This year’s students have finally got their podcasts up and running. It’s surprising just how easy it is to create the podcasts and just how enthusiastic the students are to do them. To get warmed up our first podcast was a very informal one, with the students talking about themselves (something of a natural talent with this group). The two I’ve included here are fun and easy to listen to and have such a relaxed style. I hope you enjoy them as much as I did and perhaps learn a thing or two about the students.
IT
iPad Art
This particular art activity took a lot of time and effort to prepare, but I think you’ll agree it was well worth the effort. Each student had to take around 30 photo’s of themselves before cropping them, copying some and and creating a collage for the background to the finished product. They then used the Brushes app on the iPads to create these stunning images. These are just a few, but the students are in the process of putting their own images on their blogs so you may find more there, check them out. Click on the images to see a full size version.
Tech Across The Years
This week we’ve had a concerted push to try and spread a little of the technology we use at school further across the age ranges. On Thursday we had a PD afternoon where four of the students from LA19 helped show the staff how to create podcasts. Following this, some of the students went across the school on Friday to help tutor other students in the skills of producing podcasts with the iPads. Below are a selection of these fabulous efforts. These are just the first few and will be added to shortly. I hope you enjoy them.
Students Become Teachers
One of the signs of a good teacher, in fact a good school, is that they are able to say that they need help with something, or they need to improve in a particular area. Well, that’s exactly what we’re about to do. The students in LA19 have been happily blogging and podcasting for some time now and their amazing skills have been recognised as a valuable asset to the school. Next week 4 students from the class will be attending a staff meeting where they will get to help teachers who want to learn the benefits of using Garage Band on the iPads to record students’ speech. This can be used for activities such as podcasting, or simply to create a record of students’ reading abilities. Whatever the reason for using the technology, having the skill gives teachers another valuable tool which they can use to improve the learning of their students. The students of LA19 can also be proud of their achievements and that their skills are being used to benefit the learning of others. Well done!
Top Techies!
Many youngsters nowadays are very much into technology. Well, the students from LA19 are no different. Here’s a list of some of the best techie blogs from the class, filled with news, information, tips, movies and fun. Never forget, that without some young people who were once interested in technology we wouldn’t have the iPhone and iPad, apps, Facebook (love it or hate it) and many other things we simply can’t live without in our modern world (including the computer you’re reading this on).
Pre-Primary iPad Art
Today the students from LA19 buddied up with the young pre-primary kids from EC2 to do some work with the iPads. We worked with the Brushes app to give the students experience with using the iPad and developing the types of skills and control needed to use them. The students from LA19 first created pictures of the names of the Pre-Primary students and uploaded them to Dropbox. They then connected the iPads to Dropbox, downloaded the pictures, opened them in Brushes and used the tools and layers to colour the names. The students from LA19 were absolutely fabulous and were so patient with their buddies, while the PP students couldn’t wait to tell their parents what they’d done after school.
Ella
Keeley
Podcast Trial
Today we had a go at creating a podcast using Garage Band on the iPad. As the title to this post suggests, it was just a trial, unrehearsed and limited to 60 seconds. It was created simply to see if it was possible, and to figure out what we had to do to successfully publish a podcast. Nevertheless, the girls had great fun (as you will hear) and it seems to have all worked well.
iPad Art
Eesha
Josh
For the past few weeks the students have been creating art masterpieces using iPads. We looked at the art of Julian Opie (famous for the Blur album cover that people as old as me may remember) and have tried creating our own versions of our own faces using the Brushes app. We first took photos and uploaded them to Dropbox. Next, we connected to Dropbox on the iPads and downloaded the photo’s so we could work on them. We opened the photo’s in Brushes and away we went.
This activity had many learning opportunities attached to it. The obvious one is that we learned to use a new app on the iPads and developed our skills in working with the technology. We learnt the concept of using layers in art applications, the same types of skills which are used in Photoshop and other design programmes. We also developed our understanding of working in “the cloud”, of how we can store and retrieve work external from the device we are using. Finally, as I’m sure you’ll agree, we made some amazing art.
Claymation
The class has produced some excellent claymation movies this term. In addition to producing the claymation on computer, they also created their own music on Garage Band with iPads and added it to their movies. Here are two great examples. Well done Jasmine, Ashleigh and Dom.