We hosted our BYO Parent Night for 2020 last night. Our BYO Program has now been running for 5 years, is profiled on the Department’s BYOx site as a case study and is often the focus of queries from other schools seeking to be guided about BYO implementation.
Speaking to an interested group of parents, we presented an overview of our program with the highlight being the opportunity to hear from our talented classroom teachers about the benefits of using iPad in the classroom to support and extend learning.
The main slideshow deck is displayed below:
When it came time for the teachers to share, Miranda Thompson shared stories of learning in Yr 6 including:
- the publishing of digital books to a global audience,
- formative feedback using Showbie,
- research and note-taking using split screen functionality
- creation of infographics from research
The Yr 4 teachers, Allison Swann, Mikaela Jones and Carly Board shared many stories of learning including:
- the Digital Technologies work encompassing the creation of Scratch animations which have assisted the whole class to improve at their times tables.
- the variety of learning tasks which can be supported in a rotational maths setting.
- the use of formative assessment with online quiz tools to enable teachers to plan teaching for different levels of ability and for students to set their own goals.
- differentiated spelling tools
- vocabulary exploration using the multimodal functionality of iPads
- the creation of tasks which support students capacity to explore, consolidate and think critically
- the use of school created digital books enabling students to work at their own pace
To conclude the session, we shared with parents the opportunity for Yr 3 students to bring in their iPads during specific learning episodes during Term 4 which will allow us to work with students and parents on ensuring that by the end of the year they are ready for Year 4.