First Annual Central Senior Film Festival

The first annual Central Senior Film Festival was a huge success! Most classes in the school have taken part by using iPads and iPad minis to film a variety of ideas and messages. Students were able to edit and enhance their clips using iMovie on the iPad or MacBook.

From over 100 student created films, 17 were selected. Students involved in the selected films were chauffeured to the front entrance of Central Senior in an SUV limo to walk the red carpet! In the front foyer a photo booth was set up using an iPad on a tripod (over 250 photos were taken of students, parents, siblings and staff). Guests were amazed at the beautiful gym (decorated by a team of students) while a DJ provided an exciting atmosphere between 6 and 7 p.m, when the viewing began. Student MCs impressed a packed gym with their introductions and well rehearsed comedy between films.

Here are the entries created by individuals or small groups of students. I will post the final film (created by an entire class of grade 7s) in my next post. Enjoy!

Engagement - Garage Band

Pure Exploration of Garage Band with the only task demand being to explore various instruments and app features.  The students think they are rock stars:)  They love jamming, recording and listening to their compositions.  Engagement is 100%.  I am considering purchasing the paid version for even more instrumental options.  Feedback is welcome if you have made this purchase.  Next step is to use the app to explore musical elements.

Two Apps Are Better Than One!

Two Apps Are Better Than One!

In this blog I am going to share how my grade 2 class used one app to create our math and used another to explain it.

In another posting I mentioned our Olympic learning block.  This covered language and math as well as our social studies.  During our shared reading on the SmartBoard, we discussed each days events, medal count and athletes that participated.  This knowledge transferred into our math, giving us real data for our surveys and bar graphs.
Together, we created a survey listing the top 5 favourite olympic sports on tv.  Each student had to survey 10 other students in the class and record the data with tally marks (shown below).

Then we used Graph (click link to find out more about this App).  This App can be used in a variety of ways and for different grade levels.  We selected the bar graph, and inputted our data from our surveys into the Graph App. With a little time and effort, the App created the bar graph for us.  The App allows you to save an image of your graph to the camera roll on your iPad (see below).

Can you guess what we did next??? That's correct, we added all the images into Explain Everything.  Slide #1 was a title page, slide #2 was the student survey and slide #3 was the bar graph.  To the bar graph,  students added photos of each sport next to the appropriate bar.  Finally, they recorded their thoughts, and explained the survey relating to the bar graph.  Here they used pointers and arrows ( a fave among the class), to show what they were discussing.

As the paper and pencil practice continued (work sheets), the students added more graphs and explanations into their presentations.

So as you can see... two apps are better than one!

Uploading PDF's: Part 2

Uploading PDF's Part 2: To Google Drive from a computer

The cool factor continues.  Now that I've stumbled upon uploading PDF's from the internet to Google Drive (from an iPad), I must be able to do it with PDF's on my computer.  With a little determination, I was able to conquer my quest.  Unfortunately it was a two step process, and took a little bit longer.  If there is a faster way, I would love to learn.

1. Create a folder in Google Drive to save the PDF 
2. Select the upload button (next to the Create button, there is an arrow pointing up)
3. Select "Files or Folders" 
4. Select the desired PDF from your desktop/computer etc...
5. Click open
6. Select the link (file), when upload complete (a window will pop up bottom, right corner)
7. Select move to folder
8. select the folder you've created
9. selectt move

I created a folder for my GB+ reading assessments (this is the French Immersion equivalent to F&P reading assessments). The PDF's (GB+ reading assessment sheets) came on a disc with the kits, which I uploaded to My Drive using the process above. Then, I followed the steps from my blog  Uploading PDF's in Explain Everything & Google Drive: Part 1.  

Now I have all the assessment sheets for each reading level stored on my Drive.  To assess my students, I can open the PDF in Explain Everything.  To begin I can select record.  I can use the pen to tick off correct words, circle ones that were forgotten, add things etc... and at the same time,  I have a voice recording of how the student actually read the book!!!

Again, when complete, upload the presentation to Google Drive as a video record.  Share with students so they can see and hear how they read.  Share with your resource team, parents and teachers for the following year.

iPad Engagement

I just wanted to share about a great teaching moment that happened today.

My FSF 1P class (grade 9 applied French) is working to create "ME" presentations where they introduce themselves (family, friends, hobbies etc.) to the class orally and through some creative medium (poster, powerpoint, webpage, movie etc.)  Lacking exposure to technology, most of my students were opting to create posters or powerpoints, even after I excitedly showed exemplars of previous students who create film versions of the projects.  (I was so sure they would want to try filming after seeing the exemplars, but sadly, they didn't.)  So, they started working on their projects.  I decided to try harder.  I pulled aside a couple of students and told them that I just wanted to show them how i-movie worked in case they wanted to change their minds about their medium and try something new.  I called on these two girls in particular because they appeared very bored and annoyed at having to do this task.  After the three of us snapped a few pictures and filmed a few clips around the room, I proceeded to show them how to use that footage in i-movie and to add text, music, sound effects etc. into their film.  Once they saw how fun and easy it was and how it produced quality product, the two girls shrieked in delight, grabbed the i-pad out of my hands and started to create film versions of their projects.  They went from being bored to quite engaged!  Not only that, but their enthusiasm was so contagious that it caused other students to approach me for a tutorial on i-movie and on educreations so that they could re-think their projects.  When I asked the students what had prevented them from exploring the film option in the first place they said that when they saw the professional quality of the exemplars I showed, they figured it would be too hard and that only expert tech-types could create something like that, not amateurs.  They were thrilled that the technology was so easy to use.  What a beautiful sight to see grade 9 applied French students get SO excited about an assignment! :)