A New Bridge to Cross...

A new year and a new set of challenges.  In the past few years I have been spoilt by sharing an office with a person who can reflect, discuss, inspire and challenge myself with on a daily basis.  I've had the chance to work alongside them as a team member and in the classroom.  I feel that in the last few years some strong pedagogical ideas and changes have happened in my teaching and in the way I learn.  Many of these shifts have taken place by having a person who wants to challenge, change and examine the way the classroom looks on a daily basis.

Before this, my place of reflection - this blog was the place I came to, to reflect and think about my practice and ideas. To share my learning and pass on the process.  It's amazing how a place of reflection - whether it be a person or a place - makes a difference to your pedagogy.

So my blog has sat at the side of the bridge - waiting for me, while I made new discoveries and changes in thought.  The time has come to make my way back on to the bridge - a place that has helped me gain friends and colleagues from around NZ.  The bridge that always takes me on the same familiar journey but also leads me to places of new surprises and sights.

I have loads to share and think about from the range of professional readings, tweets and conferences I have had the pleasure of attending.  Over the last short while I have had attended educamps around NZ, uLearn in Auckland and the International Thinking Conference in Wellington.  I have been able to take many things away from these conferences and also find a way to connect small ideas together that will make big changes in my understandings and teaching.

This year I also am taking on new challenges in my professional life - leading a team of talented teachers.  Taking on leadership and working towards creating a shared environment where we, as a team, can work together to be a support network for each other is my aim.  To become a strong professional learning house, sharing our pedagogy, triumphs and challenges.  I have a lot to learn and am looking forward to the year ahead.

In my classroom I am continuing to develop my passion and interest for negotiated learning in the classroom.  Students developing their self managing skills and autonomy in the classroom.  Last year saw some strong developments for myself in the way that this could be structured in the class.  Many of these changes came from reflections with the students about how they want their learning to look.  This year it will change and develop further with the different learners and needs I have within my classroom.  My passion for the integration of eLearning and mobile devices will continue with a strong basis in supporting the learning and learners in the classroom.  Examining the way student voice can be shared to understand that my students can have an audience as big as the world.

So... welcome to the place where I begin my journey back across the bridge - to the familiar place with familiar places but also lots of new sights and people.  I hope you will take part and have conversations with me in different places.  Challenge my thinking/ideas and share your own!

Photo used under CC: Heymilly

Retelling a Fairy Tale

This afternoon our school (Summerland) ran some iPad workshops at The Learning Network in West Auckland.  There was a fantastic group that was a full house of 80 people, all ready to share and listen to what we have been doing this year.  Our principal, Luke Sumich, started the session off with some really thoughtful words... what are you doing with these iPads and why? Where are you going with making sure that learning and your learners are at the heart of what you are doing?  From there we broke off into 4 sessions.  We offered an Art session using Art Rage and Live sketch, Storytelling, Apps for Numeracy, Tools for Teachers and a retelling workshop, which I ran.

Retelling using Draw Free and Puppet Pals

This session was based around the reading strategy called 'Retelling'.  This is one of the CAFE strategies that we have worked on in our class.  The students spent time reading a fairy tale then using the 'Retell Rope' and chart to retell their story to their partner.  A 'Retell Rope' is a rope that has 8 knots down it - one for each area that they need to include in their retell.  It provides a kinesthetic hook for them to hang their retelling information on.

From here we moved into using the iPads to retell their fairy tale.  Over 2 sessions the students were in groups of 2-4 students, they decided on the fairy tale they wanted to retell.  From there the students decided the characters or items they needed to draw and they created these in Draw Free.  The important thing here is that each character is saved to the photo album, so that Puppet Pals is able to access the image.  Once the students completed their character drawings they would head into Puppet Pals and get ready to record.  It's rather easy to import the characters into Puppet Pals through the 'Add Actors' button on the Actors page.  The important thing to note here is that if you have the free version it will allow you to import it but then you won't be able to use it!  So if you want to be able to import your own photos or pictures you need to make sure you have the directors pass.  But it's definitely worth the $4.19 you will pay for the app!

The students select their actors and background and it brings you to the 'stage'.  Here you will have a white rectangle in the middle with your characters and background.  Everything that is inside the white rectangle is what will be recorded, so it's important to remember that if you have an actor outside the white box they won't be in your final video!  Once you are ready to go you can press the red circle to record - on the newer version it lets you pause your recording which is handy.  But the kids basically have 1 take to complete the recording - tough but handy from a teaching perspective as the kids tend to not keeping going back and touching up little things; it sets the bar high!

While recording the students can move their characters around inside the white box and speak.  The movement and audio will all be recorded!

Once the kids have recorded you can then save and export them.  Once you have tapped 'export' in Puppet Pals it will export it into your Photo Album.  If you don't do this, you will only be able to watch your movie inside the Puppet Pals app.  When it let's you know that it's exported you can easily plug it into your computer and download it to your computer through iPhoto.  Check out my students very first Puppet Pal retellings on our class blog here!

There are many different ways that you could use Puppet Pals.  

Some of the ways you could use it are:

• Students that didn't want to speak in front of the class - take a photo, add the student into Puppet Pals and get them to talk
• Sharing their learning - what did I learn, numeracy strategies, reading strategies etc
• End of topic to explain their learning and knowledge from the topic
• Photos from trips as backgrounds and students can recount events that happened on the trip

There are so many ways you could use it!

The following link (click here or on the photo) will take you to a how to sheet that you are welcome to download and use in your classroom to help you get on your way.  Link back to any work you complete or ideas you have and leave a comment to let us know how you get on! 

https://docs.google.com/open?id=0B_I4f6vGYHk5ODdhNzc5NTktNjA2NC00MjZjLTlhYTUtYWZmNTEwYjgyYjg1