Accessibility for Young Learners

We have recently launched Easy Blog Schoolwide this year at JIS Elementary. I am so excited to get this moving. We trialled the app last year in Grade 1 and made the decision to roll out EYP to Grade 4 this academic year. Every child from EYP to Grade 4 now has their own Easy Blog. This is accessed via their iPad. I am a huge fan of the app that has been developed by a group of teachers at the Western Academy of Beijing.

The best part of Easy Blog is that it is visual and very simple to use and it doesn't take up very much time to make a post. Students can post as they are learning. Parents are connected and will get to see learning in real time as it is happening. Parents get a notification each time there is a new post added. They can easily view the blog on their smartphone. This makes it possible for the parent to see their child's learning anywhere, anytime. Over the last couple of weeks, classes have started blogging. The students have been making their first post and creating an avatar for their profile.

Example avatars from a young class made with the Drawing Pad app

Example avatars from an older class made with AvatarMaker.com 

What is really interesting is how the accessibility settings in an iPad can open up so much for young learners and for those needing support as new learners to English. The students are able to add a keyboard in their iPad for their mother tongue. This means that they can dictate and the iPad will type in their language. Being able to work like this in two languages helps learners make important connections. As young learners often struggle with typing, the dictation offers them a way to type quickly and to practice reading back what has just been typed by the iPad to check for errors. This also means that when parents comment in their mother tongue on blog posts, the child can respond in their mother tongue too.

The iPad is able to read aloud comments in different languages, but it does take a bit of setting up. A simpler way for young students to hear comments read aloud in languages other than English, is to capture with another device (their friend's iPad) and let Google Translate read the comment. Once you have used the Google Translate app a couple of times, it becomes more fluent and can translate even faster.

Here is a screenshot of Google Translate capturing the text from a screen. I tap the photo button and take a photo. Then I highlight the Japanese text with my finger to get Google to translate it.

Next, I tap the blue arrow to bring it to this screen where I get a sound button to read the comment aloud in Japanese allowing the young child to hear what has been written. This is so exciting and so accessible. I can't wait to see it develop across the school. Today already I am watching comments being posted from parents in different languages. 

Reading Book Creator Books on a Macbook and More

I was so very excited to receive the newest update for the Book Creator app for iPad last night. This update offers extra support for ePub 3 which now makes it possible to read Book Creator multimedia books on a Macbook or even a Windows computer.

I eagerly tried it out and it works really well! I even tried it on my husband's Windows computer. Take a look!

A lot of my books that I have already made with Book Creator can already work using Chrome with the free Readium app.

Here's how you make it work ...

Download the Chrome browser here and then be sure to add the Readium app from the Chrome store. Get it from here.

Then you click on the + sign to add books from your computer hard drive. Here is a photo of the book  'Our Batak House' made in Sumatra during the Backpack Classroom project being read on a Windows computer. In case you're wondering ... yes all of the voice recordings work well.

Here is a screen shot from within the browser. I am so excited about this development. The new update for Book Creator offers even more support for this. Now you no longer need an iPad to read books that have been created on an iPad. This means that even more people can read the books that we create.
Perhaps even Android might get into this and make an app to support Chrome with Readium?

iPads Apps for Jakarta World Academy

We are preparing the image for our first trial use of iPads at Jakarta World Academy. I have selected a few apps from my own image to test use at the school. Here are just some from my selection. The age range for these apps are K1-Gr 1.

JWA Apps

IPad - my initial thoughts

Our plan at Jakarta World Academy and Sinarmas World Academy is to use iPads 1:1 with the students. I managed to get one on the weekend and have had a chance to test it out on my children. I have an 11 year old son, an 8 year old daughter and my youngest son is 4. All of my kids loved trying out my new iPad, but it was my 4 year old that took to it the most.

My plan is this:

* At JWA we will use iPads 1:1. Firstly I will image the iPads with Apps that connect with the current unit of learning. I will arrange for the wallpaper to be a photo of the student in uniform at school taken of that child engaged in some learning. We could also arrange to get Jakarta World Academy sleeves made to store the iPads in.

* I would identify apps that encourage creativity that connect with the learning. For example if the focus was on Sea Creatures, I would put Clicky Sticky on the image so that the students can make scenes and even act out stories using the different stickers. I would also include fish apps and virtual ocean apps.

* I would load songs that connect with those stories onto the iPod feature and make it into a Sea Creature playlist.

* Classroom activities can be filmed and loaded onto the iPad for viewing at home with the parents. Videos of teachers using flash cards for key vocabulary could also be included.

* Sets of Flashcards could also be loaded onto the iPad in the Image library as an event. Perhaps using the First Words app as it allows sound recordings to be made.

* I would make sure that there is a drawing app so that students can draw different sea creatures.

* Keynote app could be used to create student digital portfolios with scanned paper based work and photos of 3D work.

iPad - a first look and trial with Pre K Student

On the weekend I got an iPad and tried it out with my youngest son who is four. This has confirmed for me that this tool is totally suited to this age group.

Digital Stories for the iPad - Character Update

The Grade 6 have been busy creating their digital characters using Spore Creature Creator. They had some fun putting themselves into the picture this morning but using Photobooth and overlaying the Spore creature in Keynote. A screen grab was made and then uploaded to the school LMS Studywiz for sharing. I put them all into a Slideshow at www.slide.com to show you here.

iPad Digital Stories - the Main Character

Today the Grade 6 students started creating their main character for their iPad story using the Spore Creature Creator (free version). The advantage of using Spore Creature Creator is that you can easily create in 3D and then make screen captures (with no background) which can be layered over other pictures.

The students made their characters with Spore Creature Creator and captured them with a transparent background.





The students next used Photobooth to take a photo of themselves and dragged that photo into Keynote. The character picture was added on top and a screen capture was made of the completed composition.



Here is an example of a character created by one of the students during class this morning.

Spore Creature Creator

To make the characters for your digital story ... you can use Spore Creature Creator. I made this bird today by using the program.

Uploaded with plasq's Skitch!

Watch this great tutorial from You Tube

Digital Stories for the iPad - Part Three

Part Three

Problem -- The challenge your character must face and overcome
Without a problem, your story would be dull. When you give your main character a problem to solve, your story comes alive. Be sure to make it a big enough problem.

Important tip:
Use the magic of conflict. Conflict means someone or something tries to stop your character from solving the problem. The more times your hero tries and fails, the better.

Ask yourself these questions:
• What is your main character's problem?
• Is it a big enough problem that it will take a whole story to solve it?
• How does your main character try and fail to solve her or his problem?

Write about your story problem - make a screen capture and upload it to the Story Problem Gallery in Studywiz. Comment on 5 different students work.

Next ... Spore Creature Creator - Advanced Tutorial

Digital Stories for the iPad - Part Two

Like every good thing that is based in technology, without quality content ... well you basically have nothing but dazzle. Whenever I begin a project with a class I always focus hard on the content first. That's why in order to make a digital story ... we will focus on the story writing just as much as the digital part. Here is part two of Digital Stories for the iPad ...

Setting -- Where your story takes place
Every story needs to take place somewhere. Your story's setting can have either a big or little impact on the story.

Ask yourself these questions:
• Where does your story take place -- on the moon, in Hawaii, inside your dad's nose, or someplace completely different?
• When does your story take place: past, present or future?
• How much does your setting affect your main character's problem?

Answer these questions be replying to the discussion thread in Studywiz in the Technology section of Gr 6 Curriculum.

Digital Stories for the iPad - Part One

Today in Grade 6 we started our digital story making for the soon to be released iPad. The students are writing a children's story about either animals or insects - or both! To start things rolling we went to the school library to look at traditional picture book stories. I gave the instructions to the students via our school LMS which is Studywiz. Here are the instructions for the lesson today:

Task 1
Find 3 picture books in the library and read them. Choose the one that you think would suit to make into an eBook. (this is for ideas only - do not copy the story)

Task 2
Your Own Main Character -- The animal or insect your story is about

Every story starts with a main character. For this story it can be any animal or insect you want it to be. One suggestion: try choosing a main character you like to draw.
Start by asking yourself some questions:
• Who is your main character?
• What does he, she or it like/dislike?
• What is your character's personality?
• What does your character look like?

Task 3
Draw a character web. Put your main character's name in the circle in the middle, and all of his or her characteristics in different circles connecting to the character circle.
Use Inspiration to make your character web.
Upload your character web to Studywiz in the Character Web gallery to share.

Here is one example of a Character Web created by a student in the lesson this morning.