Learning Technology Monthly Update #2
During this fantastic week of fundraising some students got to play a great game where you get to dunk Mrs. Lowe with a bucket of cold water. For anyone who didn’t get to play or wants to play again please visit http://gg.gg/dunkmrslowe
Students in Year 1 have settled in really well and have been learning to use iPads for all sorts of creating. They have recently been adding their own voice to characters and stories in various apps. Last week they used ChatterPix to add mouths and voices to familiar faces around the school. Chatterpix is free to download from the iOS App Store here.
After the half term break we will be creating our own games using the iPads. This will involve the students drawing characters and backgrounds before playing each other’s games.
Students in Year 2 have been making excellent progress using the laptops to navigate websites and login to accounts. One of the activities involved the students logging into http://game.kodable.com using a class account. It is a fantastic site for learning the beginnings of coding and students are welcome to log in anytime at home to play and learn more. The class accounts are:
2A – bhs2a
2D – bhs2d
2K – bhs2k
Students have just started logging in using their Google accounts to The Beacon at http://thebeacon.bhs.edu.hk . Any practice of entering their email and password at home is always useful as this is something we will be doing quite a lot of in the coming weeks. All Year 2 students have the Google login details in their diaries.
After the half term break we will be continuing to log in to our Google accounts and look at how we can use Google Docs and Google Drawings to create documents. In addition to this we will be learning how to record explanations of observations during the Year 2 Unit of Inquiry related to waste.
Students in Year 3 have been learning how to send messages between objects inside a visual coding environment. They did this using Scratch Jr on their Chromebooks following a paper coding experience in groups.
Students then created their own story scene where characters would trigger other characters using messages. These were recorded as screencast videos to explain their understanding and handed in using Google Classroom.
After the half term break students will continue using Google Classroom as a means to interact as a larger class group. They will use Google Classroom in many different curriculum areas at school so it is useful to be able to smoothly send assignments and discover resources. We will create some short animated pieces to bring into Classroom and post peer comments about them.
Students in Year 4 have been creating animated presentations using moovly.com. These short animation required the students to think about one of their personal values or beliefs and arrange text and images on a timeline, along with animated effects.
Next we have started looking at how to create stop-motion animations using My Create on iPad. Students are building a simple movie titled ‘Cup Story’ using only paper cups as the characters.
After completing the animated shorts we will piece them together into a longer movie.
Students in Year 4 will then move on to be our first students to use our new BBC Micro:bit devices. They will be learning to code them to make simple light sequences and counting devices.
Students in Year 5 have been busy creating digital artwork. They have learned the basics of layered digital painting tools using pixlr editor on their Chromebooks. As a first project they made composite images blending old and new photos of Hong Kong which they then handed in using Google Classroom.
We then moved on to look at an amazing new tool under development by the University of Nottingham that allows a 3D model to be created from a single photograph. Students used the tool to build a 3D model of their own face and then took it into TinkerCAD 3D modelling software to place it on a board with their name. These are in the process of being 3D printed now for the students to keep.
Some students are just finishing this off. Once complete we will be returning to Pixlr editor to focus on image selection tools to create a silhouette. After this we will start a mini making and game design project that should be a lot of fun and involve much new learning.
Year 6 have been using their new Chromebooks in fantastic ways across the curriculum and they have become very popular amongst the students.
The students have also been busy making and coding inventions using our new MakeBlock robotics equipment. In 6D and 6H the students created drawing machines by designing and constructing their own robots and coding them using Scratch. The students produced some stunning inventions that can be seen in these photos and video:
Students in 6Y took on a slightly different project to use the same equipment to make and code LED light sticks that they are creating amazing light painting long-exposure images with. This project is still ongoing but some of the early tests can be seen below:
After completing these projects students in Year 6 will be focusing on building video tutorials for a variety of presentation tools that will then be used by students in other classes and year levels when learning in a self-directed way.
