Minecraft Mission to Mars

Minecraft Mission to Mars

 

I’m so excited!  I literally bounced into one of my co-teacher’s rooms after school last week, waving around my computer and shouting, “Look at this!  Sooo cool!  The kids are going to FREAK!” I’ve only been at this school for two terms, but my new School Squad know me well enough to smile indulgently when I show this much enthusiasm.

I’d been looking for a fun, challenging and engaging collaborative Minecraft challenge that would stretch my students and be a good feature for our STEM week event.  I found it!  It’s available on the Minecraft Education Edition website and is called Mission to Mars, created by the talented Chris Fuge (Twitter,  website) (I hope you create more worlds and lessons soon!)  It looked awesome.  Students tour a NASA facility, learning how to survive and thrive on Mars, with lots of NPC scientists providing external links to more kid-friendly research.  Then, and this is where it gets AWESOME, you fill a single, solitary chest with just 27 items before blasting off in a rocket ship to Mars.  There, you have to build a colony, survive radiation, accidents and sickness, find water, create a facility and grow enough food to survive.

My School Squad are fantastic, but they are yet to become Minecraft enthusiasts (I’m already straining their brains with Seesaw!)  So, there was only one thing to do. I had to call in the big guns to help me to experiment with this world – my two personal children (as opposed to my many school children!)

So began a wonderful afternoon of research, debating, arguing, crossing out and filling in of lists before we launched off to Mars and built our colony.  My 12 year old son is the true building whizz, with my daughter having a flair for organisation, and I’m pretty good at planting trees and harvesting wheat. (I’m far better at teaching with Minecraft than I am at using Minecraft, but I get by).  We were all pretty happy with the results, and I was able to get a lot of tips to pass on to my less experienced students.

Here are our top tips for successful Mars colonisation:

  • Teamwork – definitely have groups of at least 3 students, stretching to 5 quite comfortably.
  • Research which tree types grow best in an enclosed area, and how far apart to plant them.
  • Crops need water to grow – have a couple of plans for how to get water on Mars.
  • Have students assign roles – this is more efficient than everyone going off and doing their own thing.
  • Eat regularly – all of that building and exploring will make your hunger grow quickly.

Here are a few screenshots of our colony.

This module arrives with you on Mars – we added multiple furnaces to speed up glass production.
Crops need water – how will you ensure you have enough?
We put animals and trees into the same greenhouse. Our trees are planted too close together – some didn’t grow.
Our partially built colony. Mars is desolate and lacking in many resources. Pack carefully!

Our conclusion?  This activity is as awesome as it looked on the website!  Seriously, I can’t wait until I get back from the July holidays (two weeks in winter in Australia) and get stuck into my Minecraft sessions.  I’ll have six weeks of 110 minutes with my group of 25 students, which should be just about perfect.

I’ve adapted the already fantastic student worksheet provided (the original was designed for printing – I’ve adapted it for OneNote use). You can find the OneNote version here along with my other resources created to go with previous blog posts.  Full credit to Chris Fuge  – I’ve just added in my trademark tables and a place to insert photos.  I’ll also have students document the entire journey by using the Minecraft Portfolio and Camera objects (meaning my students get to select only 25 objects!)

Want to know what our final Mission to Mars pack list was?  Sorry – not telling!  You’ll have to download the world from the Minecraft Education and try it out yourself.

Bump It Up!

Bump It Up!

Our Lady of Grace is taking part in Visible Learning Plus Training through Corwin.  It’s a three year project, and we’re only in the first year, but I’m already finding that the training is having an impact on how I teach learners.  I already use Learning Intentions for all of my units and lessons, and these Learning Intentions – in the form of WALT (We Are Learning To) and WILF (What I’m Looking For) are on display both in the classroom, and in my Class OneNote.

 

 

 

 

I also use rubrics in all assessment pieces – so learners can read exactly how to get a good grade.  I explicitly teach how to read and use rubrics, and the checkboxes in OneNote mean that the learners actually self assess as they go – ticking the boxes based on where they believe they sit.  I check all of the boxes in the ‘Not Yet’ section, and they move them up as they go along.

But, it was during one of the early Visible Learning Plus training days that I had an ‘ah-ha’ moment.  Gilbert (our trainer – Twitter account here) mentioned ‘Bump It Up’ walls – particularly for Junior Primary students, who can’t necessarily read and understand rubrics yet.  But, many of my learners are visual learners – how powerful would a Bump It Up wall combined with a rubric be?!?!

Even better, how powerful would it be if the learners and I created the Bump It Up wall together?!?!  (Mind blown!)

For the TimeLine Bump It Up, I began with a timeline about The First Fleet that I found on TeachStarter. (I have a membership).

I copied the timeline onto a PowerPoint document, and added ‘Above Standard’ to one page, with a duplicate slide titled ‘At Standard’ on a second page.  The third page I left blank, apart form the words ‘Below Standard’ placed in the top corner.  I then printed multiple copies in A3 size, and the learners and I got to work.

First, they were divided into groups, and asked to identify all of the things that made the Above Standard Timeline above standard.  They were then asked to CHANGE the timeline on the second page to make it only At Standard.  Finally, I asked them to create a Below Standard Timeline.

I’ve never heard so much giggling from a class of Year 5s in my life!  They thoroughly enjoyed creating a below standard timeline, and fell over each other to create the worst possible piece of work!

Once they’d regained their composure, I gathered them together, and we collated their thoughts onto my original PowerPoint.  I demonstrated how to use the simple tools of PowerPoint to add text and arrows to the page.  Then, the students went back to their groups, took a photo of their Below Standard timelines and added text and photos, before sending the pages to me.  Here are some of them below.

I don’t believe in reinventing the wheel, so a quick internet search turned up the cutest free signage here. Then, up it went onto the wall!  When students were creating their timelines, they literally got up, crossed the room, and compared their timelines to the Bump It Up wall.  One student looked at the wall, looked at me, shook her head, and said,

“I can’t believe I forgot to put in a title!”

before walking away to fix the situation.  Heart filled!

Of course, I can’t have all subject areas up at the same time – I don’t have enough wall space!  So, I did what I always do, and had OneNote come to the rescue.  I created a new Section, called it ‘Bump It Up’ in the Content Library of the Class OneNote, and now I add the examples as we create them.  That’s been really useful, because not only will I have them in a central location for next year, but the learners can go back and refer to them as they need to.  This is particularly useful for items such as timelines and graphs, which are integrated across various areas of the curriculum.

It did take most of a lesson to create the Bump It Up wall WITH the learners, so it’s not something that I can do all of the time.  However, I think that it’s worthwhile doing it like that whenever I can, because it’s so much more powerful when learners are involved in the process, not just left with the outcome.

I also ran a shortened version of the Timeline activity with the School Board, so that they could really understand how the Bump It Up idea works.  They took it so seriously, and got rather competitive about the whole process!  They said that they enjoyed the experience, and it added to their understanding.  I think that in future though, I’d better bring a prize for the team that finds the most relevant points – they were disappointed that I didn’t have one!

 

 

 

 

Real Estate in Minecraft

Real Estate in Minecraft

Ok, so the first lesson we did made sure that all Learners had the same basic skills to navigate and create in Minecraft.

This lesson in Minecraft Education Edition was all about helping learners and their families realise the educational potential of Minecraft. The lesson was based in Starter Town – a lovely little world with some basic civics buildings and 30 numbered empty blocks of land – just waiting for eager builders!

Students negotiated amongst themselves on land selection, and were given two lessons to build, fit out and photograph their property.  (They won’t always need that long, but many of the students are still adjusting to the controls on Macbooks). The whole lesson was outlined in OneNote to ensure that learners stayed on track.  I’ve shared the overall lesson plan here (just look for the page called ‘Starter Town – Real Estate’.) . The Learning Intentions are shown in the image below.

Learners created such diverse houses – from castles to mansions, to mushroom cottages, to log cabins to glass houses.  Infinity pools, cinemas, fireplaces, libraries – all included.

This is where it got educational – learners had to create a sales pitch for their property, based on real estate adverts, then create and publish a tri-fold brochure.  We used the website Canva, which has a brilliant range of easy to use templates.  Just make sure that students don’t accidentally include any paid features – they can’t download their work if they do.. The completed products were very impressive, and I discovered creative flair that I hadn’t suspected lived within some of the students.  Below is one of my Learner’s brochures.  I love his use of colours, photos of unique features and range of adjectives used.

Brochures were printed double sided, and then trimmed, folded and sent home – with strict instructions to share immediately with parents. The verbal feedback that I received from parents was very positive – their children were coming home excited about their day, babbling about Minecraft, and excitedly thrusting brochures under their noses.  Students that were usually reluctant writers were incredibly keen to explain the features of their property, and to justify the hefty price tags attached!  Everyone could instantly see the educational value of Minecraft – in this instance, it was used as a prompt to inspire literacy.

A win-win-win situation if ever I saw one – happy learners, happy parents, happy me!  Next lesson will be looking at the Civics buildings that are in Starter Town.  I can’t wait!

Beginning with Minecraft Education Edition

Beginning with Minecraft Education Edition

Feeling overwhelmed at the mere thought of trying to use Minecraft Education Edition with your students?  I’m guessing that this is because your students know so much more about how to play it than you do?  Never fear – just strap on a growth mindset, be prepared to learn from your students, and dive straight in!

Minecraft Education Edition is a new adventure for me.  I’m currently heading up a team at my school where we are taking part in a Catholic Ed SA project for using Minecraft Education Edition through a religious lens, with the aim of teaching sustainability. But, before we could get to a religious perspective, we had to up the Minecraft skills of our students, and get them used to the idea that this was learning, not just play!

Needless to say, they were beside themselves with excitement.  I’ve been teaching the same group of learners for a couple of years now, and they have an excellent growth mindset (particularly when it comes to digitech!) and love to be my guinea pigs.  To begin with, we got all students participating in the project (all Year 3, 4 and 5 learners – around 100 students) together and we established our agreed practices.  The teaching team felt that this was important, to separate learning from playing, right from the beginning.  Here is a copy of what we came up with.

The agreed practices has been invaluable – there has been absolutely no confusion about which worlds students need to reserve for learning, and which ones they can use during inside play (for example due to bad weather).

Side note: the Big 5 is a school-wide code of conduct, and consists of:

  • Be Christlike
  • Be Brave
  • Be Supportive
  • Be Respectful
  • Be Safe

So anyway, to keep the learners focused on the fact that we were undertaking learning tasks, I did what I do best – I created a lesson in Class OneNote and distributed it to my Year 4-5 learners.  There’s nothing like clear Learning Intentions to remind students that we are learning, not just playing!

The first hurdle I had to overcome was – how do I teach 66 learners all at once?  Turns out that I didn’t have to – I had a significant number of Minecraft Experts on my hands!  I had all of the learners self-nominate their level of expertise, and then put themselves into groups of the following;

  • 1 Minecraft Expert
  • 1-2 Minecraft Middle-Roaders
  • 1-2 Minecraft Beginners.

One of my favourite aspects of this – is that the children that were Minecraft Experts, are not necessarily the usual leaders in my Village – giving a whole new level of respect to students who don’t always get to shine.

We strongly discourage (read don’t allow) learners to download anything off the internet.  So, in order for learners to have access to the Minecraft worlds that I want them to use, I created a shared folder in OneDrive.  Only one student from each group needs to download the world, and then the other members of that group can join up.  I went through the instructions step-by-step, but also included a screenshot and instructions in OneNote so that learners could remember how it’s done.

The groups of students then worked together to build expertise and get through all of the levels.  There was a huge buzz in the room, and seeing such diverse groupings of learners encouraging and supporting each other warmed my teacher heart.

All of the worlds that I’m using come straight off the Minecraft Education Edition website – a fantastic resource for Educators like me – willing, but not necessarily brilliant at using Minecraft.  All of the work is done for you!

What did I take away from this lesson?  That my learners continually surprise me and that they have more patience and persistence than I sometimes give them credit for.  I learned that I don’t have to be an expert at a technology in order to use it with students, I just have to set clear Learning Intentions, and the learners will do the rest.

Oh, and I also learned that my students love it when I bumble around with them – they really enjoy teaching me tips and tricks!  Go on – give it a go!

Ozobots, OneNote and Seesaw

Ozobots, OneNote and Seesaw

Recently, Our Lady of Grace was fortunate enough to borrow a set of 12 Ozobots from the Catholic Education SA Learning Technologies Team.  All Learners throughout the three Villages had the opportunity to use the Ozobots as part of their learning in the Digital Technologies curriculum. I was able to combine several of my favourite Digital Technologies tools – OneNote, Seesaw and robots (Ozobots in this case).

 

Learners in the 4/5 Village established an understanding of how the Ozobots worked, and then used the visual programming codes to create algorithms and debugged their algorithms to solve problems.  They used their knowledge of measurement to create a ‘race track’ measuring at least 100cm in length and incorporated a number of codes that they felt would help them to win a race against another Ozobot and learner.  This assessment was adapted from the Ozobot website – original lesson plan available here.

I wrote up the lesson for Learners in their OneNotes, and distributed the task out to them. I mashed up sections of the Ozobot lesson with note taking and reflection questions that linked to the Australian Curriculum.

For the labelled diagram component, students took a photo on Seesaw and then used the ‘Label’ tool to label all of the colour codes that they had used.

I’ve added the student OneNote page here. 

The Seesaw activity that we used for the labelling of their racetracks here.

Ideas for the Younger Years

R/1 Village

In the Early Years, the Digital Technology curriculum focuses on exploring and solving problems.  Learners experimented with using the Ozobots, making predictions and solving simple problems.  This included drawing lines for the Ozobot to follow, and when the Ozobot got confused, they went back and solved this problem, for example, by making the line thicker.  They made predictions based on experiences, such as, “The lights went red when the Ozobot went on the red line.  I think the lights will turn green when it goes on the green line.”

2/3 Village

After the initial exploration stage, learners in the 2/3 Village moved on to experimenting with colour codes.  They explored the best way to draw codes in order for the Ozobot to be able to follow and experimented with executing special moves (moonwalk, zigzag and tornado were favourites!)  Learners then made race tracks incorporating some of the special moves codes.  When codes were unsuccessful, learners developed and shared strategies for improving their track fluency.

Throughout the Villages, it was wonderful to hear the rich discussions around the Ozobots, including how they work, why the Ozobot wasn’t doing what they wanted it to, how to solve problems, negotiate access and work collaboratively.  Ozobots are now definitely on our wish-list for purchases for Digital Technologies at Our Lady of Grace!

Collaboration is Key

Collaboration is Key

The collaboration space in class OneNote is often under utilised because educators aren’t sure what to do with it, syncing problems when the internet is slow can result in confusion, and students fear their work will be copied. But, when used creatively, the ‘collaboration’ aspect of the Collaboration Space can be a very powerful tool.

Avoid competitive tasks in this space.

I prefer to use the Collaboration Space as a place where learners build resources together that they can all benefit from, where they share their ideas and support each other’s learning. Last year, we worked together and created a series of resources to support and extend each other in creative writing.

In ‘Instead of Said’ students were given five minutes to find as many different ways that they could to make the boring sentence, “The cat sat on the mat,” said Dad more interesting by using words other than ‘said’. They then copied and pasted their ideas into the Collaboration Space. We then had a bank of words to use instead of ‘said’ when including direct speech in narrative writing.

There are so many better words to use rather than, ‘said’!

Learners had so much fun with this activity, and found the said alternative list so useful that I expanded this idea to other aspects of narrative writing.

Emotional Inferencing

We were looking at inference, and ways of suggesting how a character is feeling without actually naming that emotion. So, students selected an emotion each to write about, and we then copied their work into an emotion bank to benefit all students in narrative writing. This was lots of fun, and useful to boot!

You can see down the left all of the different emotions that students selected – such a great resource for writing projects!

I’ve added the ‘Emotion Inferences’ blank page to my shared Bau Teacher Adventures OneNote.  Find the link here, and please feel free to adapt and use!

Spectacular Settings

This year, I’m also going to include a ‘settings selection’ section in the Collaboration Space.  I’m planning on having students gather a variety of pictures of different scenes, seasons etc, and brainstorm some interesting descriptive words to go with them.

Lots of lists

We also use the Collaboration Space as a central location for groups of students (or even the whole Village).  These lists have included;

  • Class brainstorm on what to pack for school camp
  • Sphero project ideas
  • Fitness/ Brain break bank
Ideas for Sphero projects – it was a long list, and there was a great deal of excitement!
This was from before I discovered Forms! Learners initialled their top preferences for lollies for movie night on school camp.

Peer Editing/ Support/ Assessment

Learners complete a rough draft of an essay or project in their personal Notebook section, and then copy and paste the page into the Collaboration Space, where another student provides constructive feedback/ assists with editing/ does a peer assessment.

The original learner then copies the page back into their personal Notebook, and applies any changes/ constructive criticism that they agree with.

Preventing Syncing Errors

Sync errors are the most frustrating aspect of the Collaboration Space, and can turn excitement to dismay in a matter of moments. I have several methods of avoiding this problem, depending on what type of task we are doing.

  • Inserting tables and assigning each student a separate line.
  • Assigning each group of students a separate page within a Section, so all students can easily find each group’s work, but only a few people are contributing to a page at a time.
Students worked on this in groups of 4. Because the table was colour coded, learners were encouraged to talk to each other about which section they were currently added to in order to avoid syncing errors.
  • Learners do the work in their individual Section, and then copy and paste the page to the Collaboration Space, ensuring that they have their original in a safe place.

So, collaborate, don’t compete, and then sit back and listen to your learners’ conversations as they interact, support and encourage each other!

6 Tips for Assessing in OneNote

6 Tips for Assessing in OneNote
  1.   Distribute everything! 

The Distribute and Review functions are easily my favourite Class OneNote tools. With a couple of clicks, I can distribute a page or section out to all of my learners.

Distribution changed my world!

The best part though, is when I want to review or assess their work. I just go into Class  Notebook tools, click on review work and follow the prompts. Then, I have the work of all my students, right there in front of me! This function has dramatically reduced the amount of time that I spend marking.

 

There are a few tips though;

  • Train your learners to NOT change the title. If they do, OneNote will not recognise that student’s work, and you will have to find it manually. (Not cool people! I remind my learners that they want me in a good mood when I’m assessing, not grouchy because they played with the title.)
  • Distribute EVERYTHING. Even if it is just a title such as “T1 W2 Recount” and a blank page. You never know when you might want to review work.
  • Don’t let learners create their own Sections. Each individual’s section will then be listed, and this is downright irritating when distributing and reviewing work.

 

  1. Allow alternative assessment methods for learners that need it

When I’m planning assessments, I ask myself what it is that I’m trying to find out. If the answer isn’t about spelling, grammar and punctuation, then I incorporate multimodal assessment features, especially for students with additional needs.

OneNote is great for this, particularly by allowing the insertion of

  • dot points
  • audio responses (read more here).
  • images
  • videos (though sadly, not in Mac at the moment)
  • Youtube will embed directly into OneNote for Mac.

    Audio responses are great for students with dyslexia.
  1. Put questions and answers in tables

This is to make it easy for responses to be clearly written. This makes marking easy, as you don’t have to go searching for student answers amongst the text. More about tables in OneNote can be found in an earlier post here.

No more hunting for answers – I know exactly where to find them!

 

  1. Keep a copy of the marked rubric in a separate teacher-only location

 Kids will be kids, accidents happen, and I don’t like having to do a job twice. While I mark in the Class OneNote, I also have a second OneNote, containing my assessment data, and I copy and paste the completed rubric with my comments into a page per child.

Two Notebooks open – on the left is my ‘for teacher eyes only’ record, on the right is the Class OneNote.

It takes just a couple of seconds to do, but it provides a back up in case an accident (or “accident”) ever happens. It also means that when I met with parents, I have all the assessment rubrics in the one place.

I used to screenshot the completed rubric and then insert it back in as an image so that students couldn’t change their own grades, but it’s never happened, and I’m diligent about making the copy immediately, so I’ve scrapped the extra work  as being unnecessary.

  1. Include WALT, WILF and rubric in the assessment.

My students learn best when they know what they are learning, why they are learning it, and what I’m looking for when I mark an assessment. With that in mind, I make use of tables and the audio recording tool to enable students to have the best opportunity for success. (read more about differentiation here.)  Whenever I get the chance, I prefer to create the rubric with the learners, so that they understand exactly what they are being assessed on.  This is easy enough to do, and I can distribute the page out to them after we have made the rubric together.

Students refer to these regularly, along with the assessment rubric.
  1. Consider embedding a Form for a self marking component

Marking is one of my least favourite activities as a teacher. When possible, I include a Forms quiz and insert it into OneNote as a part of an overall assessment.  Just create the quiz in Forms, click on’ share’, get the Url and insert into OneNote. OneNote will embed the Form, making it easy for students to find and complete.

An embedded Form is great for a quick assessment.

Finally

What I love the most about assessing in OneNote though is simple logistics. I teach in a Village environment, which this year consists of 67 students, three teachers and three support staff. It simply isn’t possible to carry that many books home. Also, it’s very possible for books to go missing, or for another teacher to need them at the same time. With OneNote, I can assess efficiently, from anywhere.

Building Identity – I am Unique

Building Identity – I am Unique

School’s back!  I’m working with Year 4s and 5s again this year, as well as a leadership role in ICT and Digital Tech.  The Year 5s have been my learners for 1-2 years already, and the Year 4s are familiar to me through my ICT role, but haven’t been part of my Village before.

So, there’s a lot of ‘getting to know you’ activities going on.  I’m also incorporating some Health, in the form of Building Identity.  I’m pretty pleased with the outcomes of my first ‘real’ lesson for the year, and thought I’d share it with you.

Our Lady of Grace has been working with Mark Treadwell for the last few years, and we now do a lot of work on helping our learners to understand themselves, their character strengths, how they learn, and the importance of having a growth mindset.

I began the lesson with a favourite picture book of mine – ‘I like myself’ by Karen Beaumont.

Next, the students brainstormed both external and internal characteristics about themselves that they like. Then they worked with hula hoops in small groups to make Venn diagrams comparing and contrasting their characteristics and hobbies with some of their peers.

Hoops make great Venn Diagrams

We discussed their findings with the larger group, and learners took photos of their lists and Venn diagrams, inserted them into their Class OneNotes and reflected on how they are unique.

We celebrated their internal characteristics by creating a Word Cloud, and sharing it with their families on Seesaw.

Over the coming weeks, we’re going to work on goals, attitudes and habits.  I love seeing learner’s confidence grow, and their willingness to tackle challenges and try new things.

I’ve started a OneNote to share lesson plans and ideas with you here.

The activity that I created in Seesaw to go with this lesson is here.

 

 

Independence with OneNote

Independence with OneNote

We have a mix of several ongoing projects/ extended learning activities in our Village as well as shorter term activities.  We also, like any class, have learners who finish the shorter activities quickly.  There’s always something to do, but sometimes our learners get confused about what priority they should place on activities, or they just want to have a bit of agency over their learning and choose what they do and when.

So, we came up with the Independence List.  We have tried several designs over the last two years, but this is our current working model.

As you can see, the activities are down the left hand side.  Any that MUST be completed by Friday afternoon of that week are highlighted in green.

Student names run across the top.  You’ll notice that Harrison’s name is green – this means that he has currently completed everything, and he can have free time to work on a project of his choice.  (Most learners have been choosing Hour of Code activities lately).

Independence List Codes

  • Green – activity is complete and checked by an educator.
  • Yellow – student has been working on an activity, but not yet complete.
  • Red – activity has not been begun.
  • M – activity is marked by an educator, and feedback is available (usually in their OneNote page).
  • A – student was absent and does not have to do this activity.

What we love about this current model is that we’ve put it into the Content Library in the Class OneNote.  This means that learners can view the Independence List whenever and wherever they are (including at home with their parents).  But, because we’ve placed it into the Content Library, only educators can edit the list (no sneaky checking off activities that aren’t really up to standard!)

We’ve created a Section called Independence, and we create a new page for every week.  This way, when we get to assessment time, and we need to check boxes in report cards about items such as ‘organisation’, ‘manages time well’ etc, we have instant documented evidence.

We have also built in designated ‘Independence Blocks’ into our weekly planning.  This gives everyone a chance to work on their activities.  I did an informal survey of students a while ago, and they all agreed that Independence is great, and they used their time in a variety of ways.  Here are some of them below.

  • Start at the top, and work on a task until complete before moving onto the next one.
  • Do what I’m feeling the most excited about first, but keep watch on what has to be finished by Friday.
  • Do what I don’t enjoy as much first so I get it over with.
  • Set myself 15 minutes on an activity and then switch to something else so I don’t get bored.
  • Get everything done to what I think is a pass, then go back and try and improve.

Our learners with additional needs thrive off the Independence List.  It is clear, easy to read, and the colour codes are simple to understand.  Planning difficulties can be managed by reminding these learners to focus on the highlighted tasks.

The Independence List in the Content Library of Class OneNote has been a game-changer for us, because we don’t have learners constantly asking us, “What do I do now?”  They can always find out for themselves as it is always available to them!  Also, a simple question from an educator of, “How’s your Independence List looking?” is guaranteed to get a chatty child right back on task!

Link to my OneNote containing an Independence List that you can edit for your own students can be found here. 

 

I’m Number Nine!

I’m Number Nine!

Well, this was unexpected!  Earlier this year, I was asked by the lovely team at Catholic Education SA’s Learning and Technology Team to present at an O365 networking day.  I couldn’t – I was going to be on school camp!  So, the wonderful Chris came to my school with a fancy computer and recording equipment, and we made some videos together.  He put them onto Vimeo, and next thing, I was being asked over Skype by none other than Mike Tholfsen of the OneNote Hall of Fame to write a guest blog post or two.  So I did!  And, here it is, listed as Number 9 on the Top 10 top tech guides from educators for 2017! If this doesn’t encourage me to keep blogging, I don’t know what will!  Thanks Microsoft!

Oh, and here are the links to the videos we made about OneNote. They’re looking a bit outdated – only a few short months later, but that’s technology for you.  The ideas are still solid.  Hope you enjoy.

OneNote for Education

OneNote Class Notebook – Assessment Example

OneNote Class Notebook – Using audio and media

and a video by one of my Year 5 learners

O365 – Using OneNote Class OneNote

 

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