Bonza Vocabulary

A few weeks ago, I came across an app. Bonza is its name. Cheers Alex for the Tweet about it. So, it's a word game. The parts of the puzzle need to be put back together to form a crossword. Before the puzzle comes up, there is a hint as to what the puzzle's topic may be.

Gave the game a go. Enjoyed it. Thought about uses in school. After investigating the app a little, found it is rated 12+ due to some of the vocabulary and subject content within the app. However, here are some ideas for using Bonza and/or Bonza-style puzzles in class...


1. Create a puzzle and then project to a screen from your own device. Complete the puzzle together. We've blogged about this approach in the past.

2. Create a puzzle and print it out to be cut and stuck, or the answers written out.

3. Create a puzzle and the. Recreate it in Word, PowerPoint or similar.


What could the puzzles be about? A spelling rule, verb tenses, topic-based vocabulary, revision and, well anything that involves words really.

Another tool to add a bit of variety to a classroom and learning. Age rating of the app just a tad irritating. NB, puzzles can only be completed in the app and not through a browser either...

Here's one I made to go with our Year Five's rivers topic (also pictured above).

Augmented Reality with Motion Stills

This week, I've found the Motion Stills app by Google.

It does three things:

- AR Mode

- Motion Still

- Fast-Forward

The 'Motion Still' takes a 4 second (I think) video/gif that will play and keep repeating. A rather contemporary way of recording video that the pupils should relate to. There are numerous ways this short video could be used in class...

The 'Fast-Forward' does exactly what it says. Easy way to record something and then have it sped up without having to involve editing software. 

The 'AR Mode' is the new addition to the app and the one I see being most useful. Augmented reality has been around for a little while now. I'm amazed by it, but Skype amazes me too! The thing about augmented reality that's brilliant is that whenever I've used it in class, it has enthused the children. They know what they are seeing is not real and I know it too. But it's like its real and we can all enter that imaginary world through the augmented reality and pretend we're there. The AR Mode includes: a dog, spaceship, heart, basketball, spider, dinosaur, chicken, alien, gingerbread man, globe and a robot.

I've been having a play. While me mam was eating her dinner and 'finding' bugs on the kitchen floor.

I can see this being a really useful writing prompt too, or for creating a story sequence, or any other ideas you may have...  

The gif or video can easily be exported to many apps for #AppSmashing or as a finished product. 

Flags & Emojis

So, last month I saw the below Facebook post from a friend.

It got me thinking; do the children know the answers?

So, here's what we did:

- I gave them tablets (iPad);

- Got them to open a document and, from the Emoji keyboard, insert a flag that contained a Union Flag.

- Next, find out where the flag is the flag of, why it contains a Union Flag and some of the history of the country*. They used the internet, books and each other for help.

-> Of course, this could be used for any flag in the Emoji keyboard, "Whose is it?" "Why that 'pattern'?" "Why those colours?" and so on... 

Here's some of that they produced:

*Not all of them are countries!

Visualiser and Mistake Annotations

Today, I had some of yesterday's maths work that I wanted to show the class. So, I decided to use the iPad stand, an iPad device with the camera app on and AirServer. This allowed me to show the child's work on the classroom projection, where all the children could see it. In addition, I laid a piece of OHT paper over the work so I could annotate it as I spoke about the work. As you know, we love OHT here at PI Towers! Go to your school office; they'll have loads of the stuff in a dusty corner and will be happy for you to take it away! Child's work, visualiser, projector and transparent paper. Was very effective. 

Here's what the children could see.

Emoji Autobiographies

Getting to know your class at the start of the year can take many forms. Both of us are now part of job shares where we only teach for part of the week. Here's something that one of our classes did with one of our inventive colleagues...

Half the battle of getting children to write is engaging them. As we've written about before, the emoji keyboard can create engagement in writing. This task was for the children to write about themselves and insert emojis for some of the nouns in their sentences.

Emojis & Homophones

"Why do they keep using the wrong 'their', why?" That was me on Thursday evening. Marking some writing and in the 50/50 choice between 'their' and 'there' (if a child was simply guessing), it had been used incorrectly far too many times. Result? Need to do something about it...

While planning this week, I happened to have a spare English lesson to do something with and had booked the iPad devices 'to do something English based'. Somehow, the idea of using emojis to practise, teach and show understanding of homophones came to me. In the past, my use of emojis in English lessons have been based upon Lee Parkinson's ideas, so some credit must be given to him and his books. 

On an iPad device, in Pages, I set up a document with some emojis as prompts for sentences. I then uploaded this to my class GAfE Google Drive for the children to download onto their iPad devices and use to complete the task. 

The children needed to write sentences using my prompts, before they were the allowed to generate some prompts of their own. Some of their work can be seen here. 

The emoji keyboard can easily be turned on for iOS, it's also available on OSX. I believe it would also work on a Chromebook and other tablets. I'm unsure of its availability on Windows. 

This lesson engaged and enthused the class to work on and think about their homophone choices. It did not make them homophone experts - there's still some work to do with that...
 

👍

Pic Collage Assessments

It's about a year ago that we posted the following Tweet:

Based on an idea via @ICT_MrP - Using Pic Collage app for peer assessment: pic.twitter.com/y5mbz9BniD

— PrimaryIdeas (@PrimaryIdeas) November 26, 2014

We've continued to use this and recently realised we'd not added a blog post about the idea. So, here is is. 

The idea came from reading a Tweet from Lee. Here's what we've done: Children complete their work, or at a point in their work, or at the end, and they take a photograph of it. Then, they pass the tablet containing the photo of their work to a peer, who can offer feedback directly onto the photo in Pic Collage. This could also be done as a self assessment or by an adult. 

The key element of this is that the annotations can be placed directly onto the photograph of the work. In our classrooms, this has proven to be an engaging task for the peer undertaking the assessment and a useful form of feedback for the pupil receiving it back.

Tablets, apps, fonts and colours all add to the engagement and many pupils write more and more useful feedback as a result. Some like to call it 'Camouflaged Learning'.

Tips For Tablet (iPad) Use

Ten tips for using tablets in the classroom... 

1. Desensitise - The term came from Sway. However, it's something that I've always done with each class as we use the devices for the first time. The touch screen on any device takes some getting used to. How hard should a tap be? which directions can be swiped in? what multi-finger gestures can be used? This will possibly become less important as touch screen technology becomes the norm.

2. Prediction - When typing, the predictive element can cause typos or (depending on spelling ability) incorrect substitution of words. Schools need to decide what predictive text is turned on or off and ensure the children are able to utilise it properly. I'm still to get to gripes [sic ;-)] with it!

3. Copy & Paste etc. - Ensure children know how to select a work, or a section of text and then cut or copy it before pasting it somewhere else. Indeed, the same with images. This is essential if any App Smashing is to take place.

4. Orientation - filming / photography - If footage or images are going to be edited together as part of a film, as a minimum, ensure they're all captured in the same orientation. Ideally, do them all landscape. It works much better in modern widescreen outputs.

5. Microphone - Do the children know where the microphone is? For example, on the iPad Mini it's at the top, not the bottom like a phone (most phones). Sound is much better when directed towards the microphone. Particularly in a classroom, with say 29 other children doing similar...

6. Sharing between apps - App Smashing! Sometimes copy and paste works just fine, but sometimes saving to 'Camera Roll' or 'Gallery' may be required to then input the object into another app. Theach this once and it'll then be useful over and over again!

7. App missing? How to put it back - "Sir, I don't have the app!" Often this can easily be resolved (dependant on management system in place) if children know how to. Not installing apps, not buying them, just putting one back that's for some reason gone missing.

8. Search - At the time of writing, only know of this on iOS (happy to update if told different). Instead of scrolling through looking for an app, swipe down in the middle of the screen and type in the app's name - it'll then appear. If I set up an iOS device for my use in the future, I'll not set up any folders, for me all I need is the search.

9. Turing off apps - Saving the battery. Tablets that charge over night? Used five hours a day by children? Let's make sure they make it. Double tap home button (iOS) or hold home button (Android) to see which apps are running. On iOS, swipe each to turn off, but (wait for it) on Android, press the 'close all button' :-). This will save battery power.

10. It is not a rock - They break. Two hands! Don't throw! It's not yours. You get the idea.

One App - Whole Class

A couple of weeks ago, I wanted to do an activity with my class at the end of an English lesson about word classes. I knew I had Shake-A-Phrase installed on my iPad device, but, at the time, it wasn't installed on the school's iPad devices. I decided to give something a go...

I opened the app up on my device and used AirServer to allow the whole class to see what was on the iPad's screen. I then started the Quiz element of Shake-A-Phrase and when each sentence came up the class called out what they thought the answer was and I clicked what they suggested. As a class, we discussed, enjoyed and learned. 

I've since given this a go with other apps too and in different ways:

Math Duel: Split the class in half. Each team had a person sat at the iPad device and the team called out answers for the person at the iPad to enter.

SpellFix and Word-Juice by Alan Peat Ltd.: Projected the puzzle for all to see and passed around the device with suggestions coming from the class.

At the time of writing, I tried to get Sentopiary to work, but it will not project through AirServer. UPDATE: 03/06/15 For Sentopiary to work through AirServer, the iPad needs to be projected using AirServer and then the Sentopiary app opened. Opening the app and then projecting with AirServer will not work.

Quento: While the class were using the same app, we projected one for the class to do together. 

Also, display two screens side by side - competition...

Even tough we have class sets of iPad devices, this gives a different slant on the activities. If you try it, let us know. We'd love to know any other apps that work well.

Writing on iPad (Tablet) Devices*

*or any internet enabled device

This is the second post of two. In the first, we wrote about writing using a tablet as a prompt for writing and now follow it up with a post about writing on a tablet.

1.

We've written many times about using Padlet.com as a tool for sharing writing. Those posts can all be found here. Padlet offers many levels of privacy for the walls created and can be easily accessed from a tablet with a camera using a QR Code. 

2.

TitanPad is an online collaborative writing tool that does not require a login. Again, easiest way to access would be through a QR Code. Collaboration could be within a class, across classes in a school or even between schools. We have used it to collaboratively write a text (instructions, story, recount), list features of a text type, improve a piece of writing, to practise sentence structures and more...

3.

Most recently, and based upon an idea from L Parkinson, we have used the tablet devices for peer assessment of written work. After writing, children take a photograph of their work and then, using Pic Collage (or similar), the children write comments about the work directly on to it and next to the part of the text that is being commented upon. 

4.

The iPad most recently comes pre-loaded with the Pages app, which is a powerful word processing application for writing on a tablet.

Writing with iPad (Tablet) Devices

In the past, we've posted many times about app suggestions. We thought it was about time we wrote about how we use some of them. In this first post of two, we'll write about writing using a tablet as a prompt for writing and will follow it up with a post about writing on a tablet.

We use iPad devices and therefore write about our experiences with those. However, where possible we also do our best to refer to other tablet alternatives. 

Epic Citadel

At a TeachMeet, back in 2011, we were introduced to Epic Citadel. In the app, the user can navigate their way around a fictional Citadel. We have used this while writing stories about Robin Hood and King Arthur. In addition, we have also used it as a 'one off' creative writing task in the first or third person. It's currently available for both iOS and Android. Oh, and it's free!

ColAR Mix

We downloaded ColAR Mix about 18 months ago. We downloaded it because of various messages we saw about it on Twitter. The first time we used the app, we put the colouring sheets on tables and simply asked the children to colour them in on entry to the classroom. Once the sheets were mostly coloured, children were instructed to open the tablets and scan the picture. It's one of the most amazing classroom experiences we've had! The children are amazed! The children were then instructed to, "Write about what's happening on screen". Some descriptive writing followed as the children were engaged.

Next, we made used of the ColAR Christmas and New Year resources. No writing this time, just a it of end of term colouring and enjoyment (that's allowed - isn't it?) Recently ColAR app released some more free images. We used the football playing sheep, and again after colouring, the children wrote recounts, diary entries, stories and more about the sheep. Most recently, we used the Pudsey picture and wrote a recount of 'Pudsey's CiN Disco 2014' (after colouring the picture of course). Colouring in the classroom? Yes! You get some great writing afterwards... Again, free and on both Android and iOS.

 

My Dragon Toy

Very similar to ColAR Mix as it uses similar technology. Give the child a target image, a tablet device, get them to scan, imagine and the write... Yeah, you guessed it - FREE!

Writing instructions

Give the children a game/puzzle to play on the device. Once they've had a jolly good play and hopefully enjoyed themselves, get them to write a set of instructions for how to use said app. These instructions could then be shared with staff, parents and so on... 

Epic Zen Garden

Very similar to Epic Citadel. Making a journey around a fantasy world that can then lead onto fictional writing. 

Using adverts

Advertisements can provide an excellent impetus for writing and this one from Cadbury in 2013 proved a hit with a Year Five class and some lovely writing. With tablet devices, children can watch, forward, rewind and so on in their own time. In addition, using QuietTube helps to remove comments, adverts and more. 

So, there are some ideas for having a tablet device on one part of the desk and writing on paper (the examples here have been typed up for ease of sharing): using it as a reason to write, inspiration for writing or to engage young minds. Writing and tablets does not have to mean writing on them, but that post is coming soon...