Digital Learning Week 2017 15-19 May

The National Digital Learning Week runs from 15-19 May with the theme of #DigitalDifference.  Across Perth and Kinross Council(PKC)  and nationally throughout the week,  you’ll see people sharing and celebrating the digital approaches which make a positive impact on classroom practice.

PKC will be sharing case studies on the small and sometime big steps individual teachers and schools make on their journey with digital learning and teaching tools.

If you are a teacher or school  in PKC and would like to share what you have been doing then you can use your website or twitter or your other social media channels to share that with the world. If you add the hashtag #DigitalDifference and tag @PKCEducation into your posts we’ll be able to capture the wide range of activity going on across Perth and Kinross.

You can also contact your Digital Learning and Teaching Officer, Michael Conlon, who could come and film some of your work for sharing: mconlon@pkc.gov.uk

Mission to Mars – a unique iPad event

Spaces are available for this special event run by XMA, our iPad procurement partner, and iTeach, who deliver iPad training across Scotland.

This unique event will introduce you to using iPad creatively across subjects and acquaint you with drones,  sensors, 3D printers, coding and more.

The Mission to Mars runs in Edinburgh on 31st March 2017  at Dynamic Earth.

To find out more you can sign up below and select the Edinburgh event.

Mission to Mars Registration

Doodle Poll for easy scheduling

If you want a quick way of finding out when everyone can make a meeting there is a really easy, and free, solution we have been using. Its called Doodle poll http://doodle.com

Doodle Poll lets you choose which dates and times you can possibly hold the meeting and then send a link to that poll for others to select from the options you give them. Doodle poll visually tells you which one is the most popular. It couldn’t be any easier. Watch the video below to see how easy it is.

 

 

 

Digital Parenting Magazine

Vodafone have been producing this excellent resource for parents and teachers. Full of invaluable advice and resources, this magazine answers the questions about how to navigate an ever changing digital landscape for both you and your child. For teachers, it gives an insight into the wide range of issues that exist around Digital Literacy and Citizenship.

Issue 5 contains advice on things like screen time, digital resilience, the laws around sexting

Issue 4

Issue 3

Issue 2

Issue 1

Seesaw – a parental engagement rocket!

screen-shot-2017-01-23-at-20-03-59 Seesaw is a new way for schools to engage with parents across Perth & Kinross. Seesaw empowers pupils to independently document their learning and provides an authentic audience for their work, pushing beyond the walls of the classroom. Seesaw gives parents and carers an immediate and personalised window into their child’s school day, helping to answer: “What did you do at school today?”

screen-shot-2017-01-23-at-20-08-09

Students can “show what they know” using photos, videos, drawings, text, PDFs, and links. Seesaw helps capture the learning process and not just the end result. Students can use Seesaw’s built-in audio recording and drawing tools to reflect on what they’ve learned or explain how they got their answer.

You can collect pupil work from almost any device – Seesaw exists as an app on tablets phones as well as the desktop. So as the day progresses both you and your pupils can capture the learning as it happens.

Parents can receive notifications on their devices just as they do with twitter and facebook and helps them engage in real time with the school and the classroom.seesaw-parent-apps-email-sms-android-iphone-ipad

To get you started lets have a look at what Seesaw is trying to do.

The whole process is really simple:

1: Teachers create a class. Each student gets their own journal stored in the cloud.

2: Students & teachers add artifacts of learning, like photos, videos, or drawings. Students add voice, text or drawing annotations to an item.

3: Teachers approve new journal items. Approved items are then shared with parents via app, text message or email notifications. Comments made by parents are approved by the teacher before parens see them

4: Over time, Seesaw builds an organised, digital portfolio of each student’s learning, accessible via iOS app or on the web.

The free version contains everything you’d want to be able to engage both pupils and parents. It’s both great and absolutey astounding that the Seesaw team do this. There is other fabulous functionality in the  full version like pupils portfolios following them around the school, the ability to match to assessment standards which you may feel is right for your school.

Schools will receive some information about important protocols for sharing Seesaw with parents and using it within the classroom. You’re under no obligation to use Seesaw of course but we think this will actually reduce workload – let pupils take charge of their journals! Check out these resources to get you started:

Teacher Overview – this guide lets you know what you are getting into and we think you’ll be excited about what it can do for your learners,  capturing evidence quickly and in real time – you can remove the drudge of sifting through and creating best work folios. With a digital portfolio it is much easier to see pupil progress over time.

Seesaw Help Centre – there are loads of tutorials and how-to guides and videos here from “How to invite parents” to “100 ways students use Seesaw”

Parental information

 

 

1plus2 Nativity Story

Pupils at Fossoway Primary tackled a whole new collection of skills and abilities by challenging themselves to use the iPad to tell the story of the Nativity in French. Pupils decided to create their own digital puppet show using the Puppet Pals HD app that comes on the devices.

This was a really creative way of providing a stimulus to speak French and develop good ICT and collaboration skills. Pupils decided to create their own puppets by photographing their creations and cutting them out using the app so that they can be moved around and placed within the scene. All of this took Continue reading 1plus2 Nativity Story

Create Editable PDF files

pdfescapeOften we get hold of a pdf that you would just like to fill in, rather than print out, fill in and then scan and email. Too much of a faff to be honest.

PDFEscape is a site that allows you to upload a pdf and draw form fields in the places you would like to write in. Simply then save the file and you will have created an editable PDF that other can fill in, save and return to you.

We’ve used it a lot with exam/test papers to support pupils at home and to cut down on printing. One positive/negative aspect, depending on how you feel about it, is there is less time trying to decipher other people’s handwriting!]

Here’s a quick “How To”

2017 National Digital Learning Week 15-19 May

dlc_logo_whiteGLOW have announced that this years National Digital Learning Week will take place on 15-19 May and it is a real opportunity to share the excellent work going on across Perth and Kinross,

This year the theme will be “Digital Difference” and we’ll be able to celebrate the kind of work we do with children where digital technologies have made all the difference to their learning be it in terms of engagement, progress, understanding and pupils being able to demonstrate their leaning in ways relevant and meaningful to them.

Email me here  to talk about how we could best share your work.

Or join the PKC Digital Learning Yammer Group

More details of the day will be updated here and on the National SIte.

https://digilearn.scot/digital-learning-week/

Science iPad Apps

There are so many great general apps that can be used in lots of different contexts – think of camera apps that can do time-lapse photography for example to show chemical changes over time – but we’re often asked about subject specific apps and so thanks to the legendary Greg Hughes, Apple Distinguished Educator,   here is a collection of apps that are used regularly with pupils. There is also a handy ideas for implementing iPad in Science. Thanks Greg.

2000px-pdf_by_mimooh_svg Useful apps in Sciences

2000px-pdf_by_mimooh_svg Sciences iPad ideas

 

Get stuff off my iPAd onto GLOW

iPad’s can fill up quickly with videos, animations and images and even though you’re good at housekeeping there may be stuff on there that you want to keep but you need the space for new stuff. Infuriating. Your options are a) Buy another iPad or B) upload the data to GLOW cloud storage. One is most certainly cheaper than the other.

How do you do this? Well, just follow our example below for Continue reading Get stuff off my iPAd onto GLOW

Supporting learning and teaching using digital solutions

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