IQ Bar aka Genius Bar at SWA

This morning I had the honor of being the guest speaker at the K12 Online Echo. I had previously published my 'Living History - Authentic Learning Empowered By Digital Technology' presentation last December via the K12 Online Conference

This morning my video was live streamed and then I was asked a series of questions by those people who joined the chat via Skype. One of the many questions asked was about the technology set up at my school. I mentioned that we have a Genius Bar modeled after the ones that can be found in Apple Stores around the world. This school-based concept was developed by my CEO John McBryde.

The IQ Bar concept is the same as the Apple Genius Bar model with the only difference is that this facility in located in the school. There is always an IT technician available at the desk and students, teachers or parents are able to drop in for assistance with their technology needs. As well as this, teachers can iChat across the school campus and request assistance remotely. I have had student laptops fixed remotely by chatting and explaining the problem. The assistance is made possible by using Apple Remote Desktop.


Sinarmas World Academy IQ Bar

Classroom Behaviors in Chinese Intermediate Lessons

We had some fun in Chinese lessons today using Skitch and the laptop webcams. Skitch is a great little app that allows the user to take photos and mark them up with hand written notes. Take a look

Pre Kindergarten makes a Chicken Life Cycle

Today in Pre Kindergarten we made our first UOI task with the iMacs. We used the software Comic Life and took some images from Sparklebox.co.uk

I thought that perhaps it would be difficult to get such young children (these kids are 3 and 4 years old) to create something by following a procedure on the computer. Again and again the ability of the 'Digital Native' never ceases to amaze me. These kids were easily able to drag and drop the images into Comic Life and re-size them and rotate them to make a life cycle. One student even changed the background colour and font inside the program without any help from the teachers.

Wow, at this rate we will begin publishing our own story books. Stay tuned ...
Here are two examples of the student work produced in the lesson today. As I explained in my previous post, the students have been learning about life cycles and have read many storybooks and even held live chickens that a parent brought to the classroom.

Pre Kindergarten

The Pre Kindergarten class have been using the iPod Touches on a regular basis now over the past few months. The class teachers now agree that it is time for the students to begin creating their own work on the class iMacs. Up until this point the children have mostly played mini games and created some simple 'digital art' by using Tux Paint.
To start things off we will use Comic Life so that the students can create chicken life cycles by dragging and dropping clipart images onto a page. By loading the clipart images into Comic Life itself, these 3 year old students will be able to use the program independently. This is linking in with the current class work about the life cycle of a chicken and follows a hands on activity in which the children got to observe and touch a real baby chicken.
This is the plan for tomorrow's lesson so I will update after it has happened.

Grade 1 - Wrapping up this UOI

Today the Grade 1 students worked in groups making presentations about their learning throughout this unit on Animal Life Cycles. They put all their work into a Keynote and will present it to the parent audience in the form of a television news report.
The kids are using Google SketchUp to talk about their trip to the zoo with the animals that they created themselves using Spore Creature Creator. They have learned to capture a movie of their animal and embed it into the Keynote presentation. The SketchUp will be linked to be opened so that one student can navigate within the 3D environment whilst their partner explains about the virtual zoo. As well as this they will share their animal reports that they each made about their chosen animal.

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.

Skitch - Why I love it

Hi there,
You you ever wanted to draw on photos and share them?
Have you ever wanted to use your Wacom Bamboo tablet to draw on a PDF easily?
Do you like to share pictures via Twitter?
Do you have Chinese or another language in your school that has a script and you want to be able to write with the characters on either photos or pdfs?

Today I found Skitch by Plasq online. It is a free program that you can download. Get it here SKITCH

I have been looking into how my school can become more paperless. We use Studywiz and it drives us to become more digital. Now with a tablet or even just the Macbook track pad - kids can write digitally on pdfs and send them back to the teacher. Imagine the possibilities ... Maths, Science, note taking directly onto pdf textbooks ... making comments on photos ... typing pinyin on pictures in Chinese lessons - wow ... there are so many possibilities.

Uploaded with plasq's Skitch!

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