Less marking, more feedback

My mind was blown at the end of Term 2 during the Primary ICT Showcase. Seeing the range of talent on show within the Primary School was inspiring and something to be celebrated loudly.

We began the showcase with Demo Slams, the opportunity for ordinary teachers to display their extraordinary tech integration to their peers. Ben Henry, Grade 5, Dover was one of the slam recruits and he showed the crowd his awesome use of QuickTime Player to facilitate giving feedback about a piece of writing.

I’ll let Ben set the scene:

The children had been working on their Historical Fiction stories during Writing Workshop and it was the week before their final edit.  For their homework task, each ‘Writing Buddy’ was asked to read their partner’s story and to identify a couple of areas that they were impressed with, along with a suggestion for the final edit. The children had the option of drawing from my marking comments already in the Google Doc, but it was remarkable how accurate the buddies were at making a relevant suggestion that would improve the writing. The children communicated their suggestions for improvements and the elements they were impressed with using QuickTime player in the form of a screen recording. Since the children enjoyed making the screen recordings, and are equally (if not more) concerned with their partner’s comments as they are with mine, I will certainly be using this method in the future.

Here is an example of a student giving feedback to their writing partner.

Grade 5 'Peer 2 Peer' Feedback from UWC South East Asia on Vimeo.

Sean McHugh (DLC on the Dover Campus) has written about RAT and SAMMS in previous posts on this blog. What Ben demonstrated in his use of video feedback is in the transformative area of RAT; ‘technology as transformation’. Being able to give this level of useful feedback moves both the writer and the student giving feedback forward in their understanding of the concepts. The writer has demonstrated that they are able to listen to the lessons given in class about how to write this particular genre and process them to create a comprehensive piece of writing. The student giving feedback has to understand the genre well in order to give feedback to their partner and move their writing on. By allowing the chance for peer to peer feedback the skills being demonstrated and developed by both parties are immense.

The beauty of using technology to facilitate this process is listed in the SAMMS framework. The fact that Google docs can be accessed from anywhere with an internet connection (Situational), allows for instant reworking of the piece (Mutability) and provides a space where two students and the teacher can collaborate on one document (Social).

It is also a brilliant example of Dylan Wiliam’s Assessment for Learning strategies.

Wiliam breaks down AfL into 5 key strategies

1. Clarifying learning intentions

2. Eliciting evidence

3. Feedback that moves learning forward

4. Students as learning resources for one another

5. Students as owners of their own learning (ownership - metacognition, motivation, interest, attribution, self-assessment)

(Wiliam & Thompson, 2007)

Ben’s use of feedback thoroughly demonstrated the third and fourth points in Wiliam’s list. The students receive feedback from their teacher and also from a peer to improve their writing. Before I saw this being used I would have guessed that the feedback being given from a writing partner would be a little shaky and inaccurate at best. After seeing this in practice the feedback being given is 90% accurate and very well articulated.

To anyone who would like to do less marking and give more feedback using screen casting come and speak to myself or Ben for more details.

Blended Screencasts - Record & Flip

Record & Flip

Record it, then flip it, simple!

Screen recording, or Screencasts are one of most most effective teaching tools in the arsenal of a teacher who is fortunate to be work in a 'technology enhanced learning environment' but, if the devices you have to hand are laptops, not tablets, than expecting your students to create a screencast can be more of a hassle than it's worth. 

That is unless you know how to record and flip. 

I've used demonstrated this technique before in a context of asking students to model a skill with apparatus, such as how they can measure an angle with a protractor, but with a little imagination it's not difficult to see how this could be used in other ways:

• Mapping skills in Humanities
• Rationale for a design proposal in Design & Technology
• Description of the significance of imagery in the Visual Arts
• Mind Mapping relationships and connections
• Reflection on ideas and opportunities for development in a flash draft in English
• Reflection/critique of a passage/excerpt in a printed book/magazine
• Annotation of musical notation to indicate understanding of the structure
• Annotation of diagrams, graphs, and charts
• Explaining a strategy or process in solving a Mathematics problem
• and many more...

All the students need is a whiteboard or a sheet of paper, and to position it as shown above. They can tap the spacebar to start and stop the recording. 

Once the recording is finished the student can flip the video horizontally and vertically, then review and trim* the video is necessary before sharing it with the teacher. 

An Example from Mathematics

Here's one I did earlier...**

*If the student has done a great deal of  'umming and ahhing' they can delete the segments of the video that are unimportant, but most of the time this is probably unnecessary as you're not looking for a highly polished artefact here, and hesitation (when and why) may well be useful information in and of itself.

Student Example

** Disclaimer, the hesitation you see in this video was intentional in order to create a sense of authenticity, honest, it's true! 

Angles, iSight Screencasts & Misconceptions

Before/After Videos for Learning

So you want to make a screencast, but you don't have an iPad?

No problem.

Here's what I call an iSight 'Screencast', yes it's not capturing a screen, and yes it's really just a form of video capture, but you get the idea.

In fact for the lesson I used, this is actually a better way to capture what kids can do than using a screencast, yes, I said it.

Before & After #1

The context for this activity was a Grade 4 maths lesson on using a protractor, I wanted to capture their technique, but I can't possibly watch all of the kids in real time at the same time, but a video cam can. Did I watch all 22 videos? No. Did I need to? No. Did the kids think I might? Yes. Did that spur them to do the best they could as if I or their parents would be watching, well, yes, I think it did (and their parents probably will).

Here's the simple setup:

1 Macbook (with built in webcam), 1 piece of paper, that's it.

Here's the lesson in 7 succinct snippets:

1. Draw an acute angle on the board
2. Show kids a protractor, tell them it's for measuring angles
3. Tell them to make a short video* that shows how they think it works
4. Watch them as they try this - look for at least one kids that can...
5. Ask kids to upload their video to a shared space as soon as they're finished**
6. Now show the class a good example from their peers.
7. Now they go and try again, see of they can do better, or better still impress me! (not doing, the video shows what they were doing)

*They could use Photo Booth, but I advise using QuickTime, which easily allows the kids to flip the video once they've finished the recording, otherwise their work will appear upside down.

Before & After #2

Here's the student video I used to teach the kids this skill:


Protractor Student Demonstration from UWC South East Asia on Vimeo.


I love the fact that the angles they were measuring were actually harder than the conveniently rounded angle they saw demonstrated.

Finally, share their before/after videos on their Learning Journals, with a short reflection on their learning.

• Misconceptions captured? Yes

• Misconceptions addressed? Yes

• Evidence of learning? Yes

• Differentiation? Yes, the few kids who could do it the first time perfectly, went on to show how they could measure reflex/obtuse angles, etc.

A nice bonus is that as I have all of their before/after videos accessible online, I can review any of them at any time if I have any desire to check on a particular student's grasp of the skill.

Here's the student video I used to demo a correct method - perfect? No, so I used his few hiccups as a teaching opportunity, so you can be sure his second one was :)




**We use Google Drive

Doodlecast Settings

Made with Doodlecast Pro? Who cares?

As magnificent as the Doodlecast screencasting Apps are, the 'Made with Doodlecast' and 'Made with Doodlecast Pro' messages really get annoying.

Here's how to tweak the settings on your iPads to kill this off annoying 'feature' for once and for all.

Screencasts, Misconceptions & the Benefits of Reflection

Explain Everything & Doodlecast Pro - Fantastic Screencasting Apps

Screencasts are amongst some of the most powerful and potentially transformational digital tools we have, and it's great to seeing them being used regularly, whether on the Mac with Quicktime, or arguably more easily, on an iPad with one of the plethora of screencasting Apps that are available.

 A digital recording of activity displayed on a screen

Screencasts are also a powerful way to get students to articulate their thinking, even if the only person who ever gets to see the screencast is themselves, their parents, or maybe a friend.


ScreenChomp Subtraction SMc from UWC South East Asia on Vimeo.

"students learn more deeply from reading a science text if they are prompted to explain the material to themselves aloud as they read." p162 (My emphasis)

Pellegrino J W, & Hilton M L (Eds) (2013). Education for life and work: Developing transferable knowledge and skills in the 21st century. National Academies Press. 

Reflection is critical

Cited in Black & Wiliam's pivotal 'Assessment and Classroom Learning' (1998),  a review of European research by Elshout-Mohr (1994) pointed out both that students are often unwilling to give up misunderstandings—they need to be convinced through discussion which promotes their own reflection on their thinking—and also that if a student cannot plan and carry out systematic remedial learning work for himself, he or she will not be able to make use of good formative feedback. Both of these indicate that the kind of self-assessment fundamental to reflection is essential. Similarly, Hattie et al (1996) argue that direct teaching of study skills to students without attention to reflective, meta-cognitive, development may well be pointless. Pointless.

A more recent study entitled 'Learning by Thinking' (Stefano et al, 2014) focuses on the importance of reflection as one of critical components of learning; reflection as "the intentional attempt to synthesize, abstract, and articulate the key lessons taught by experience".  In short, if you want your students to retain what they have learned long term, you have make time for students to reflect on what they have learned (not just what they have done) in fact far from bring a 'maybe if there's time' option, this is something you can't afford for your student's NOT to do.

"... individual learning is enhanced by deliberately focusing on thinking about what one has been doing. [...] Further, we find that the effect of reflection on learning is mediated by greater perceived self-efficacy. Together, our results reveal reflection to be a powerful mechanism behind learning, confirming the words of American philosopher, psychologist, and educational reformer John Dewey: “We do not learn from experience...we learn from reflecting on experience.” (p29)

But,

Yes, you knew there was a but coming.

I see them used only for summative and not formative assessment, where the student creates a wonderful screencast that demonstrates mastery of the content... Which just leaves me wondering, well where was the learning? Did they already know how to do this? If not, where is the 'journey', you see I find teachers habitually orient to capturing summative demonstrations but rarely, if ever formative ones, specifically capturing mistakes, misconceptions, errors. This seems to 'run against the grain' of  teaching instinct.

Worse still, if a student 'gets it wrong' the tendency is it to ask them to scrap it and try again.

The truth is, misconceptions are a fantastic opportunity for a great lesson using a two stage screencast, stage one, the misconception, duplicate to another and overwrite with a correction. As John Hattie explains:

"A safe environment for the learner (and for the teacher) is an environment where error is welcomed and fostered – because we learn so much from errors and from the feedback that then accrues from going in the wrong direction or not going sufficiently fluently in the right direction." p23  (My emphasis)

Hattie J (2013). Visible learning: A synthesis of over 800 meta-analyses relating to achievement. Routledge.

All you need is to set an activity that is focused on a common misconception that you know students often have, here's an example adapted from a recent article by Jan Chappuis Adapted from "Thoughtful Assessment with the Learner in Mind" (Educational Leadership, March 2014)

"The challenge with misconceptions is to correctly identify them and then plan lessons to dislodge them. Misconceptions are stubborn: They can't be corrected by papering over them. To illustrate, let's look at a misconception that's common in middle school science. Newton's first law of motion states that a force is not needed to keep an object in motion, yet many students (and adults) will tell you that if an object is in motion, it will require a force to stay in motion, which seems like common sense. (Aristotle thought this, by the way.) Memorizing the principles of the first law—“an object at rest will stay at rest” and “an object will continue with constant velocity unless acted on by an unbalanced force”—is generally not enough to counter what our senses tell us about force and motion: If you want a book to keep moving across a table, you have to keep pushing it." 

So, having given the class Newton's first law of motion, the teacher could ask the students to create a screencast that explains the forces that are in motion in order for them to, for example, make a ball roll slowly along a floor, and to describe the forces are that in action that could affect it and why...

While the students are engaged in this activity, the teacher is actively monitoring, as a keen observer, the teacher is constantly watching what students do, looking for clues about their learning progress, and asking for input from students about their status, what have they learned, and more importantly what do they need to unlearn. The teacher walks among their students as they work, listening for clues about their understanding, asking questions that probe their thinking... Looking for any evidence of misconceptions that will fuel the next intervention or episode of teaching. Having established the extent of understanding, the next steps will be to teach to correct. Depending on the extent of the misunderstanding, correcting this could be a 10 minute clarification, or maybe require a series of lessons and activities designed to explore this issue thoroughly.

Following this, the teacher asks the students, to continue their screencast, not to delete or amend the initial misunderstanding, but to continue the learning 'story', to identify the misconception and contrast it with the correct interpretation.

"Finally, when students are able to do so, have them explain why the misconception is incorrect. Misconceptions, whether in science, social studies, mathematics, language arts, or any other discipline, require an intentional approach tailored to the nature of the misconception because the teaching challenge is to cause  conceptual change—to have students give up the inaccurate conception they currently hold in favor of an accurate one." p24

Another but...

But this leaves another problem; what do you do with the 20 to 30 short videos? 

Watching them all could take maybe an hour, and that's without feedback, that could be time worth spending considering the richness of the data it contains, arguably a better way to spend your time than 'marking'. Alternatives include, peer assessment, or 'P2P' (Pupil 2 Pupil). Name stick random checkups, choose 5 to view carefully (don't tell them who it will be, use name sticks near the end of the lesson).

What do you do with the kids who on the first attempt were able to show that they understood the situation well, no misconceptions evident? 

Well the short answer is differentiate, other suggestions could include...  Promote them to 'teacher assistants', as 'assistants' they are invaluable in helping determine whether the 'corrected' screencasts of the other students are actually really correct. Challenge them to find another misconception to set the class (in the same area of learning) see if it can 'trick' the class? Create another screencast to explain why the misconception exists?

7 powerful ways to use screencasts

Black and Wiliam describe 7 indicators of understanding in their seminal work, Assessment and Classroom Learning (1998), and it just so happens these exact same indicators are fantastic ways to focus the ways you ask your students to make screencasts.

These indicators of understanding are especially relevant in terms of the kinds of evidence that screencasting is uniquely equipped to capture, ask students to use screencasts to make their learning visible - explicit by creating a screencast that models the following: extension, modification, pattern finding, shortcuts, explanation.

Tacit indicators will be persistence and enthusiasm.

"After studying and discussing video extracts and transcripts of lessons, seven 'indicators of understanding' emerged [...] as a series of potential clues to the level of the student's understanding,

1. extension of a concept: students who have understood something often take the idea further on their own initiative; 
2. making modifications to a pattern: students who understand, spontaneously start making their own modifications, while those who don't understand imitate or follow rules; 
3. using processes in a different context: students who have understood a particular idea often start seeing the same patterns elsewhere; 
4. using shortcuts: only students who are sure of the 'big picture' can short-cut a procedure so that thinking up or using a short-cut is taken as evidence of understanding; 
5. ability to explain: students who have understood something are usually able to explain it;
   
   Tacit indicators
6. ability to focus attention: persistence on a task is taken as a sign of understanding."
7. changes in demeanour: students who had understood were 'bright-eyed' while those who had not appeared half-hearted; 

(p 57)

I'd argue that the reverse is true as well, namely, if a student does not show any of these indications, then it is likely they don't understand it, so capture their attempt, teach into their struggle, and then get them to capture a later more successful attempt.

SAMMS - Transformation with Tech
Social: A great way to manage a class load of videos such as those generated by a class full of students creating screencasts is to ask the students to post them on a class online platform, such as a Google Site or blog.

Access: They can search for clarification on specific elements they find confusing, maybe particular vocabulary, or inspiration for their demonstration.

Mutability: In response to feedback, students can easily duplicate and revise their screencast and post a second screencast that shows clear evidence that relevant criticisms have been resolved.

Multimodality: Of course this entire medium is multimodal, combining image, drawing, audio and video.

Socially Network & Situate: Now it is online, you can facilitate a P2P homelearn* activity. Assign assessment buddies to feedback on each others screencasts at home, of course the teacher can now easily monitor the quality of these online interactions, and interject, support, clarify, redirect as necessary.

Looking for inspiration for misconceptions? Google it... "common misconceptions students have" or something similar, will give you plenty of material to get you started.

For example ... http://www.apa.org/education/k12/alternative-conceptions.aspx 

*as opposed to 'homework'.


Paul Black & Dylan Wiliam (1998): Assessment and Classroom Learning, Assessment in Education: Principles, Policy & Practice, 5:1, 7-74

Elshout-Mohr M (1994). Feedback in self-instruction, European Education, 26, pp. 58-73.


Hattie J, Biggs J, & Purdie N (1996). Effects of learning skills interventions on student learning: a meta-analysis, Review of Educational Research, 66, pp. 99—13

Di Stefano, G., Gino, F., Pisano, G. P., & Staats, B. R. (2014). Learning by Thinking: How Reflection Aids Performance. Harvard Business School NOM Unit Working Paper, (14-093), 14-093. Chicago

iPads for Learning (not just skill-drilling)

It will not have escaped the notice of many parents that iPads are quickly becoming a popular tool for enhancing teaching and learning, especially here at the Dover Campus, where iPads are now ubiquitous in the Infant School and Grade 2, with shared trolleys of iPads in Grades 3-5.

What is perhaps less obvious is the why, the how, and the what do we use them for?

As revolutionary as iPads are, they suffer from one particular affliction, they remain, in the minds of many, if not most of our students and parents, gaming devices, or 'skill drill' devices, where 'content is king'. Which has it's place, but it is important to understand that in our school, this is rarely if ever how they are used.

Concepts are Critical, not Content

It's pretty well established now that learning in the new millennium is no longer predicated on a model where we expect kids to fill their craniums with content, devoid of any authentic context within which to actually use that content. Instead educators across the globe are shifting to a focus on key "thinking tools"—key transdisciplinary tools (or cognitive skills), that encapsulate how creative minds think effectively across a range of domains.* These "tools," or habits of mind, comprise a framework for trans-disciplinary creativity and can serve as the basis for the kinds of curricula that are essential for the "conceptual age" (Gardner, 2007; Pink, 2005). Concept based teaching facilitates deeper learning,  that builds competencies that are structured around fundamental principles of a content area and their relationships rather than disparate, superficial facts or procedures (Pellegrino et al, 2013). While other types of learning may allow an individual to recall facts, concepts, or procedures, deeper learning allows the individual to transfer what was learned to solve new problems.

Is there an App for that? Who cares?

That sounds a bit harsh, but at it's essence is my awareness that any App that is content focused is likely to be fraught with all sorts of problems, like issues with language, appropriateness, complexity, not to mention the sheer amount of Apps you would need to juggle if you are going to try and locate an App for every possible area of curricular content.

No, in our school, they are not about content, or consumption, they are about conceptual learning, through creating, capturing and reflection. They are devices for capturing learning that is driven by overarching concepts, devices that allow us to permeate our classrooms with what we call:

Capture Culture

This means that as teachers we need to make sure we focus on ensuring that they are used as learning devices, as devices that capture learning; if there’s ONE thing that sums up what we're trying to establish it’s this - we are building a capture culture - that’s it, everywhere, all year long.

Capturing what they can do, can't do, could do, thought they could do but couldn't, couldn't do but now can, and so on.

So, as strange as this may seem, considering the plethora of Apps on the App Store, the Apps we really focus on are not the usual suspects, the 'skill and drill' 'educational' Apps, no, we focus on Apps for:

• capturing
• screencasting
• annotating
• image/video/audio creation

Depending on the age of the students, the Apps may focus discretely on one of these attributes, or as the students become more proficient, combinations of more than one, sometimes, particularly with our older students, all four.

This means that despite the wide range of Apps we have available on our school iPads (click here to see the entire collection), we actually focus, most of the time on a handful of Apps. Apps we call our...

Core Apps

8 Essential Apps for Capturing Learning

Less is More

There are several critical aspects to this strategy:

• We can focus on developing expertise with a few tools, rather than feeling overwhelmed by hundreds
• We can use these Apps 'iteratively' for formative assessment—using the same Apps over and over again, in different areas of the curriculum. 
• We can reduce 'cognitive load' for students, so that they can focus on pedagogy and curricular content, rather than constantly learning how to use lots of new tech tools (Apps).
• Where there is considerable 'cognitive demand' in learning a more complex App, the investment is worthwhile, as the students will eventually be able to use these core tools throughout the year, with little or no teacher support.

App Rationale

1. Camera/Photos: take photos and screenshots, landscape/portrait, camera flip, edit the photo, enhance, video (only in landscape!), trim video, use legs to zoom (get close to the subject!) manage the library (ie, delete the rubbish!);
2. Drawing Pad: drawing, painting, stickers, annotating over an image, different backgrounds (handwriting, maths), basic word processing - ideal for the introduction of keyboarding skills.
3. iMindMap - Mind mapping made easy, pinch, zoom, connect/disconnect, add images—ideal for tune-ins, and seeing understanding develop over the course of a unit of learning, by revisiting and revising at regular intervals.
4. Shadow Puppet EDU: like Doodlecast, but less 'kiddy', this app allows kids to insert images from the camera roll, and also to use multiple slides, and point and/or draw.
5. Explain Everything: Does everything all of the previous apps do, all in one app, albeit a more complex environment. The steeper learning curve pays off with the sheer amount of uses it has. It also allows typing, and annotating/recording over video.
6. iMovie: A surprisingly simple way to stitch together images & video, straight from the camera roll, no import needed. Text and voice over can easily be added as well. Particularly powerful when combined with the other content exported from the other Core Apps.

Progression

Apps are introduced progressively, and cumulatively, consolidating use of all the Apps at each grade level, so that by Grade 2 all students are confident, competent, and most importantly independent users of all the Core Apps.

Contrary to popular myth even very young children benefit from the appropriate use of screens. So students start in K1 with the Camera App, just learning how to take photos, the Photos App to browse their efforts, and eventually creating art work with Drawing Pad, and simple screencasts with Shadow Puppet. By the end of the year the K1 students can also record static video (not moving the iPad, just concentrating on recording video while holding the iPad still).

In K2 the students broaden their repertoire to include Shadow Puppet EDU and Puppet Pals for story telling. In G1 they consolidate and develop their expertise in the first 6 Core Apps, ready to progress to the more 'advanced Apps' in G2.

Settings > General > Accessibility > Guided Access

Choose what you want to restrict, then triple click to activate.

Guided Access

There are going to be times, especially with very young learners that you might want to restrict their freedom on an iPad, like maybe locking the iPad so they can only work within one specific App. With a feature called Guided Access on iOS devices, that is literally as easy to activate as triple clicking the home button. Instructions on how to set that up here.

Next Steps...

So many Apps - but why?

Now we do have many other Apps, other than the Core Apps on the iPads, there are many reasons for this, but mainly because the Core Apps form the foundation for everyday use, much like the iPad version of pencils and paper, they can be used for almost anything, in any curricular area. But much like other traditional tools, the curriculum often presents very specific, unique opportunities for the use of Apps that are particularly suited to a particular curricular context, or a specific skill focus. To extend the analogy, these would be like inviting students to use paints, board games; rulers; manipulatives, and of course reading books—not relevant to everything, but still powerful when used in a focused, directed, pedagogically appropriate way, by a skilled teacher.

I have outlined a few of the main contenders that are not Core Apps, but are still magnificent when used in very specific contexts.


Puppet Pals/Toontastic
Sock Puppets
Keynote
Pages
Google Drive
Book Creator
Comic Book and or Strip designer
Skitch (annotate over images)
iMotion (Stopmotion)

Organised around curricular focus:

Read & Narrate:

Epic, MyON, Raz Kids

Spell: 

Wurdle, Spell Blocks, SqueeblesSP, Wet Dry Try

Maths:

Brain Tuner, Bugs & Numbers, Addicus HD, SqueeblesDV, Bugs & Buttons, Maths Drills, Numbers, Pick–a–Path, SqueeblesTT, SqueeblesAS, SqueeablesFR, Teaching Graphs, Khan Academy, SparkleBox

Control & Code

LightBot, Daisy the Dino, Hopscotch, Tynker, Move the Turtle

Draw & Paint

Drawing Pad, Brushes, Skitch (image annotation)

Story

Toontastic, PuppetPals HD, Sock Puppets

Explain

Educreations, Explain Everything, Doodlecast, Popplet, Mind Meister

Create

Comic book, Comic Life, Strip Design, iMotion, Keynote, GarageBand, Pages, Minecraft PE, Pic Collage for kids, Book Creator, iMovie, Adobe Spark (Page, Post, Video), iMindMap... 

ScreenChomp in Grade 3 Mathematics

ScreenChomp is a basically digital whiteboard that users can write and draw on with the touch of a finger, just like you would with an ordinary whiteboard, so "Why use it?" I hear you say. 

Well this whiteboard allows you to also record audio, while you draw, and you can draw using different pen colours, thickness etc. You can also easily add an image via the iPad camera, or an image on the device in the camera roll. Try doing that with a whiteboard.

All this awesome activity on ScreenChomp can be easily recorded, and the videos produced in ScreenChomp can be downloaded as MP4 files, making them easy to share (and then if you want, edit on your Mac). sharing with any audience is just a as simple as sending an email, which automatically included an link for the recipient to view, or even download the video if they choose, perfect for sharing with parents.

Even better - ScreenChomp is free! This means you can encourage your students to nag their parents to download a copy onto an iPad at home, so they can come to school already to create and collaborate and let the actual tech become transparent. It is the ultimate in 'ease of use' - very few commands (not even undo - just wipe and try again) and no account creation required (unlike the Show Me app).

A digital whiteboard has a whole host of educational uses, it really is what I call 'tech with mileage' - ie, just like pencil and paper there are so many uses for this kind of app, in almost any curriculum area you can think of.

Grade 3, have been putting it to good use, to allow students to describe their understanding of the various strategies they have been learning in Maths, in this way even though a teacher may find if difficult to 'conference' with each student, students can describe their understanding via ScrenChomp and the teacher can review this at a convenient time, helping them to point point which students require further assistance or extension in following lessons. Assessment for Learning, in action. Here are some examples from some of the students in 3JRy.

This video can be utlised in a whole host of ways, eg, to share with other students, to share with parents, or even to compile into a resource to help teach or review strategies with other students.

The examples included in this post where created by students in Julie Ryan's class, feel free to view, who knows, you might even learn a new strategy?