Recently, I worked with the Grade 4 team to help them present their informational writing. The students had all chosen a non-fiction topic to write about and done some research. They had then gone through the writing process and created a piece of writing. We wanted to help them to take their writing and display…
Great PD Offerings for Digital Literacy
We are excited to inform you about some wonderful opportunities for professional development in Digital Literacy that are coming up this year. Please see below regarding details, and remember to fill in a Professional Development Application Form should you wish to be considered. SeptemberGoogle Apps for Education Summit SAS, Singapore6 & 7th September 2014Target Audience: K-12…
Grade 5 Exhibition – Printed Display Boards
This year at East we are lucky to have access to a large format printer. I say large, and I mean HUGE! It is about the size of a piano (see the door in the picture as a frame of reference!). The Grade 5 students were given the option of printing their display boards in…
Nice to Know – Infant Digital Literacy
“If we teach today as we taught yesterday, we rob our children of tomorrow.” – John Dewey We no longer question whether or not the use of digital technology improves learning; there is a large body of research that clearly shows that it does. The vast majority of our students arrive at UWCSEA with a…
Heartbleed Headaches & How to Make Them Go Away
My favourite quote about passwords has always been: “Passwords are like underwear: we should not leave them lying around, and should change them regularly.“ – Unknown Most of us manage the first part quite nicely and keep our passwords hidden, however changing them regularly? That is another kettle of fish entirely! I’m sure by now you…
Coding with your kids: a guide for parents.
When we think about all the things that we recognize as “essentials” to our children’s learning, the list can get really long very quickly. Recently, several high-profile individuals are advocating to add another thing to that list, coding. Why? Coding is the set of skills and concepts used to modify or create software on a…
Grade 1 Students Start Blogging with Easy Blogger Jr
At UWCSEA we like to empower our students to share their learning in lots of different ways. They take charge at Student-Led Conferences, and interact with various service groups as part of the school year. In Grade 1, we wanted to add blogging to an authentic audience to the list, both as a part of…
Letting Go of the Step by Step Tech Lesson
I admit it. I have a problem. It’s not a bad problem to have. But sometimes it can be depressing. Sometimes my problem makes me feel like I wasn’t a good teacher that day. Or that I didn’t make a difference for a student when I was in their class. What is my problem you…
Commenting in Google Docs just got better
Many teachers and students are using Google docs collaboratively. They allow us to highlight passages of writing and leave text comments in the margins which can be responded to and eventually, marked as resolved. These text-based conversations are great, but students and teachers may prefer to leave audio comments. Audio commenting was possible before but…
Email, Spam, YouTube Subscriptions and Snopes
One of the many wonderful things about having Google Apps at our school is that our students are able to have GMail accounts. This really does enable them to have the functionality we adults enjoy with having an email, with the added bonus of learning to use it in a supportive school environment. It allows…