Well, using the iPods with two excited little boys last week was obviously a clear winner !
Their faces lit up when we took them out of the boxes for them to use. Both boys sat at the table with their reader and listened intently, then they were straight back to me as the instructions on the iPod required them to "now read to the Teacher."
No real surprise the next day at Reading groups when the iPods were not in use that one of the boys was spied in the readers circle book closed !! not engaging in the group, bring back that iPod we said !!
We are obviously going to continue with the use of this technology in our groups this term, thanks Fran for your help and support !
Coleen

iPods arrive in KB

Back on the air !!
Last week Fran helped me to use the iPods with the Audacity program, it was very easy to use. I read a couple of levelled texts on to them to use with two boys in my class. One of the boys isn't very motivated when it comes to the reading process, and the for the other, reading hasn't quite "clicked" yet, so I wanted to motivate them and record any changes that may occur to attitude, confidence,skills etc.
I will try them out in Reading groups over the next few weeks.
I also dialogued with the boys last week about reading in general and scribed their responses. With Kinder it is sometimes tricky to get a true indication of how they really feel or think about things as they are so young, nevertheless, I wrote their resposes to use at a later date.
Col

imacs in Year 1-assessment task

I witnessed how effective the recording of student responses using audio recording, can be in Tracey's class this week. Tracey recorded students verbally explaining the life cycle of a frog, using visual cues (of the stages) as they went. The student that I heard was one who normally would be very challenged if he had had to write the explanations. His verbal descriptions, his use of language & correct terminology were superior to any of his written work & showed that he throughly knew the content. The next student (another boy) was generally considered a higher achieving student but also often displayed poorer written responses to his verbal. This student was able to give even better descriptions, using better language skills & more detail. Tracey can now use the recordings as an assessment, focusing on the HSIE outcome, rather than being hindered by poor writing examples which do not do justice to student's knowledge of the topic.

Tracey did a great job, -learning how to log in to our new laptops, setting up the macs to record in 'garageband' and giving the students a new way to show their learning!

Well done Trace!!
Frances

Interesting iPods!

Tracey, Luke and I attended an interesting Professional Development morning in Leichardt today. It was all about using iPods and Podcasting technologies to engage children in language experiences.

It was presented by Jeff Vardy who is a primary school teacher in the Wollongong Diocese.
Jeff's presentation was great, as he is a classroom teacher his ideas were very practical and he was able to present work his students had done with podcasting and class websites, that enriched his presentation as we could then see it "in action."

Jeff's session focused on where technology has its place in the curriculum and that "the teaching comes first. " He also gave us examples of how the use of the iPods came about in his classroom.

He began with the all important, and sometimes overlooked area of Talking and Listening. The idea of the podcasts and making Radio Shows with the children complimented this area of the English KLA very well. He also gave examples of using iPods in Maths too where children listen to their Maths problem and have a series of activities to do. (Great for chn who need to listen to the question several times to really understand it or for the poorer reader.)

The session ended with all of us having a go at making a podcast ourselves. Apple computers were favoured and using the program was quite easy.

It was a good intro to using this form of technology in the classroom.

Coleen.

Thanks to those people who have made great comments, each have been read carefully and ideas have been jotted down.
Frances are you joining our little group ?? It would be great if you did !! Thanks for ordering the iPods, Kinder Blue would LOVE to use them when they arrive.
I really liked the website used in KB's Techno lesson last week, and will try it out myself.
Trace, Fran, maybe Luke and myself are off for some professional development at Leichardt on Saturday re iPods, looking forward to hopefully hearing more ideas.
Coleen

Our First Post

Recently we have been discussing the future direction which our group would take in regards to boys education. We discussed reading and writing issues in particular. Through research we discovered that most of the research indicates and highlights what we arleady know and implement in our classrooms. Another hurdle which we have encountered is that a majority of information is targeted at middle to upper primary children. Also we have found it difficult to find pratical ways to improve or implement programs into our classrooms.

Through discussion with Frances and Toni who had recently been to a professional training day they gave us the idea of using ipods in reading groups which have levelled stories on them. We are hoping to get uppper primary boys to read the stories onto the ipods.

In year 1 our focus is on improving writing skills and language development. Programming will focus on sentence structure and using alot of discussion to help develop their oral language.

Kinder may follow and centre their writing program on boys topics and girl topics.

Please feel free to add other ideas or research which you may have.

Thanks

Love tracey, col and annette