iPads, Evernote and Coastal Erosion

Today, Year 10 students demonstrated their understanding of coastal erosion processes and landforms. This is the description of what happened.

Set-up

The web-version of John Davitt’s Learning Event Generator was set up and ready to go. The department has an Evernote account. All of the iPads were signed in to the account and my own iPad was ready to be connected to the digital projector.

This was the first time that this group had used the devices. Before the lesson, a separate Notebook was created containing two notes: the task and an example. The task is at the top of this post and follows our school’s Assertive Discipline PRINT guidelines. The image below shoes the demonstration note.

The keen eyed amongst you will have spotted the spelling error. This sparked a nice discussion about the accuracy and quality of work…..

Lesson

It is very important that GCSE students get used to being productive in groups. This is so they can collect primary fieldwork data quickly and effectively. It’s also because we belie that young people learn better when they can collaborate with each other.

Once the class were settled and in groups of three, I introduced the task. The challenge was to create and share an Evernote ‘Note’ that demonstrated their learning so far. The options available were:

An opera
A clay sculpture with a voice over or annotation
A song.

I talked through the creation of a Note and the task using an iPad connected to a projector. Each group created their own Note, using their first names as a title. I demonstrated that these were then visible to the whole class. This feature is excellent as, not only can students collaborate within their group, they can also collaborate with the whole class and myself. Without promoting, students began to look at other work and take inspiration. Some groups headed outside, or to another part of the school to work. I had no problem with this as I could still see their progress.

At the end of the lesson, we created an ‘Evaluation’ note and these were the thoughts of the group:

This is one of our favourite creations of the day, a video shot using a mobile device:

Comments

High Impact, Low effort

This month is the start of the #29daysofwriting challenge. I enjoyed this last year and will be using my Staffrm account to post. I'll also be reporting here, both to give a little more detail and to keep a log of what I have written. The challenge developed a great sense of community last year, which is why I'm choosing to write on Staffrm. What I would say to those who are new to writing or don't want to run out of ideas is: Write for yourself. Clarify an idea, write something out loud. The process of distilling thoughts into writing is immensely beneficial to your practice. If other read, comment and respond, that's a bonus. Ignore the muppets who know nothing of your context, style or students. Mix it up - I like to read about real stuff from real classrooms and schools and also about other stuff. If we always write about school, how does that work for workload? If you've nothing nice to say, don't say it. So, the following has been

What makes a learning experience profound? Personal reflections and possible implications for classroom practice.

I have recently begun a Leadership Pathways journey. As part of the first core day, we were asked to reflect on a profound learning experience. This got me thinking about how many profound learning experiences I have both been involved in, and how many I have been able to give to others. Our group came up with a huge long list, but these are my five. Emotional Connected Demanding Reflective Collaborative As always, these are personal thoughts and quite mixed up. I put them here so that I can look back on them (plus they’d get lost inside my world-cup-free brain) 1. Emotional I can’t think of a time where deep learning hasn’t engaged my emotions. From being awe inspired to that tingle feeling when a student gets a light bulb moment. From this-is-the-happiest-day-ever, to I-think-I’m-about-to die. How often do we engage the emotions of those we teach? Here, I would argue that having a safe learning environment is not always conducive to profound

The danger of Teaching and Twitter conversations: poorly formed bipolar arguments.

Sometimes in life, there really are only two options. Get the wrong one and you can look like a muppet. Take this useful sign for the toilets in Morocco. I successfully navigated it, choosing the right option. The result? No egg on my face. As a mountain leader, there are many right or wrong decisions that I’ve faced, as there are all over life. It’s not a good idea to let inexperienced young people walk themselves down Snowdon. They may die or be seriously injured. If someone is showing the signs and symptoms of hyperthermia, you need to treat it fast in a specified way. There is no real arguing with this sign: Other options are less obvious. Take this sign recently spotted near to where I live: Now, I wouldn’t consider sleeping in a bin. However, faced with a sub-zero night, I could see the appeal. The danger? Being tipped into one of those huge lorries with a compactor. (by the way, I only really considered all of this thanks to questions from my four year old boy).

David Rogers

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