This term year 4 have been busily familiarising themselves with their BYO devices.
We have looked at how to become responsible and effective digital citizens by completing a cyber-smart course, produced by the Children’s Commission of eSafety, during Internet Safety Week and by engaging with the Digital Literacy and Citizenship iBooks. This involved completing range of activities encouraging students to reflect on their own practise within the school and their home environment.
The students have really enjoyed exploring the new options which are available to them because of the presence of a personal device. With their iPads, they have access to valuable and versatile cross curricular apps such as Book Creator, Inspiration, Pages and Explain Everything. The use of these apps provides editing or mind-mapping opportunities, publishing and sharing opportunities or the opportunity to make their thinking visible.
Inspiration mind mapping was used to assist with exploration of character whilst reading ‘The Twits’.
Book Creator was used to explore their weekly ‘Strive’ vocabulary words. The students were able to include a pictorial representation of the meaning of the word in addition to an audio recording and the text representation and meaning.
Additionally, the students have been able to demonstrate their understanding of maths concepts using Minecraft and Keynote.
Explain Everything was used to construct an interactive Fraction Wall which enhanced their understanding of equivalent fractions.
Students are also using Book Creator to monitor and reflect on their own learning for weekly tasks and are able to share their learning with teachers and their peers through Showbie.
Within Science we have using our favourite apps – in this instance – Book Creator to complete our investigation on rocks.
Using Minecraft to create an erosion model of the school oval:
What a wonderful term we have had! We are looking forward to continuing our learning journey as a class in Term 2.
Written by Miranda Thompson