would allow children who are reluctant writers a way for them to write at their own pace. It would allow them to return to their work as an early finisher and thus remove the fear of the ’empty page’ which can be daunting for children. I fully intend to incorporate this into a creative writing lesson in the coming year and to really apply this to differentiation. It could also be done in connection with the support teacher and depending on the child’s context, at home as well. For me, it would be a great resource to building writing confidence and allow for individual expression, while also ensuring a high level of instruction too.