Success At Last!

So today was the big day for my Year 10s' first assessment using their i-Pads. As mentioned in a previous post, this was a diagnostic Close Reading assessment that all of Year 10s take. In years past, this assessment has been modified so that this remedial class could cope.

The only modifications that I have made are to give them more time (2 periods instead of 1) and to allow them to use their ipads to "read" and write, using iWordQ. This was also the day that the RTLB staff would be sitting in to observe.

I have to say that it went better than I could have ever imagined. The students had been prepped to know what to expect, and they came in ready to work. Ipads were handed out along with headsets. I wrote a few instructions: login to Moodle/open Year 10 English Wagner/click on Year 10 Close Reading test in Topic 9/copy and paste content into iwordQ, which they could do with a bit of help. I also put up a few tips regarding keywords and how to read questions carefully.

The only snafu was that the test was invisible, which I quickly sorted. The only clumsiness was the copying, which was not easy to do in Moodle for some reason. (In Pages, if you scroll to the bottom of the text, you merely double tap the screen and you can select all, but not in Moodle). But on the whole, everyone was underway in 10 minutes.

They (except for one) worked very well and sustained a level of engagement I had never seen from this group, nor expected- especially in a reading test. Some actually asked if they could use dictionary.com to look up the meaning of a word! Some struggled a bit with the text to speech function and I needed to adjust the speed for some who couldn't understand the voice (once it slowed, they could work it out).

The RTLB was very pleased, and I was in quiet shock, really.

The second period picked up after morning tea and a few took another 10-15 minutes to settle back into it. Most finished what they could, others got over half way which was still good for this group.

But what it showed was that they felt confident and supported by the technology.

Jump for joy!

The flipped classroom...well, sort of...

It  occurred to me that I should really start to change my approach to lesson delivery. And never has that thought been more prominent than in my lesson on Tuesday. The kids were more interested in off task chat than an overview of what will be on Thursday's reading test. (Fair enough, but they did need to know what to expect).

With all the talk of iPads and the flipped classroom, it was worth a look.

However, it is hard enough to get my remedial class to do work with me standing over them, much less hope of them ever completing any sort of homework on their own. But there was still something quite appealing about providing a bit of one-to-one instruction via the iPad while I dealt with technical (hardware,app) and behavioral issues that seem to consistently arise in every lesson -especially for those students who are ready to get on with it, and who suffer with the endless attempts of others who derail and delay the lesson.

So with that, I set out to record my first Explain Everything lesson. The content was fairly dry and certainly the production value could have been improved, but I was in a very calm and encouraging mental state and my voice reflected that.  It occurred to me later that the stress of these classes can put an edge to your voice that you may not realize, but certainly the kids pick up on it.

Another interesting point is the insight it gives you into the way that you explain things. I certainly could be more succinct.

Once I had the presentation recorded, the challenge was to export it- and figure out the best way to get it to them. I exported to Dropbox, but the student iPads were not equipped with Dropbox and their Cloud-On app had some buggy firewall issue. The final option was to upload it to YouTube, which was fairly straightforward and I posted a link to it on Moodle. Sweet!

But alas, YouTube was also blocked on student iPads.  Hours of recording, compression and uploading only to have to show it on the data projector! Primal scream!

Still, the calming effect, combined with the  decreased frustration of interruptions was worth the effort. I could give the derailers the attention they sought, without interruption (the lesson kept going on the overhead), and those interested could listen and look through the parts of the test I wanted them to. Magic!

Setting up my first test

So this week, my Year 10s are sitting a diagnostic Close Reading test. It involves reading an extract, a poem and an advert and responding to short answer type reading comprehension questions. This is generally very difficult for a remedial class to cope with and teachers generally report that only one or two students will actually achieve.

But this year we have i-pads, and I am determined to make it work for students. The looming question is, what is the best way to get the document to them; and how to get the lengthy text parts into Word Q so they can read it; and which app should they use to type their responses, and, finally, then how will they get it all back to me without it all turning to custard?

What I have come up with is for the test itself to be placed on Moodle as a document, under a topic which they cannot see until I switch it on (unblink the eye), just before the test begins starts. -Not that I am worried they will bother to have a look, but just for my own sense of protocol. - I have also placed the extract in a page on Moodle so that they can easily copy and paste into iWordQ for them to listen and read along (by the way, iWord Q is awesome, and really good as far as text to speech listening).

The cool thing is that when they click on the test itself it opens in the browser and, on my own ipad -have yet to see if it does the same on theirs- it asks if I'd like to open in Pages. With one click, the test appears on their i-pads and away they go. They can select any part of the test and copy and paste it into iWordQ and have it read to them. 

When they are finished they can e-mail me the document directly in Pages: no messy file saving and then attaching the document.

We will see how it goes.

A Bumpy Start

Teaching this remedial i-pad class has had its challenges: behaviour management, not having the ipads and headsets until weeks 2 and 4 (respectively); not knowing where to store student work, etc.

Once I'd worked out that a blog would be a great place to keep work, I tried to get the kids set up on Google's Blogger, which could be easily accessed through the student's google account. Every student was provided a google account (linked with their NSN number) at the beginning of the year, and accessible through Moodle, with just one login (once they login to Moodle, they can access all of their google apps with a click or two). The blogs themselves require minimal set up and are far more attractive and "personal" than the Moodle blog option, which is pretty lame looking.

However, students were not able to login to the Blogger app from the g-mail or docs links provided for them on Moodle.  They had to access it through their browser and the browser was picking up on the fact that they were getting there through a mobile device and requiring them to download the app, which wasn't possible until the Easter break when technicians at school would have time to do so (they were snowed under with other business, and students are not able to download apps to their devices). It was exasperating and I ended up trying to set up their blogs on Wordpress which is a 10 step process requiring multiple fields to be filled out AND with the amount of dyslexia in the group, not remembering their usernames and passwords (despite telling them to use their names and same password as on Moodle), I was only able to get 1/3 of the class up and running.

(Exasperation)

It turns out, they could access Blogger from the Calendar link on Moodle.

(Primal Scream)

The next lesson ran smoothly as those without a blog had one up on Blogger within a few minutes and we were off!

My first I-learn class

Hello! And welcome to my blog!

My name is Mrs Wagner and I teach English at Lynfield College.

 I am embarking on a new and exciting journey of teaching with an iPad. That is, that I am teaching a class where students use iPads to learn.

It's new and exciting...and a little scary because I have never done it before!

But I enjoy a good challenge and I am not afraid to fail every now and again. I know from having done it before, that its the only way I truly learn and improve.

Anyway, I plan to blog on the experience so that I can share what I have learned with other teachers, and model blogging with my students.

Happy reading!