Pear Deck App for Google Sllides

Pear Deck https://www.peardeck.com/

Pear Deck is very similar to a slide show, like PowerPoint or Google Slides. But instead of just static, informational slides, you can make interactive slides that let every student participate in your questions or prompts, right from their own devices. When you present your Deck, you will get a unique code for students to use to join your presentation from their phone or computer.

Pear Deck is also a Google Drive App. This means that it's fully integrated with the Google ecosystem, making a perfect choice for Google Schools. Here are some of the great benefits of our Google integration:

New series of books - Digital Fluency

I have a new series of books coming soon. The first one Digital Fluency - The Innovative Learning Environment is about to be published and I am busy working on the next one, Digital Fluency - Digital Storytelling in the Cloud. I am finally up to date with the Jump into Reading series for the School Journals and have completed up to the end of 2016. 

Cover image of the new Digital Fluency Series

Collaborative lesson plan template

Interactive collaborative lesson plan from Alice Keeler, the Google Guru Have a look at the rest of her site to find out how you can integrate the Google Suite into your student learning experiences. Click on the image to go there. 

New Explore function in Google Slides

I noticed a new function called Explore at the bottom of my slides today. Here is an explanation video showing how to use it effectively.

Boost your use of te reo Māori

• Look at Kotahi Mano Kaika, a Ngāi Tahu initiative, where children can make online, personalised Māori Language books.
• Choose a phrase, whakataukī and/or kīwaha of the week each week. Encourage students to explore their meaning, find examples, and share their learning at home.
• Use the iPad/iPhone app Sock Puppets to record conversations in te reo Māori and share them with your community on the school website or class blog.
• Find interactive te reo Māori websites on wickED.
• Tellagami is a mobile app (ios and Android) that lets you create and share a quick animation. Tellagami is a great way for students to share their mahi in a non-threatening way and hear themselves speaking te reo Māori.
• Why not watch an episode of Māori Spongebob Squarepants? See if students can retell the story using some key phrases.
• Download the Kura App to find a range of games modules that allow users to improve their knowledge and understanding of the Māori language. Users are timed and can pit their skills against others via a scoreboard. To download the app for android, go to: https://play.google.com/store/search?q=Kura&c=apps. To download the app for Apple, go to the iTunes Store and search "Kura".
• Check out great Te Reo resources here  and here

These ideas and resources are from TKI, find more videos about teaching practice here too

Lesson plans on this website

I wonder how many schools are using the PaCT tool to ascertain student progress? I think it is certainly a great tool for teachers but underutilized perhaps?
Have a look at the basics in the introductory video

Innovative Learning Environments

This is a workshop I have presented recently.

i-TunesU on the I-Pad for the classroom

Find out all about using the i-Tunes U app on the i-Pad for your classroom!

Ideas for using Padlet in the classroom

Sound recording on the web

Teachers often ask what tools they can use to record voice and share. Here are some tools that might be useful for this: Twisted Wave which saves to Google Drive, Vocaroo which is the simplest of the tools in this list, SoundCloud which still offers browser-based recording even though the mobile apps don’t, AudioPal, and AudioBoom.

(From http://practicaledtech.com/2016/04/03/practical-ed-tech-tip-of-the-week-5-good-tools-for-creating-audio-recordings-online/ - there are how to videos here too) 

Collaborative Expertise - We are all in it together!

Teachers as Change Agents John Hattie

Struggling readers - great tool to support them!

The Read Write Chrome extension - Scan pages from reader and upload to Google Drive as a PDF (right click and choose open in Google Docs) then use the read write extension from the Chrome web store to have the text read back to the student. This makes any reading material accessible for students who struggle to read but will be able to access understanding when it is read back to them. The Read Write extension comes as a free trial and when the free trial expires you can still access the reader so a great free tool to unlock possibilities for students!

Select the text to read and click on the  call out mark with the arrow to have the text read out when hovering, click the play button to read all. 
There is another extension which does this called Speak It but the Read Write one is better as it highlights the words as they are read which is better for the student when reading to associate the text with the speech. 

Five things that transform a school

From Richard Wells blog 

Professor John Hattie's 8 Mindframes - a recipe for best practice teaching

Teaching as Inquiry

The latest update on NZ Curriculum site provides a more comprehensive look at teaching as inquiry within the innovative learning context. I like this quote:

The success or failure of my students is about what I do. I am a change agent"

John Hattie

 

Teaching as inquiry FAQ link