Sunday, October 21, 2012

Documenting My Students' Learning


The more I look at ways to document my students’ learning digitally the more excited I get. With the introduction of iPads into my classroom the possibilities continue to grow.  And it isn’t so much the number of iPads I have available to me because quite frankly one iPad is enough to capture the thinking behind my students' learning.  Obviously the more iPads I have available the more content my students are creating , and the more I need to have a place to organize and store this content.  Having a place like Evernote and Kidblog to organize and store this information makes it all easier to share with my students and their parents.

The two things I like best about an iPad is that my students can take pictures of their learning (either by taking screen shots, working in an app that saves to photos, or taking a photo of their non digital work) and they can record  their thinking behind their learning through apps that create videos (like my absolute favourite Draw and Tell).  Photos can easily be opened in Skitch which are now automatically stored in your Evernote account.  My students can add their names to their pictures in Skitch , or add more written details/labels if they’d like.   I learned about this from Ben Sheridan in the blog post he’s written here. If you are using evernote with young children I HIGHLY recommend you read Ben's post.

I am still eagerly waiting for the KidBlog app to arrive because it will become another place for my students to store their work.  Unlike Evernote (that I have discovered yet) Kidblog is open to a global audience so the ENTIRE WORLD can see their learning and leave comments.   Once the Kidblog app arrives my students will be able to send their work to Evernote AND put it on their individual blog all independently. Right now I have to embed items to their blogs.  Needless to say I am VERY excited about a Kidblog app. VERY EXCITED!

How do you document your students' learning?

5 comments:

  1. Hey Karen,

    It's always fun to follow your learning and excitement for trying new things! You are so inspiring to us all. :-)

    I have the Blogsy app and it's great! It might be a good app to put on your iPads. It recognizes a number of different blogging platforms. I am wondering if it will recognize Kidblog because isn't kidblog related to Wordpress? It does recognize Wordpress. One of the many great things about this app is that you just have to click on an icon and it will bring the camera roll or the photostream directly onto the side of your post. All you have to do is touch and drag the photo from your photo roll (it will also do flickr) into your blog. It's so easy!

    Keep up the great learning,
    Tia

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    1. Hi Tia,

      The kidblog app is finally out and is something is in an iPad album it can be easily uploaded to kidblog. This opens up a huge potential for my students. I didn't have a chance last week to show everyone how to use it but we did manage to get a few posts up with content from their iPads included. It makes me really smile. Blogsy has come up a few times but I must admit I still prefer to do my blogging from my laptop. There is something about a real keyboard.

      Thanks for your kind words btw.

      Karen

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  2. Hi Karen,
    Love your blog. I have just started blogging with my second graders and am piloting blogging for our school. We use weebly because our fifth graders have websites on weebly and I thought it would be a good idea for tech support and as a way for us to work with our fifth grade buddies. There is a weebly app that is sooo easy for kids to use. This week they went to the app and interviewed each other. In about 3 minutes they had an interview about our unit of inquiry on their personal blog. I was thrilled.
    The app also lets them upload a picture from the iPad with ease. It has made their blogging easier for me to manage.
    I am thinking of switching to kidblog next year. Does your school have issues with privacy or are the student blogs available for anyone to see? My class website blog is www.ljatigertalk.weebly.com
    Would love to hear more from you about your blogging journey with your students.

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    1. Thank you tons Kathy for such kinds words. I've been having a lot of fun with both this blog and my class blog. i think my students are having fun with their blogs too.

      Just last week Kidblog came out with an iPod iPhone iPad app and it will be a game changer in my classroom as my students will be able to upload their work independently. For a teacher of grade one students that will be huge. I really love kidblog because it's easy for my grade one students to use independently, and from home too. If you have concerns re privacy Kidblog has a lot of privacy setting available to meet your needs. Last year I had a student that could not blog publicly so every post she wrote was published completely privately. Kidblog also really listens to its customers needs. I can't tell you how many times they have improved their product to better meet the needs of their clients. They are awesome in my books.

      I'd love to chat more about my blogging journey with my students. If you're on twitter you can easily find me at @KLirenman

      Karen

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  3. It's pretty awesome, thank's for sharing such useful tips!
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