Learning with iPads
Michelle Meracis and Jessica Gallagher
Manor Lakes P-12
Manor Lakes P-12 College is a government school in Wyndham Vale, a rapidly
growing residential area. The school
opened in 2009 with 450 students. Today,
the school has approximately 1600 P-11
students and 200+ dedicated staff. The
College is set amongst large grounds
with numerous active and passive play
areas.
Manor Lakes P-12 College strives to
provide a personalised learning program
through a rigorous curriculum that integrates the use of Information and Communication Technology. Currently, students
in years Prep, 1, 6, 7 and 8 participate in a
1:1 iPad program and students in years
9-11 participate in a BYOD (Bring Your
Own Device) model. This allows for learning to take place anywhere, anytime. Mobile
devices have not simply replaced pen and
paper; they have rather enhanced student
creativity and collaboration.
iPads were first introduced to grade 5
students in late 2010 when the college
was asked to take part in the DEECD iPad
trial (http://www.ipadsforeducation.vic.
edu.au/). In the very beginning, apps were
mainly used to support and reinforce
concepts covered in classes. They were
introduced during warm-ups as a way of
tuning students into learning and, in
some cases, to front load students. Now,
iPads are a tool used to support the learning process when and where students
see fit. Teachers set learning tasks and
students choose how to complete and
present them.
Literacy
Staff and students at Manor Lakes P-12
College use a number of apps to support
and reinforce literacy skills, particularly in
the areas of vocabulary building, notetaking, planning, drafting and publishing.
Many of the apps have been suggested
by staff, but most have been discovered,
tried, tested and shared by the students.
Some of the apps we use during the first
10-15 minutes of literacy lessons, our
warm-up/tuning-in time, include:
•
Chicktionary Lite,
•
Whirly Word,
•
Story Spine,
•
Mad Libs,
•
Words with Friends and
•
Hanging with Friends.
All of these are free. Chicktionary Lite and
Whirly Word are both anagram based
games. They require students to create a
number of words out of the given letters.
Story Spine and Mad Libs both focus on
the strategies and skills required for creating an interesting narrative while Mad
Libs reinforces parts of speech. Words with
Friends is a game similar to Scrabble and
Hanging with Friends, as the name suggests, is similar to Hangman. In our classrooms, we alternate between using the
Apple TV to explore these literacy apps
as a whole class and giving students quiet
time to work independently.
Many students prefer to take notes on
their iPad using apps such as Popplet Lite,
SimpleMind+, Corkulous and Lino. These
apps allow students to record notes in a
speedy manner, move them around and
alter where necessary. They are also popular for planning written texts, as are
Bamboo Paper and Idea Sketch. Sound
Note is another great note taking and
planning app as it allows students to
verbally record their ideas, as well as type
and draw them. As teachers, we love that
our students are planning and organising
their ideas using these apps, but we
encourage them to write in their books
too. There is a time and a place for writing
straight on the iPad; it is all about the
purpose of the activity.
In terms of publishing, iMovie, Storyrobe
and Explain Everything are at the top of
our students’ lists. Students find it easy to
import text, images and photos into these
Michelle Meracis
Manor Lakes P-12 College
Jessica Gallagher
Manor Lakes P-12 College
About the Authors
Micehlle and Jessica are teachers at Manor
Lakes P-12 College. Michelle has been
teaching for the past 16 years and has
taught in a range of schools – government,
independent, disadvantaged and privileged.
Prior to teaching, she worked at the University of Melbourne and for the Department of Education and Early Childhood
Development in educational computer
programs.
Michelle currently teaches year 6 at Manor
Lakes and holds the positions of Team
Leader and P-8 ICT Peer Coach.
Jessica currently teaches Grade 3 with a
strong passion for incorporating technology in the classroom.
apps and voice record over them.
Toontastic is another app that students
enjoy using. Its layout complements the
7 Steps to Writing Success program and
reinforces the sequence and strategies
necessary for composing a correctly
structured narrative. We have heard
some students say that they like how
Toontastic has clear steps for them to
follow, making the process of writing and
publishing so much easier.
Another great publishing app is Wattpad.
This app allows students to publish their
work to a global audience and read the
published pieces of those also signed up
to it. We have noticed that students who
generally refuse to write anything are
suddenly motivated to write and publish
their work. The published pieces are sorted into genres, making it easy for users to
locate something of interest.
During independent reading, students
have the option of selecting physical or
digital texts to read. In many cases, students read pieces from Wattpad. They also
read iBooks, eBooks, online books and
material from web sites, such as newspapers and history based texts. As teachers,
we roam and engage in conversations
with our students to ensure the texts they
are reading are appropriate for their reading level and age group.
decimals and percentages are all in the
same colour too, making the connections
easier to see and make. Students of all
ages and abilities have benefited from this
app.
Drawing apps have been useful during
small teaching focus groups. Rather than
students writing on paper or a small
whiteboard, students complete equations
on their iPad in a drawing app and save
their work directly to their camera roll.
This image is then inserted into their digital portfolio or used as the background to
a voice recording that outlines the steps
undertaken to complete the problem. In
the beginning, students used Reel Director, Splice, iMovie and Storyrobe to create
their tutorials. Over the past two years
they have moved onto screen recording
apps like Explain Everything, Educreations
and ShowMe Interactive to produce the
same result.
Numeracy
Similar to literacy, we use a number of apps
to support and reinforce numeracy skills.
Many of these apps are discovered by students and shared on a daily basis. In most
cases, these fun and addictive games are
played during the warm-up/tuning-in time
at the start of each lesson. Currently, the
most popular math apps include MathBoard, Mathletics, Math Dragon, Math
Ninja, Math vs Zombies, Number Battle,
Pick-a-Path, Shuttle Mission Math and
Speedo Math.
One particular app we have found to
“stand out” from the rest in terms of supporting and reinforcing student learning is
Virtual Manipulatives. This app is an inter
active fraction wall that can be viewed in
fraction, decimal and percentage form.
Students can drag tiles out to a main working space for simple comparison and
manipulation. Equivalent fractions,
Initially, students kept their tutorials on
their own iPad, sharing their work with
their peers and teachers only when prompted. Now, students export their tutorials
to their camera roll and either email them
to their teachers or upload them to a
shared folder in Dropbox. Our students
really enjoy watching and listening to the
different ways they each learn. We are
currently collecting the student made tutorials so we have a bank to select from to
support student learning across the college, as well as to front load students in a
way similar to a flipped classroom; the
main difference being that these tutorials
have been created for students, by students, using “kid speak” rather than “teacher
talk”.
An idea we have been looking into is having a student video record their teacher
on an iPad during the introduction of a
lesson to later post to a shared space, for
example, Dropbox, YouTube. At present,
students take photos of the examples
completed on the board to refer to, but
if someone records their teacher, an immediate tutorial can be created for students
to watch and listen to again, anywhere,
anytime. As an alternative to this idea,
because not everyone likes to be videoed,
teachers have started to connect their iPads
to an Apple TV and then record themselves
using a screen recording app introducing
the lesson. A tutorial is instantly created
and, during the lesson, it is uploaded to
Dropbox for students to refer to. Students
are encouraged to view the tutorial prior
to the following lesson to reinforce the
concepts and skills already covered.
Inquiry
For inquiry based work, students select
the apps they feel best meet their presentation needs. This may include using one
or a number of apps. Over the years, we
have seen a big shift from a picture and
some text in Keynote to top quality graphic
designs created in PicCollage. Some
students take these designs one step further by importing them into iMovie to
produce digital masterpieces including
voice recordings and original music composed in GarageBand. Like all lessons in
each learning area, as a class, we discuss
the apps that can be used to complete
certain tasks, to model thinking about our
thinking, as well as to assist those who
may be a little unsure of where to start.
Ultimately, though, the choice is up to the
student as to how they present their work.
A very popular app amongst students of
all ages and abilities at the moment is
Haiku Deck. It is very similar to PowerPoint
and Keynote, yet adding images as backgrounds, positioning text and rearranging
the order of slides is much easier. Its simple
features make it an effective and powerful
app to produce impressive presentations.
Collaboration
Since the beginning of the 1:1 iPad program, we have been amazed by the natural
transition towards collaboration and peer
coaching amongst students. It is common
for students to sit on the floor in small
groups to assist each other and discuss
the tasks they are completing. The design
of the devices lends themselves quite easily to students passing iPads around to
share and showcase what they’ve done
and how they’ve accomplished this.
This has been particularly evident in the
iBuddies program, where classes in grades
prep and 6 pair up and participate in
purposeful lessons that provide students
with opportunities to work collaboratively
on their iPads. Over the past two years,
we have observed the preps learning and
practising foundation skills and the grade
6s strengthening their peer coaching and
leadership capacity. A bonus from last
year’s experience has been the way this
year’s grade 1 students have supported
their current teachers with using the iPads
to enhance their learning by selecting
appropriate apps to complete class tasks.
This has been very helpful in supporting
the grade 1 teachers, many who are new
to the college, with effectively integrating
the technology in their learning and teaching programs.
It is evident that student voice is a strong
component of our 1:1 program. A large
part of its success stems from students
having the freedom to choose the apps
they want to use for a task and then being
able to explain why they chose it and
deemed it to be appropriate. This emphasis has really strengthened our students’
abilities to articulate and reflect on their
learning.
Cloud Technology
With a major focus on digital learning environments, we have needed to explore
ways for students to share work completed on their iPads with their teachers and
peers. In the very beginning, this was
through email. Every student at Manor
Lakes P-12 College has an email account.
Over the past two years, we have moved
across to using Dropbox. Within Dropbox,
teachers create one shared class folder
that all students in that grade are invited
to access. Teachers also create individual
folders for each student that only them
and that student access. This set up is
made possible by students having their
own Dropbox account. Managing work
this way has proved to be less time consuming as teachers don’t need to scroll
through and open copious emails to
download attachments, they can rather
access student folders and view submitted
work on any connected device.
A number of classes are also using Edmodo
and Google Drive as mediums to share
and submit work. Teachers at Manor Lakes
P-12 College work with their students to
select the preferred space to use and work
within, again demonstrating the college’s
focus on student voice.
The use of iPads in classrooms at Manor
Lakes P-12 College has certainly opened
up new and exciting ways for students to
create, collaborate, connect, share and
reflect. They have allowed students of all
abilities to feel immediate success and
produce work of an outstanding quality.