Day 79 - Functioning again

Swift Playgrounds coupled with Everyone can Code iBook is a winner.

Fab ideas for the classroom and a 360°view of how children are learning with the integration of Seesaw and Blogging direct from the classroom. This lesson was 45mins but the students were very happy to continue this in their own time - oh the joys of 1:2:1.

Here are the latest attempts from my Year 5 & 6 students to explain what a function does and how lops and behaviours can be simplified when creating code. Inspired to start with the Macarena - Apple Music to the rescue and impromptu dance moves in front of the class! Who knew...

Blogging direct from the lesson....charting our own success

Add caption

Macarena sets the scene for an fun adventure into coding, loops, behaviour  and functions.

Working out the finer details and protocols of naming functions...

I love the fact that the collaborative and supportive nature of this approach allows questions to be asked without fear of embarrassment. We are all learning together. The students look forward to working with new members of their class and get the feedback that really counts - from their own classmates! 

Day 78 - Function-ing Brilliantly!

Halloween can always bring out the dark side of a class, usually through excitement and spirited enthusiasm. Today, with the students I tried some new approaches...

Following a really successful Inset with staff - it was clear that the integration of iPad into the curriculum is going (on the whole) well. However, there are still a few barriers to making continued progress and pushing on with the development of learning and of course teaching. One barrier is always, 'Vickie I haven't got time to invent new resources all the time' (usually this means - 'so I don't and haven't tried anything new as yet...') I work part time and know I can trust this resource I get good results...

So, in evaluating the staff's needs I made my timely intervention and showed the teachers Nearpod. - Yes I could have introduced this at the very start of our roll out. But truthfully, the creative aspects of iPad and workflow that were encouraged initially worked brilliantly. This is an intervention that refreshes ideas and gives 'tired' teachers a quick win with the impetus to keep on preparing the best learning opportunities in lessons for the students.  This targeted focus allows the teacher to use their favourite resource sites (Twinkl) but also augment the slide deck with interactive tasks which utilities the iPad and gives independence to the student. Putting the onus on the student to be responsible for their learning.

So what have I used in the classroom today?

Nearpod - inverted commas. The basic slide deck was taken from a Pdf exported from a powerpoint in Twinkl. I then added additional slides with examples of modelled exercises, quizzes and free writing opportunities. The close procedure is particularly effective with lower Key Stage 2.

Illustrating the rules of using inverted commas

The results of using this guided learning method were evident immediately, the students achieved well and the standard of their work was noticeably more accurate and proficient.

Day 77 - Swift Changes ...

Apologies for my loyal followers, my blogs have been limited recently due to a small issue with Blogger crashing since iOS10 update...it seems a bug has been found and fixed so I'm glad to be back with you.

Today my year 5&6 class launched their adventures into the swift playground and they have become bloggers from the classroom too!

What have I been using in the classroom today? 

Seesaw, Swift playground & iBooks combine to make a new way of coding come to life...swift language has been introduced across the world and has made understanding code more easily accessible to students and teachers alike.

Apple have thought 360° about how to make Swift a usable and fun way to learn code. For teachers books available from the app store support the introduction and is backed up with tutorials and scaffolded lessons - much like the way we as teachers now encourage our students to learn.



Together we are working through he new landscape of code with Byte and friends encouraging us at every step. Meanwhile students ares supporting and encouraging each other by pairing up and then blogging on the class blog in Seesaw when they have found a solution or have faced a challenge. 


Stage 1 lays down the foundations and conventions of using the swift code language. It was obvious that the students were motivated to find a solution and appreciated the added 3D's features making the game more involving and immersive. Functions were more of a challenge but many students showed resilience skills that mean that a challenge is a blip...a not managed it yet moment.




My next hope is that the students will guide those in the younger years to try their hand at swift programming through tutorials which have the double bonus of reinforcing newly learnt skills.




Our first hour of code was a success and I look forward to the outcomes when faced with the challenges that see the students tasked with personalising code and seeing first hand how they can influence how a program runs. More importantly, when things go wrong, just how to re-trace steps and check the lines of code to see which block of code is causing the error. Debugging for a reason...

Day 76 - A New Operating System

Every new academic year heralds a variety of changes in the operating system within the school. Whether that is new staff, a new management structure or new students. Refreshing for most and frustrating for a few...

With the new academic year comes a new operating system from Apple too - iOS10 was released and promised to invigorate the daily classroom as it supports shared iPad and the new classroom app, which puts classroom management centre stage again for teachers. All this should be warmly embraced.

However, a few glitches and further updates later the applications don't always live up to the promises and additional time needs to be spent developing new skills and procedures to enable the devices to work seamlessly in the classroom. This is true ofter of the device management systems that school's rely on as the backbone of their deployment. The newest application from Apple is classroom, which has been running smoothly at Barns Green allowing the students the ability to really be stretched as they have been provided with timely & targeted work at their own level. Nothing new...but the beauty of the new deployment method is that the extension tasks can be tailored to the students who perhaps have surprised themselves by shining in one area that perhaps they didn't believe they would...

What have I been using in the classroom? 
Showbie as a the method to plan, deploy and organise the resources for the classroom.

  

One way that working with iPad hasn't changed in the classroom with the blend of traditional equipment with the exercise books supported by iPad as tool for learning. Handwriting has seen a significant elevation through the use of the iPad to give individual reinforcement for the formation of letters using tutorials,  comprehension and SPaG work have seen a rise in accuracy as the test results are proving!



 
Using the iPad is a natural part of how the students learn. Here the first stages of working with Swift playgrounds show how the computing curriculum can be cross curricular and reinforce digital skills which allow the students to excel and clearly communicate their understanding in their studies.