Digital Bytes – 19th June 2017

  Book Creator Summer Journal A fantastic way to remember some of the details from your summer is to keep a journal. Last summer, both my kids used Book Creator to capture some of the things that happened on a daily basis. It was great for photos and video and voice records. Pages, Keynote and…

Digital Bytes 22nd May 2017

Flipgrid Flipgrid is an easy to use video reflection tool. As a teacher, you can post a prompt and your students can respond with a video reflection. Here is an example from Grade 4 teacher, ADE and Flipgrid Ambassador, Andy McGovern. As always, remind your students to use headphones for the best quality recording. Images…

Digital Bytes 23rd January 2017

Piktochart Piktochart is a fantastic free tool that allows you to create infographics and posters very easily. Students can easily sign in with Google Drive. There are searchable icons and images you can use. This is perfect for a mathematics class or anyone presenting information or research (hint, hint … grade 5 exhibition). 18 Digital…

Ideas for Shared iPads

How lucky are we? We recently added 6 iPads to each G3-5 class, augmenting their existing 1:1 Macbook Air laptops. Planning for valuable use of shared devices requires some creative thinking, particularly when you are used to 1:1 devices. That said, the small number of devices provides a great opportunity to differentiate for powerful learning,…

Digital Bytes – 15th February, 2016

9 Great Tips for Safari on Your iPad Whether it is your own iPad or the iPads that your students are using, everyone can find some useful tips in this article for using Safari. Some of my favourites are being able to find words on a page easily, quickly viewing recent pages and requesting the…

Digital Bytes 28th September 2015

This week we have an article about how multimedia storytelling can change people’s perception and develop empathy, a post on a hybrid model of assessment, blending analog and digital tools, and a response to the OECD article that made the rounds a couple of weeks ago. Enjoy!

Digital Bytes – September 21, 2015

This week’s digital bytes includes articles about a free ebook on capturing digital stories, 11 quotes by famous writers and accompanying writing lessons, and using technology to help students read faster and with better comprehension.

Digital Bytes February 23, 2015

This week’s focus is on reading and writing, including articles about enriching students’ creative writing skills with photography and using games like Mincraft to help your child with their reading. There is also a quick tutorial to help you learn how to delete those pesky untitled posts in your Google Site.

Design for Informational Writing

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…

Three things Turnitin can tell you about your writing

Photo Credit: lanuiop via Compfight Our students are just submitting a draft of their Extended Essays to the Turnitin database. Turnitin is a writing tool that we’re beginning to use in our secondary school as a way to support student writers. It includes an easy way to have students peer-review each other’s writing, a nice…