All posts by A. Perthkinross

Microsoft Forms

If you’re looking for a way to set quizzes, polls and formal assessments to capture learning then Microsoft Forms is a fantastic new addition to the Office365 tools you have available through GLOW. The great thing is you can set it up so that it marks them for you and provides feedback to the pupils about their answers.

Pupils can pick Continue reading Microsoft Forms

Animation 17 Competition

This massively successful competitions is for all ages and is a fantastic way to engage young people in writing, reading, performing and animating. Last years entries were from all age groups and there are loads of different categories. Check out some Continue reading Animation 17 Competition

Social skills with Autistic pupils using Book Creator

Jon Smith

Jon Smith is a teacher in the USA who found that a disengaged group of 4th grade pupils (9-10 yrs) responded so positively in their experiences of learning social skills by writing their own book. Book Creator helps them combine text, audio and video that you can publish for others to download.

Read about Jon’s experience

 

Simple Computer Aided Design with Tinkercad

formula-1-tinkercadGetting into the maker-makey world  in Primary can be tricky – so many of the apps that are used are the full sized professional apps. There are a few other apps that are pretty robust – google sketch for example – but this online CAD software from Autodesk Continue reading Simple Computer Aided Design with Tinkercad

iMovie with Health & Wellbeing

The S3 Computing Science pupils developed their creativity and digital skills by planning and making movies around the theme of Resilience. Each of the three classes split into different teams and their productions followed the 54321 rule – 5 people, 4 scenes, 3 minutes, 2 props and 1 theme.

An Oscars ceremony was held (an awards handed out!) Continue reading iMovie with Health & Wellbeing

Travel and Tourism book

book creator
Book Creator

S2 Home Economics pupils in Perth Grammar used their iPads and Book Creator to create an information booklet about culture and foods across the world

Each group Continue reading Travel and Tourism book

Teacher Stories – Tell us yours

As this site develops we will be curating teacher stories about how they have integrated digital learning into their classroom, that will perhaps give you some new ideas  with teachers reporting on the challenges and the successes they faced.

minecraftSharing our experiences and talking about teaching is some of the best professional development you can do for yourself and for others. You’ll gain confidence that there are teachers out there just like you, with a wee idea they tried or an app or site they found useful.

If you have a story to tell about a lesson you taught using digital learning or how digital helps you as a teacher then please contact me below.

 

Houses and Homes with Errol Primary

“I found the iPads to be particularly motivating for those children who were less keen to write and participate in group activities. Therefore, these children in particular were able to feel successful in their learning and had produced evidence of their learning through visual means. “

book creatorMiss Annand from Errol Primary used the Book Creator app with her P2/3 class on their Houses and Homes topic. Book creator lets them create a book with picture, voice recording, video and pictures. Continue reading Houses and Homes with Errol Primary

GLOW – Time to look again

GLOW. I wish they’d have changed the name. Mention GLOW to some people and the response is usually in the form of a low groan. That’s ok, I felt pretty much like that myself.

GLOW however has absolutely transformed what it once was. It is now a suite of tools and supports that can really bring digital learning to life and make yours easier,  with opportunities for our young people to engage in their learning with you and each other in ways which reflect the future way sof working and learning.

I hope you’ll take a few seconds  to look at the video below to give you a taster of the Office365 solution offered in GLOW and, if you’re interested, have a look at the other GLOW resources on this site and see how you can begin to make use of the tools in ways which are meaningful and useful for you.

iPad – Your starter apps

If you’ve recently been handed a council iPad to use in teaching and learning then you’ll notice some apps come pre-installed.

Here you’ll find video tutorial basics with links to further online training when they’re ready 🙂

Book Creator

Probably the best of the bunch in that it can pull together all your pictures and videos in one place, you can draw, write, records your voice telling the story (check out this example )

It is SO simple to use and we’ve seen it used across the spectrum from early years to senior phase. For example pupils creating a visual diary of their school trip, a pupil portfolio solution for teachers and pupils, creating a recipe book for Global Citizenship learning. It comes with your iPad AND they’ve just added the ability to create comics!

Guide to Book Creator

Puppet Pals HD

Puppet pals is such a great app for creativity and telling stories. Essentially it lets you create puppet shows where you can select characters and backdrops and records different scenes to tell your story. Even better you can take pictures of people or take photos of characters in  books and cut them out to use as your puppets – kids love seeing themselves as puppets and they tell the best stories when they are in charge. I’ve seen it used in multiple ways – from pupils telling the story of a historical character or children retelling the story of an incident of bullying and how they want it to be fixed. It’s only our own imagination which limit the possibilities of this app.

Pic-Collage

This is an easy to use app for making image collages for sharing your experiences and learning, mood boards, artwork and photography, evidence of progress, comics…dozens of applications in your classroom.

Explain Everything

An incredibly powerful too – it’s both an interactive whiteboard and a screen casting tool (where it records all the things you do and say on the board and saves as a video for pupils to watch again and again)

-Tutorials soon