Day 4 - July 8th

I always enjoy the discussions and conversations in the morning before class starts. That’s what educators do J

Some keys things I learned:

•      Should build in lots of communication opportunities in the lesson or activity
•          If you copy an existing folder into your new activity folder (e.g. Supplies folder) and then add items, these items will show up in all the folders with the same name. For example, we added “Pom Poms” to our Supplies Folder and every time Ruby uses the Supplies Folder now in any activity, it’ll have Pom Poms in there. This can be a good or bad thing: Good because you are building vocabulary on the iPad but Bad because eventually the supply folder may get really filled up, so reorganizing and putting things into more folders within folders may be useful.
•          Don’t change layout of templates in P2G
•          Model what you want them to learn (Aided Language, French etc.) – Isn’t that how babies learn language?

Things I would improve on P2G:

·         It is unfortunately that activity boards can’t be shared with other users. In education we always talk about reinventing the wheel and I feel even though we may be sharing activity ideas, we have to re-set up the activity folder for each user. There should be an option of sharing folders etc.

Before our presentations today, a comment was made (I think it was in the video) that conversation topics need to be interesting, motivating and useful and those are characteristics that were very apparent during all of our presentations today. We all chose engaging activities that the children would buy into.

Activity Presentations (I apologize in advance for the not spelling your names correctly or possibly even writing down the wrong name!):

Chris & Jill: Very interesting, engaging activity especially the gross part J

Rachel & Suzanne: I like that you made it more interesting than just baking but that they could pretend to compete in a baking contest or be part of a baking show. Thank you for mentioning that reading out each phrase or word is a good thing as it shortens the wait time for the receiver a bit. Hadn’t thought of that before.

Joanne & Tracy: I really liked the idea of the “I SPY” Game especially the fact that they had to ask 5 questions before they can guess the answer. One question I had is: was there an “object” folder, where the student could give the answer over P2G? Did I miss it? I suppose if they have the skills, they could spell it out?

Chelsea & Laurianne: We actually wanted to do “Go Fish” with Ruby, too! That was our first idea J

Holly & Alecia: I like the idea of 5, 5 and 5. I also like that it is an activity that can be used multiple times and it meets numerous outcomes.

Dave & John: I love Pizza. I like that you used the Pizza Mix – it keeps things simple and easier to navigate.

Christine & Michelle: Again, I like that this is an activity that can be run multiple times. I also liked that you used real photos rather than comic objects especially the “gross” one.

Sheri & Nick: I like that you chose a sports activity. I think it is very hard for the flow of the game to have students communicating with the iPad. I think there needs to be a lot of “training” with the student’s peers, so that they are patient and wait. I was trying to find a video of someone using the iPad in the gym but came up empty.

Sue & Terry: I think it’s great that you added entire phrases/sentences to speed up the conversation and that you run the activity in pairs first.

After all the presentations were done, there was a comment made about iPads being handed back at the end of the school year or school career, and all I could think is that you don’t take such a valuable, necessary tool away from them. We don’t take hearing aids away from a person that’s hard of hearing. Here is the one way you can effectively communicate with others, but we are going to take it away from you at the end of the school year...doesn't make sense! Just wondering if students get to keep their devices after graduation in grade 12?

Anyways, I am looking forward to our shopping spree at the Dollar Store J