Category Archives: All Year Levels

Monitoring the Environment with Digital Technology

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School NRM Environment Grant

In 2018-2019, our school received an NRM Environment Grant for the purchase of digital equipment and nesting boxes.  This project has enabled our students to engage more closely with the Hahndorf Creek & surrounding environment by using this equipment to collect evidence of existing plants & wildlife and to monitor environmental changes that are related to our larger Creek restoration project.

We would like to share some photos and videos from this project.

Smartphone Microscope Converters

These $5 converters attach to our iPads and allow us to take photos and videos with up to 30x magnification.

Check out our amazing galleries of photos and videos.

 

 

Make sure you have the sound turned up for the videos to hear the excitement of discovery in our voices.

 

Motion Sensing Camera

This Swift Enduro motion sensing camera has been set up in the school grounds and along the creek to take photos and videos whenever it detects movement OR at certain time intervals (timelapse mode).

Some of our SLC students learnt how to set up and install the camera and have discovered that it takes patience and perseverance to get good footage!!  Below are some photos and video, including a timelapse video of our tree planting day.

 

Nesting Boxes

We purchased 3 medium parrot nesting boxes and a brushtail possum box.  These arrived in flat packs and some of our SLC students put them together and painted them with timber oil.  They are now waiting to be installed on trees along our creek and in our school grounds.

Once our nest boxes are installed we are looking forward to using our nest box camera to monitor the comings and goings of wildlife to the boxes.

STAY TUNED for more photos and video in the months ahead

 

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Drones, Droids & Robots

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Drones, Droids & Robots was the school theme for National Science Week this year.

During this week students from all year levels enjoyed lunchtime robotics & coding activities, which were planned & organised by the Year 6 Technology leaders.  The Year 6 leaders began each session with an introduction and display of the school’s Sphero robotic balls performing colourful floor routines.  This was followed by a demonstration of a Mini Drone performing some impressive aerial tricks & taking some aerial photos of the students watching.

Students then had a chance to try out several activities including Sphero painting, Pro-Bot drawing, Bee-Bot programming and pixel art.  Some students explored the coding & robotics iPad apps & books and helped to make our Science Week robots – Boxy Roxy, Robert & Bob.

 

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Thomas the Humanoid Robot

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Picture1Our school has been fortunate this term to have the use of a very sophisticated humanoid robot, named Thomas, to teach students about robotics, coding, problem solving & computational thinking.  The robot is owned by the Association of Independent Schools of SA (AISSA) and is being trialled in SA schools as part of a 3 year research project to see how humanoid robots can be integrated into the Australian Curriculum and to observe the effect that they have on student learning and engagement.

Our students met Thomas at the beginning of the term and watched him in action interacting with Mrs Whittaker and performing programmed speeches, movements and dances.  The students learnt that you can interact with the robot by voice command, touch sensors or by programming it from a computer programme called “Choreographe”.  The highlight for a lot of students was watching Thomas do Tai-Chi and the Foundation students had a very deep discussion about whether Thomas is living or non-living.

Since then, our year 3 students were the main participants in the research project.  In conjunction with their current Unit of Inquiry about the human body, the research question was “Can the use of a humanoid robot improve student’s understanding of human body parts and how the parts work together to make a human move”.  The students used the Choreographe programme to move the arms of a virtual robot into various poses and then recorded these movements on a timeline.  When the timeline was played back the virtual robot moved.  This process involved the planning of a step by step algorithm and then the programming and recording of each individual step of the movement.  The students learnt a lot about the arm joints and programmed some pretty intricate and creative arm movements.  They were also able to draw some sophisticated parallels and differences between robotic and human body parts, movement and communication of electronic messages.  At the end of the term, each student was videoed demonstrating their project on Thomas.

As well as the year 3 students, other students in year 4 and 5 learnt robotic programming and researched other types of robotic devices. It was amazing to see how having a robot like Thomas in the school provided so many learning opportunities in other areas, such as German, English, Maths, Learning Support, dance, craft activities, playtime and some interesting discussions about philosophy and religion.

Here are some photos and videos of our exciting robotics journey this term.

Thomas visits St Michael’s Lutheran School

Year 3 Action Research Project

Year 3 Action Research Project – Interviews with Izzy

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Coding & Robotics

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Over the last few years, several students at St Michael’s school have participated in coding and robotics activities using robotic devices, iPad apps and PC software.  This year, the learning journey has continued through guided play and integrated learning.  These activities relate to the Digital Technologies learning area of the Australian Curriculum.  Specifically, the activities develop coding and computational thinking skills such as :

  • follow, describe and represent a sequence of steps and decisions (algorithms) needed to solve simple problems (ACTDIP004)
  • recognising that a digital system follows instructions or commands (ACTDIK001)
  • experimenting with very simple, step-by-step procedures to explore programmable devices, for example providing instructions to physical or virtual objects or robotic devices to move in an intended manner, such as following a path around the classroom (ACTDIP004)

Bee-Bot and Pro-BotTwo floor robots have been purchased, namely Bee-Bot and Pro-Bot, and these have been integrated into learning activities about directional language, mapping skills (grid referencing and direction) and word study.

 

robots-a-set

We have also purchased 4 excellent books in the Cool Robots series by Kathryn Clay and Erika L Shores.

 

 

 

 

Please take a look at our students in action.

 

 

 

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iPads – Sharing our work

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Part of our ICT Vision Statement reads

We will promote ICT as an essential tool for inquiry, communication, collaboration, content creation and learning.  ICT capabilities will be incorporated through the whole school curriculum.

Underlying all of this is the technical requirement to be able to copy work quickly and easily to and from our students’ iPads.  Resources such as photos, images, videos and links to educational websites need to be shared from teacher to students and vice versa.  Students need to share completed work in the form of documents, presentations, videos, collages, music and all sorts of creative content.

This is a little more challenging on an iPad than on a PC or tablet device.  Content cannot be easily viewed via a file system, but rather is stored inside the various apps.  For example, word processing documents are stored within the Pages app, presentations within the Keynote app and iBooks within the Book Creator app.  However, once a process is established, content sharing is easy.

Apple TV

The most immediate way of sharing content in the classroom is by using Apple TV.  Apple TV is a small device which is connected to a data projector and it allows the teacher or any student to wirelessly connect to it and share their iPad’s screen with the whole class.  This is a fantastic way of sharing work in progress and completed documents, presentations, videos and so on.  The student can receive immediate feedback from their teacher and the rest of the class.

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eMail

eMail is a quick and easy way to share small documents and most apps have a ‘send by email’ option.  Our year 4 students all have their own school email account and have been educated in email etiquette and cyber safety.  Teachers can easily send information and documents to all students at once using eMail.  At the start of the year it was the primary way of sharing content, whereas now other methods are also used.

WebDAV

WebDAV is a protocol for sharing files over the internet or over a local network such as our school network.  Earlier this year, a WebDAV server was set up on our school server and this enables us to quickly and easily copy documents of all sizes to/from the server to/from our student and teacher iPads.  A special drive (Q:) has been set up on the server and students can save their work directly to an appropriate folder.  WebDAV is built into some apps, such as Pages and Keynote, but it is also accessible via the File Explorer app which all teachers and students have installed.

DropBox

Before WebDAV was set up, we used DropBox for sharing large files. DropBox is similar in nature to WebDAV, but files must be uploaded to and downloaded from the internet.  This makes the copying of large files slower the WebDAV method.  There are also storage space limitations in DropBox unless a monthly subscription is paid for.

Print

Of course, some work is ideally shared by printing it.  Our year 4 classrooms have a wireless B&W printer that can be printed to directly from most apps.  If colour printing is required, the students save their work to the WebDAV drive, from where it can then be printed to any of our school network printers.

 Online Sites

Students and teachers can share their work with a global audience by using online media sharing sites such as Edublogs, Edmodo and SchoolTube.  In the traditional classroom, the only audience of student work is the teacher, classmates and sometimes parents and visitors. Online sites, such as our class blogs, provide a much larger audience for sharing student work as well as news and photos of classroom activities. 

More Information

More detailed technical information about these methods of file sharing is available in this document – iPad File Sharing

 

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Curriculum Support through ICT

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As well as using ICT as an essential tool for inquiry, communication, collaboration and content creation, St Michael’s students and staff have access to several fantastic websites and apps to support their learning in all areas of the curriculum.  To access the websites, the school usually pays a subscription for each student, so that they can access all features of the site, login from school or home, and have their progress monitored by their teacher.  The school also purchases apps for specific areas of the curriculum, as outlined at the end of this post.

Mathletics

Mathletics2

http://www.mathletics.com.au/

Mathletics is an engaging eLearning website which contains over 1000 learning activities covering all areas of Mathematics.  It is aligned to the Australian Curriculum, enabling teachers to easily find suitable content for their students.  Students are given a username and password and they can then access the website from school or home, using an internet browser or an iPad app.  Student’s progress is recorded and then staff can access powerful reporting tools to see individual and class strengths and weaknesses.

Students can also challenge other classmates or students from other schools in games of speed and skill.

IMG_2347Mathletics3

 

 

 

 

 

Spelling City

SpellingCitySpelling City provides spelling, vocabulary and writing activities for our students, through it’s website and iPad app.  Our student’s primarily use the spelling activities, where they can access their weekly spelling lists and access activities based on those words and also spelling and vocabulary tests.

Teachers can set up the lists or access lists shared by other educators, including many lists from the Jolly Phonics programme.

SpellingCity

ABC Reading Eggs

ReadingEggs LogoABC Reading Eggs is an online world where children learn to read. It supports each child’s learning by offering individual, one-on-one lessons that allow children to progress at their own rate.  Reading Eggs makes learning to read interesting and engaging for kids, with great online reading games and activities.

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Scootle

Scootle LogoScootle is a free website with thousands of digital resources to support the Australian Curriculum.  For teachers, it contains videos, photos, audio, ideas and units of work that they can access and share with their students.

For students, there are also many interactive multimedia resources which combine still and moving images, text, audio and animation to provide engaging and motivating experiences for students.  The activities are based on the most recent research into how children learn and how teachers can facilitate learning.

 Scootle1 Scootle2

 

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iPad Apps

Some of the most popular iPad apps we have purchased for curriculum support over the last couple of years include:

HookedOnPhonicsHooked on Phonics
By Hooked on Phonics
This digital reading program is based on the award-winning Hooked on Phonics Learn to Read system with which millions have learned to read.

rED WritingrED Writing – Learn to Write
By Rogue Mobile
App for teaching children how to write letters and numbers using Australian education approved font.  Co-designed by an Australian teacher for children aged 3-7 years old.

FriendsOfTenFriends of Ten
By Aleesha Kondys
App for use in early school years to introduce an understanding of numbers to ten, counting objects, subitising, counting on from a number, partitioning of objects & combinations that make ten.

Subitising Flash CardsSubitising Flash Cards
By Aleesha Kondys
App for testing subitising knowledge by recognising small groups of objects without counting.

Moofy Recognizing Pattern Games Moofy Recognizing Pattern Games
By PlaySmart-Kids
App for learning alphabet and number ordering and recognizing patterns with simple shapes and colours.

Jungle AppsJungle Coins, Jungle Fractions, Jungle Time
By Andrew Short
Engaging apps for teaching coin maths, fractions and telling the time.

 

 

 

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Term 1 2013

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A Busy Start to the Year

Term 1 was an amazingly busy term as far as ICT developments go at St Michael’s.  Over the Christmas holidays we had a brand new server installed and some new cabling to the Junior Primary building, which will set us up nicely for future broadband developments and wi-fi access to the server and the internet from every classroom and building around the school.

Acer Tablet PCs

At the beginning of the term we received delivery of 90 Acer tablets for our Senior students to use throughout the year.  Along with the 30 that we already had from last year, there are now enough for each Senior student to use throughout the school day.  The students were very excited to receive these tablets and have been using them in class for research, communication, collaboration and presentation of assignments and class work.

iPads

Thanks to our Parents & Friends Committee, we have been able to purchase 15 more iPads.  Together with the 15 we purchased last year, we now have enough for students to have one each when they are loaned out to their class.  We have loaded a lot of apps on the iPads, for all year levels, in the areas of Literacy, Maths, Science, Christian Studies, Books, Word processing, Presentation, drawing and multimedia creation.  The built in and free apps such as the Camera, Google, Facetime, Skype and Voice Recorder have also proved very popular.

Cybersafety

The 10th Safer Internet Day was celebrated worldwide on Tuesday 5 February 2013 with the day focusing on online rights and responsibilities.  The key message this year was “Connect with Respect” and the our Senior students participated in an interactive workshop where they learnt about their online rights and responsibilities.  The students voted that the most important online rights were safety and privacy and the most important online responsibilities were respecting others, managing their time online and abiding by school policies.  You can watch one of the videos that they watched by clicking here or visit the Cybersmart website at www.cybersmart.gov.au for other great cyber safety resources.

Later in the term I ran more Cybersafety sessions with Year 3 and 4 students, where we learnt about ‘Keeping Personal Information Safe’ and ‘Cyberbullying’.  We learnt about this from Hector the Dolphin and his friends at the Cybersmart Website.  Click here if you would like to visit this site.

Making Advertisements

In the second half of the term, the year 5 classes inquired into the transdisciplinary theme ‘How we express ourselves’ by exploring the central idea ‘Advertising attempts to influence the way people think and act.’  As part of their assessment, the students worked in small groups to invent a product, design a logo and a slogan for the product, and then create a 30 second advertisement for the product.  After the students had planned and videoed footage for the advertisment, they spent several sessions in the Computer room using Windows Live Movie Maker to edit the video clips and add music, voice-overs, captions and special effects. The students commented about how they had learnt a lot about working in teams, using Movie maker and the challenge of condensing all of their video footage into only 30 seconds!

Super Super Energy Max

Jelly Shoes

Blogs

All of our classes now have a class blog where they can share information, news, photos and resources with families and the wider school community.  All families should have now received instructions on how to access these blogs and they can also been accessed from the Parent Portal on the Parent Information page of the School website.  There is also a blog for Creative Arts, German, Physical Education, Library and ICT.  Families would also have received instructions for subscribing to these blogs so that they are sent an email whenever anything new is added.  Please ensure that you do this so that you receive immediate notification of important news.

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iPads in the Classroom

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Last term we purchased 15 iPads for shared use among our classes. These new devices were received with great excitement from students and staff alike, and I thought that now might be a good time to reflect on our experiences to date.

Why iPads?

With many different tablet and mobile devices on the market, we carefully reviewed other options before selecting the iPads. Although most options would have met many of the following criteria, the iPads were the most suitable device across the board.

  • They start up instantaneously and are ready to use immediately. No network login is required.
  • Their touch interface, large screen size and portability make them very easy for the students to handle and use.
  • They allow quick and easy access to information, multimedia and learning activities.
  • They enable access to a whole new market of educational ‘apps’ through the Apple App store – many of which are free.
  • They are great for taking photos and videos and recording audio.

We chose to purchase the iPad 2 16GB Wi-fi model. These were purchased on special as the supplier was clearing this model out to make way for the ‘new iPad’. We didn’t see any major benefit in purchasing the ‘new iPad’ at this stage and so were content with the iPad 2, especially at the discounted price. We also chose the base model (16GB) over the 32Gb or 64Gb model and didn’t worry about the 3G functionality as they will primarily be connected to the school Wi-Fi network.

Challenges

Some of the challenges that we faced in the initial setup and ongoing use of the iPads were as follows.

  • iPads were designed as a personal, single-user device and we needed to use them in a shared environment. Where students needed to save and share work, we needed clear, simple procedures for doing this.
  • Apple had no volume licencing program for iTunes purchases in Australia. To comply with the App Store terms and conditions we had to set up an iTunes account for each iPad and ensure that we purchased apps legally.
  • With so many apps on the market, we needed to decide which ones to load on the iPads up front and how to manage requests from teachers for new apps. Several apps were free, but for purchased apps we needed to set a $limit per iPad and manage how to decide which apps to purchase.
  • We needed to set up and manage the iPads effectively and efficiently, ensuring that the setup was identical on each one.
  • We needed to set up procedures for storing, carrying, charging, backing up, updating, upgrading and maintaining the iPads.

This involved a lot of up-front effort, but once set up the on-going maintenance of the iPads has been quite straight forward. Given the small number of iPads, we manage them individually over the school Wi-Fi network and have not invested in any multiple device configuration or synchronisation software at this stage.

iPad Setup

We bundled the 15 iPads into 3 sets of 5 and purchased sturdy carry bags for transporting them around the school. Each set was colour coded and we designed and installed a unique wallpaper on each iPad which had a background colour to match the set colour, the school logo and the iPad number. The apps were installed identically on each iPad and spanned 3 home screens. Several of the default settings were changed, including the following.

  • General > About > Name : Each iPad was given a unique name from smlpsipad01 to smlpsipad15.
  • General > Auto Lock : We increased this to 15 minutes so that the screens wouldn’t go into lock mode too quickly during lessons.
  • General > iPad Cover Lock/Unlock : We turned this off to prevent the iPad going into lock mode when the cover was ‘flapping’.
  • General > Restrictions : We turned restrictions ON and DISABLED access to YouTube, FaceTime, iTunes, Ping, Installing Apps, Deleting Apps, In-App Purchases and the Game Center. We configured the settings in the ‘Allowed Content’ section appropriate to primary school aged children.
  • Mail, Contacts, Calendars : We set up a unique gmail account for each iPad using gmail’s plus addressing syntax (ie smlpsipad+01@gmail.com). We then changed the e-mail signature to “Sent from smlpsipad01” etc. This allows students to send documents they have created on the iPad to their teacher and the teacher can identify the exact iPad from which the e-mail was sent.

Apps

A full list of apps that we installed is in our document titled ‘Student iPad Setup’. A few that have been put to good use at this stage include.

Book Creator
by Dan Amos
A simple iBook creator. Add photos, videos, music, voiceovers, text, colourful backgrounds etc. Read your creations in the iBook reader or share as an iBook or pdf file.

Several junior primary classes have used this app to create iBooks and pdf documents. The Year 1 classes created narrated iBooks for their Unit of Inquiry on story writing.

Google Earth
by Google Inc
A virtual globe, map and geographical information app. Explore global satellite and aerial imagery, geo-located photos and Wikipedia articles etc.

The Year 3 classes used Google Earth to explore natural and built structures around the world and the Year 4 classes used it to explore Asia.

lino
by Infoteria Corporation
On-line sticky note app. Post, see and peel off stickies on on-line collaborative canvases, which are also accessible from PC browsers. Stickies can contain text, images and videos.

Several classes have created collaborative canvases using this app on the iPads or on the lino website from the schools PC’s.

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Camera
by Apple
The built-in camera app takes still photos and video and saves to them the Camera Roll in the Photo app.

Most year levels have enjoyed using the iPads as another method of taking photos and videos to use in documents, presentations, video clips and movies.

 

Our reception classes have enjoyed using the following literacy and numeracy apps …

rED Writing
by Rogue Mobile
An app for teaching children how to write letters and numbers using Australian education approved font. Co-designed by an Australian teacher for children aged 3-7 years old.

abc PocketPhonics
by Apps in My Pocket Ltd
An app for teaching the basics of reading and writing to young kids (aged 3 to 6). Letter sounds, handwriting, first words.


FriendsOfTen
by Aleesha Kondys
An app for use in early schooling years to introduce an understanding of numbers to ten, counting objects, subitising, counting on from a higher number, partitioning of objects and combinations that make ten.

Subitising Flash Cards
by Aleesha Kondys
An app for testing subitising knowledge by recognising small groups of objects without counting.

 

 

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Easi-Speak Microphones

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This week our school received some exciting new sound recording equipment for use in ICT projects and other class activities.  We received an Easi-Speak Bundle, consisting of 5 yellow Easi-Speak microphones, an Easi-Speak 5 port USB charger and a set of 5 different coloured trims to help identify each Easi-Speak microphone.

 These portable microphones record voice, music or other sounds directly into the Easi-Speak’s memory.  The recordings can then be played back through a built in speaker on the microphone or the files can be downloaded to a computer by simply plugging the microphone into a USB port and dragging and dropping the MP3 or WAV files.  The microphones have 128mb of memory which allows for up to 4 hours of recording time.

These files that are downloaded from the microphones can be played back on the computer or used in a variety of ICT projects including

  • Digital or Photo stories (see example)
  • Windows Movie Maker projects (see example)
  • Claymation videos (see example)
  • Pod-casting
  • Blogs and wikis (Click here for a demo of a talking blog)

These microphones can really enhance a lot of class activities, such as

  • Role plays
  • Interviewing
  • Note taking on school outings
  • Story telling and reading practice
  • Drama-script reading and listening
  • Encouraging reluctant speakers
  • Developing speaking and listening skills
  • Recording sounds and music
  • Assessments
  • Group work
  • Special Education
  • Recording lessons or guest speakers
  • etc etc etc

This term, Mrs Norman’s reception class has begun using these microphones to record their memories of their school year.  Here are a couple of samples …

Sample1          Sample2

I’m sure teachers will be able to think of a lot of other uses for these devices as they become another useful tool in the classroom.

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Flip Cameras

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With more and more ICT activities in our school requiring the use of video cameras, we have purchased 4 flip mino video cameras for use across the school.  It is hoped that through these child-friendly video cameras we can promote a more independant environment for students to experiment with technology to further their ICT skills and to enhance their learning and creativity.

Some of the features of these cameras that make them appealling for use in a primary school include :

  • They are very small yet robust, weighing only 4.1 ounces
  • They have a simple design, consisting of only 7 buttons
  • They contatin a flip-out USB arm that plugs directly into a computer to download files.  This means that there are no separate cables to lose and no additional software.
  • The built-in memory last for up to 60 minutes of high-quality video
  • They are capable of 2x digital zoom 
  • They have a silent mode for recording in sensitive situations
  • They have a TV connector cable included to watch videos on television
  • They have a tripod mount that fits any standard tripod
  • They record vdeo in .MP4 Format which is compatible with Windows Live Movie Maker

These cameras can be used in the following situations

  • Recording video for ICT projects such as the Year 5/6 advertisements ,Year6/7 advertisements and the year 3 force videos
  • Recording performances, presentations, assemblies, excursions and guest speakers
  • Recording interviews
  • Recording and analysing group work
  • Recording data in science projects, experiments or long-term monitoring of an outdoor location
  • Recording responses to books, projects, lessons and units
For some great examples of using Flip Cameras in the classroom, including uses for maths, science, PE, drama, behaviour analysis, excursions, debating, collaboration, language, school events, school promotions, training and so on  take a look at the Free Technology For Teachers blog.
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