Gretchen's learning

'What are children able to achieve when we allow them to be creative?'  is what Amie Williams (toolkit host) prompted us to think about.  What happens when we take the lid off the box... Amie's slides  include many creative resources and ideas including: podcasts - students could collaborate to produce these about many things,  so much learning in the process of creating them - then the podcasts become a resource for future learning. Scratch/Scratch Jnr - this is something for all ages. Great for storytelling and creating games. Can push the creativity by using other tools to create backgrounds e.g. google draw, photos of local places. A couple of student examples here  and here . Here is a fabulous way for kids to be create and interactive image in google draw to share information - and teach kids  slides is not the only way!!  A good thing here is it can be successful with only a little writing - it's more multimodal which will appeal to many of our...

Maria introduced us to OK Go Sandbox  - 'Inspiring Tools for Playful Learning' created by a group of 'joyful and nerdy' creative people. It's definitely worth having a look around this site. They share music videos and share more info about them, how they were created etc.  (BTW Michelle check out this video for some spread sheet inspiration ;) The videos on the site are supported by lessons and some follow up work. Maria discussed the importance of carefully considering relevance/appropriateness of this follow up work to your learners - it's from an American viewpoint and some of the follow up work is not so cool -  we need to think how we could use these videos as a springboard to enhance learning for our own. As well as the website, you can check out their video playlist  for more videos that might inspire learning, creating and sharing. We had the opportunity to look at some of the videos and share how we could use this to engage learners. For example this v...

 Yesterday's toolkit was with Dave Winter.  It was covering best practice re administration of chromebook insurance.  Many of the attendees were in admin roles within their school.  At our school this has been my responsibility - strengthening relationships with families has been a focus for us and we saw this as another opportunity to connect. The administration of chromebooks is a big job for our team and we are still refining and reviewing our processes. Some key takeaways: use the form Dave shared (in slides below) to record any issues with claims process - remember to update if resolved. Be sure to include photos of damage with Assurance claims Kawa of Care teaching - ensure Kawa of Care is being taught and followed in all our classes. For example the keys missing from chromebooks - this indicates chromebooks not being looked after. Say the keyboard was missing some keys due to being picked off, then other keys start not working - unrelated and would usually be ...

 Maths -  This video (Marie Hirst, NZ ) highlights importance of our maths teaching having engaging activities to build number sense - with an emphasises low entry and high ceiling activities. Many practical, useful and fun ideas for teaching maths.  It was interesting to see how she adapted games to add interest, extend learning, extend talk etc. Games Consider :  Do game engages all at the same time?  Does it depend on speed or luck?  Goldilocks principal (not too easy, not too hard).  Are games easy to learn, prepare?  A good tip is to make little videos made that show children how to play games. Tip - in games, set up so it's pairs against pairs - means more discussion. Link to session handout (image above) - some really great resources linked in this PDF that could be used in class as well as during home learning. Number sense routines: important for fluency, maths language and reasoning.  Number talks great (but not covered in this se...