What my kids think about using digital tools

As term two draws to a close, it has been a great opportunity to gather feedback from my students. Along with my surveys about my teaching, I also wanted to find out my classes perspective on using digital tools.  This has been a massive change compared to how they had learnt in their previous classrooms.  I use digital tools on a daily basis, and not just Google Apps for Education (such as Docs, Drawing, Slides).  While I love teaching using digital tools, I wanted to know what my kids actually thought about it.

Digital tools vs. traditional Think-Pair-Share

I have spoken previously about the affordances of digital tools, compared to the traditional and verbal Think-Pair-Share approach. I have always believed that they increase engagement and participation, as they help students to feel comfortable and willing to share their ideas.  I also believe the quality of responses is higher. My own opinion on digital tools vs traditional T-P-S proved to be the same as my learners.  I posed the question: Do you prefer sharing ideas verbally, or with digital tools? Out of the 16 students who took part in the survey, 15 said they preferred digital tools, while one student said he liked both.

Here is what they had to say about why they prefer digital tools:

Because it is better

Because it's easy to use and it's really fun

because it  is faster and because half of the class don't even share there ideas verbally.

Because we can share our ideas and  I like the word clouds.

Because I can see everyone answer.

because I don't like writing on paper

because it easy and a little bit fast.

Sometimes I like doing it on both.

Because it helps us with our learning 

I like Nearpod because it helps us answer questions on what we learn and you get to write as many words as you can.

because it's good for us to learn 

I like nearpod because it shows your Ideas on the screen.

I like using it because we share our ideas with the whole class.

I like mentimeter because It has lots of things and its fun.

Because you can write more sentences.

Creating DLOs

As Glen Innes School is a part of the Manaiakalani cluster, our pedagogy is Learn, Create, Share.  I wanted to focus on the 'create' aspect, and discover how my students really felt about it. After students have learnt something, they use any app they like to create a 'Digital Learning Object' (DLO).

Essentially, a DLO is something that is created by the student to show their understanding.  A way that it is explained to students is that it can be used to teach somebody else.  Therefore, a DLO needs to be clear and easy to understand.

Again, I used a likert scale to find out whether they liked creating DLOs for reading, writing and maths. I wasn't surprised with the responses I received:

Overall, students enjoy creating DLOs to show their learning

It is pretty clear that my learners love to create DLOs about maths.  My class was relatively new to the concept of creating a DLO, so I initially focussed on creating DLOs in maths.  Now that they are experienced with creating DLOs for maths, my class absolutely loves it.  They are always engaged, and their DLOs are becoming more detailed and articulate.

While the response towards creating DLOs for writing and reading is still mostly positive, there are students who either don't like it, or feel impartial.  In an effort to boost their enthusiasm, I am working on introducing new tools for learners to use. I wonder whether their lack of exposure to creating DLOs in reading and writing has contributed to some of the students not enjoying it.  I am hoping that over time the students will enjoy creating DLOs in reading and writing as much as they do in maths. 

Students perspective on using digital tools

I used likert scales to determine how students felt about the commonly used digital tools in our classroom. Here are the results:

Class favourites

The most common favourite digital app was Kahoot, followed by Google Apps (Docs, Drawings and Slides) and Canva.  Some students chose more than one favourite, which is why there is more than 16 responses. To help make sure these really are my students favourites, next time I would list all the digital tools we have used to help learners pick a favourite. There is a possibility that the students choose these apps because they were spoken about and used in the last two weeks. 

Here is what they had to say about their favourite apps and why...

Read theory because when you are done read you can answer the questions 

google doc,google drawing,and more

Collaborative Problem solving

Cause it's fun playing on kahot! and plus learning from you  mistake.

kahoot because it cool

Kahoot, quizizz and canva

Quizzes because you don't have to wait for the teacher to press Next like on Kahoot. 

Canva because you can create your own posters 

I like kahoot because it's fun and it is also helpful

I like using them for work because they're easy to use.

I like DLO because it helps us what we did for maths.

Kahoot because we want to win so it motivates us to read the question carefully and be fast to answer it. Nearpod because I think it helps me understand that it doesn't matter if I get a question wrong, because I'm not the only one who got it wrong. Canva because I get to be creative and make inforgraphics.

youtube and because you can play music and a movie

I like mentimeter because its fun 

Kahoot because you can play games and learning games.

Notes:

• When students mentioned DLOs I counted this as GAFE because they mostly use Google Drawings and Slides to show their learning.
• I have copied and pasted the responses exactly how they were written - hence the typos and grammar issues.

Least favourites

Here are my students responses to their least favourite digital tools:

ANSWERGARDEN because it doesn't let us write lots 

Nothing

nothing I like all the digital apps that we use.

Nothing

Socrative because it dose not have funny meme's like quizizz.

Kahoot because you have to wait for the teacher to press Next.

Answer garden because you can only use 40 letters or 20

Mentimeter because I don't like how it is created. 

none because I like them all.

I don't have one.

none

play store because you can download games 

Answer garden all you got to do is write the answer for the question and the words get bigger  

Answergarden because you can only write like 40-60 letters

While the majority of students said they don't have a least favourite digital tool, the next most common response was AnswerGarden.  I think this is interesting because their reasons is one of the reasons why I personally like AnswerGarden.  Because of the word limit, AnswerGarden forces respondents to be succinct.  This can be a challenge for students.

Summing it up

It is great to see that the response to digital tools is mostly positive.  Digital tools help to increase student engagement, as they are more willing to share ideas and collaborate on tasks. My survey has also shown that the class prefers using digital tools over traditional verbal methods of sharing and collaboration.  I will continue to expose my learners to new and exciting digital tools, as I think this will help them to become more comfortable with using them.

Summer School '17: Digital Tools I am Excited to Try

This week I have not only come away with lots of knowledge about learning theories, pedagogies, and affordances related to digital technologies, but also an array of apps and programmes that can enhance the learning. It is easy to get stuck in your ways and use the same tools, so I'm glad I learnt about some tools and their uses in the classroom.  Here are some tools which I am excited to try this year in my classroom.

Answer Garden

I came across AnswerGarden thanks to Ashley and her activity on Growth Mindset. It is a great little app that could be used in many ways.  If you want a smaller version, or want to conduct a poll where participants can't see the answers, use MicroGarden instead. This can be done when selecting 'share' on your AnswerGarden. If you want to share your finished AnswerGarden you can export the data to Wordle or Tagxedo, which creates pretty Word Clouds you can add on your blog, or print out.  If you want to read more about AnswerGarden, read this.

Mentimeter

Latai introduced me to Mentimenter, and I am so glad she did! It is her favourite app and I can definitely see why. It will be a great tool to use to check understandings, share ideas as well as serve as a brain break. There are many pre-made examples from different categories too.  This tool can be used by teachers, as well as students.  Its really easy to use, and getting your learners onto your Mentimeter is easy. All they need to do is jump onto menti.com log on to and put in your code.

Special mentions

LinoIt

LinoIt is a collaborative multi-media sticky note tool which Georgia suggested the MDTA cohort to use. I am already quite a fan of Padlet, since it is pretty user-friendly and offers a lot of the same things as LinoIt.  Both tools allow for collaboration and you can add in images, videos and other links.  

Here are a few aspects which set LinoIt apart from similar tools.

• Different coloured sticky's - this can be helpful if you want to colour code ideas under different subgroups.
• Anyone can move a sticky note - unlike other tools, which only allow the poster to move their sticky note.
• Tagging feature - the tags are like hashtags, which helps you quickly see sticky notes which have the same tags. If you click on a tag, the sticky notes with the same tag are visible, while the others are blacked out.

As with similar tools, LinoIt has many uses in the classroom.  Click here to read an exhaustive list. If you want so see an example of LinoIt's use, check out Georgia's LinoIt. Her students have colour-coded their sticky notes and used tags to share what they know about the Olympic Values. They have also used various modes to show their understanding (images, video clips and text).

Trello

Trello was introduced to me by my lecturer who used it to show the outline for each day. Trello is a collaborative tool which helps you organise your projects using a board with lists and cards. It shows you what is being worked on, who is working on it and what is completed.  You can organise your board with a series of lists, and can add 'cards' under each list. For each card, you can add labels, due dates and attachments. Make your Trello a collaborative document by adding members. You can see what group members (and you) have done by looking at the 'activity' section, which shows the board's history. You can learn more about Trello here.

This tool can be used by both teachers and students.  I am keen to use Trello as an online to-do list to ensure I stay on top of my workload this year.  I would also like to encourage my learners to use this tool when working collaboratively in groups.

I am looking forward to seeing how my new classroom responds to the new digital tools I will be using in my teaching!

Summer School '17: Digital Enhancement

The MDTA is half-way through our last course before we begin our dissertations.  Our week-long course is jam-packed, as we learn about theories of learning, learning design, affordances and pedagogies relating to digital technologies.

Readings, Readings and More Readings

Since there is so much to fit into such a short course, we had 9 readings we had to complete before Summer School.  These readings were all very lengthy and wordy, with a lot of challenging concepts.  To help us understand our readings, we were set with the task of creating an engaging activity based on a reading. 

My reading was Affordance, Opportunity and the Pedagogical Implications of ICT  by Peter John and Rosamund Sutherland.  I found this reading incredibly hard to comprehend, and found myself having to read it over and over again.  I decided to create a quiz to help test the MDTA's knowledge of the ideas discussed in the article.

Creating an Activity

 I chose to use the platform Socrative, rather than Kahoot! Personally, I prefer Socrative for a number of ways. Here are some reasons:

1. While Kahoot's leaderboard feature can be great for some learners, it can also put struggling learners off.  With Socrative, teachers can choose to keep the student's names hidden.

2. The questions and answers are displayed on the students devices, as well as your main screen (through AppleTV, projector, SMART board, etc). With Kahoot, the answer options are displayed on the main screen, and the students can only see the multichoice icons/colours. 

3. Socrative allows you to create mutli-choice, short answer and true and false questions.  This is great if you want to have a variety of types of questions.  Kahoot, on the other hand, only allows multichoice questions.

Creating my quiz helped me to consolidate my understanding of my reading, as well as the other MDTA BTs.  Taking part in each others activities helped us all to gain a deeper understanding of the readings. This will help us a lot for our first assignment, which is based on the readings.