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The 12 iPad lessons of Christmas in action!

November 25, 2014, 1:43 pm
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My latest eBook - The 12 iPad lessons of Christmas is available on the iBook store NOW for just 99p! On the first day of release it was the 3rd best selling eBook in the UK! Thank you to everyone who has downloaded a copy! If you haven't yet got one, be sure to give it a download as it will provide you with some fantastic and inspiring ideas in the lead up to Christmas! If you cannot download the eBook from iBooks, you can buy a PDF copy here.

Just to give you a flavour of some of the lesson ideas, here are a couple of finished examples children have created using lessons from the eBook -


Interactive Advent Calendar


Descriptive Winter Scene Pictures

Class 4a Winter Scene



If you use any of the lessons from the eBook, please share a link and I will add it to this blog post!
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Real Life Learning on the iPad - Examples from Class

November 26, 2014, 1:48 pm
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Last week, I blogged about a few apps I have discovered that challenge the children to apply their understanding and knowledge in real life situations. YOU CAN READ THE BLOG POST BY CLICKING HERE.

Today I tried a couple of them with our Year 3 children who relished every minute using these apps!

In Numeracy, we used Motion Math: Pizza! This app is brilliant! The children were instantly hooked! There are so many aspects of this game that get children thinking carefully. They start with a budget of £50 have to buy ingredients, design a pizza and then decide how much it should be sold for in comparison how much it cost to make. They then have to deal with customers who buy different amounts of pizzas. They have to answer quickly before the customer loses their patience and leaves. The children may run out of ingredients, have customers who feel the pizza is overpriced. After each day the children are shown what profit they have made and can then buy more ingredients and make more pizzas. As the game progresses other shops open to buy ingredients so children need to compare prices to find the best deals for their stock.


It was one of the best numeracy lessons we have had. The children realised the importance of knowing their times tables, seeing where it would be used in real life. They worked fantastically well together to try and build the biggest profit they were having to solve problems and think quickly. I will be on the hunt for other games similar to this, and for £2.49 it is definitely worth every penny.
The learning wouldn't need to stop at the app, just yesterday I came across this wonderful blog post from @Ideas_Factory - CLICK HERE, which would make great connections to Literacy.

We then moved on to using Keyplan 3D. This fantastic app allows children to build their own house and then decorate the interior by adding a wide range of furniture. The children worked in pairs to create their own house. They worked brilliantly well, discussing ideas and collaboratively designing a house with bedrooms, bathrooms, living rooms, kitchen, garden and other special rooms. 

Once the children had finished their designs, we looked on rightmove.com for examples of property descriptions. The children used the iVisualiser app to highlight effective vocabulary, here is an example - 


The children then wrote their own descriptions about their properties. They then narrated their writing over pictures of their houses in iMovie to create impressive videos of their creations. Here are some of their examples - 


One group experimented with a couple of other apps including Tellagami Edu, Doink Greenscreen, iMovie and the record feature in Airserver - 


All in all a great day in Year 3 today! And already we have had feedback from the professionals - 


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Boosting writing using the iPad

November 26, 2014, 2:29 pm
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Over the past term, I have been working with a group of Year 5 children, looking to boost their writing using the iPads. All the children were slightly below where they need to be in terms of their progress with writing, so it has been my job to try and improve this using the iPads. It has been tricky as I have only been able to work with the group once a week and even then, whenever a teacher has been ill or on a course, I have had to cover so missed the session. However in the short sequence of lessons we have had we have seen some incredible writing inspired by the use of iPads.

I have been using a lot of ideas from Inspired Mind's fantastic book - Developing Writing through Comics and decided to use a comic app as the inspiration for the writing project. The app 'Shifter,' is an interactive graphic novel with some incredible artwork, sound effects and an augmented reality partner app. The only problem with the app is that it has a 12+ rating on the app store as further into the story their is some choice language that isn't appropriate for use in schools. It is a real shame really as the potential to this app is unbelievable and the way the children responded to it was impressive. We just used the opening scene as the stimulus. The series of activities led to children creating their own digital stories that showcased their writing and motivating them knowing their writing was going to be transformed on the iPad and proudly showcased on our school blog!

The video explains all the activities carried out on the iPad that aided the writing process before creating our digital stories using a range of other creative skills to enhance and bring the writing to life -



When the writing was presented to the class teacher, it was compared to other assessed writing and we found all the children made significant progress. I know this was an isolated project and cannot undeniably show the direct impact iPads have had on their writing. But our next project will be non fiction, so I am hoping to see a continued progression.

If you are interested in how to best use mobile technology to really enhance children's learning, Mr P can provide bespoke training for your school - details here. 
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Please help my class!

November 30, 2014, 2:24 pm
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Please take a moment to answer these quick questions, feel free to share with your friends, students or colleagues -


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Edublog Awards!

December 3, 2014, 11:13 am
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I was flattered when my blog was nominated in the UK Blog awards! This has been followed with my blog being recognised in the Edublog awards 2014 in the Best Individual Blog category and the Best ed tech/resource sharing category! Voting is now open so I would love as many people to vote for my blog! A massive thank you to everyone who have voted for me! You can vote here -



See full list on Listly

See full list on Listly
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Explain Everything to mark children's writing

December 3, 2014, 12:43 pm
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We started today's lesson looking at feedback from the previous writing session. I decided to do a little experiment and mark half the children's work using written feedback with my green pen and highlighters but then used Explain Everything with the other half to record myself annotating and giving verbal feedback. I then asked the group to use the feedback to correct their writing.

I often question the impact of written feedback with particular children and wanted to see whether watching and listening back to my feedback would have more of an impact? From this session, it certainly seemed to. Comparing the corrections children made, there was significantly more with those who had iPads. After a discussion with the children, they seem to prefer it too, it was clearer, easier to understand and made them realise where they could improve.


Obviously, I am not saying that from this one session, we should get rid of written feedback but it was certainly eye opening. This is definitely something I will be looking at more intently over the coming weeks and keep you updated. In the meantime, give it a go yourself! Take a picture of the children's writing, add it into a Explain Everything project and then record yourself reading through, highlighting and discussing their work. Allow the children to then watch it back, pausing at appropriate points to then edit and improve their work. Let me know your thoughts!

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Should Minecraft be used in School?

December 3, 2014, 1:14 pm
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Any followers of this blog will know my answer to this question, however as a stimulus for children, I knew it would be something they would want to write about and I was not disappointed! Even though, the children didn't touch or play Minecraft in anyway, just discussing the game had them completely enthralled and focused throughout the day.

Over the past few days I have been asking teachers all around the world to give me their opinions on using Minecraft in the classroom and I want to thank everyone for contributing, (especially if you purposely gave the opposing reason just to help us!)

This is a link to the form - Should Minecraft be used in School?

The response in only a couple of days was overwhelming -



Feel free to use this form and all the reasons suggested. The children looked through all the data and picked three for and three arguments against. They then wrote a discussion text.


As always, we couldn't just leave it in the book. Using an app I first came across through the brilliant @digitalroadtrip and his great blog #8ipads. Bossjock is a great app to create podcasts and radio programmes and that it what the children did. Using apps like text to speech and garageband to compose their own jingles and background music. This was uploaded to our Audioboom channel, here are some examples - 



listen to ‘The Issue: Minecraft in Schools’ on audioBoom

listen to ‘Should Minecraft be used in school?’ on audioBoom

listen to ‘Should Minecraft be used in Schools?’ on audioBoom

listen to ‘Minecraft in Schools’ on audioBoom



Very excited to say that my book - 50+ iPad lessons for Exciting Sentences, co-written with Alan Peat, is now on its way to the printers! I will share a way to pre order the book soon. But hoping for it to be ready late December/Early January!

I have also finished my next book, which I am very excited about! It  will be a while before that one will be ready but if you like the above idea, you will love the book!

Remember if you want me to visit your school and run training for your staff to demonstrate how to use technology to raise standards in the classroom - visit here.
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Pre Order - 50+ iPad for Exciting Sentences

December 7, 2014, 1:27 am
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I am very excited to see my first printed book co-written with @alanpeat is finally going into print! It is the first in a series of books that will support teachers in the use of mobile tech to teach and improve writing. You can read more about the book here.

You can now PRE ORDER the book and make sure you are the first to receive a copy. All you need to do is fill out the following form. We cannot confirm an exact date when the book will be ready to be sent out but we will update as soon as we know.

I cannot tell you how excited and proud I am that this book is nearly ready. I want to thank everyone who has supported me and the blog and making this happen.


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Mr P is abducted by Aliens!

December 10, 2014, 8:44 am
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I woke this morning in a cold sweat after having the most peculiar dream. In my dream, I was abducted by aliens, taken on their spaceship and talked to in a language I didn't understand. When I went to get ready for work, I noticed something strange on my arm -

At first, I thought it was a wash on tattoo, so tried to wash it off in the shower. But no matter how hard I scrubbed, it wouldn't wash away. I panicked! Desperately, I searched the internet trying to find an explanation. I stumbled across an app, that told me to scan the unusual symbol and it would tell me if it was real! Well, something happened. Something strange, something amazing and something that told me it was VERY real!



I shared this story with a Year 3 group of children I worked with today. I showed them my arm, demonstrated what happened when it was scanned by the special app and they couldn't believe their eyes. They then wrote some fantastic newspaper articles about the story - 


We didn't stop there. After lunch, we transformed our writing into a real TV News Broadcast, using Doink Greenscreen, Morfo Booth, iPrompt Pro and iMovie. Here is the full story about Mr P's abduction!


It was hard for the children to keep the story quiet until the news report was completed. Even their class teachers couldn't get any information out of them. They were hooked by the story and enjoyed every minute of the day. They created some fantastic written news articles knowing it would be transformed into a real TV news report.

Such an enjoyable day! The stimulus? Another amazing example of Augmented Reality to inspire writing in the form of StARz AR. From following this blog, you will know how fond I am of using Augmented Reality to inspire, motivate, share, enhance and redefine learning in the classroom. Starz AR is another example and from the work Year 3 produced today, you can clearly see the engagement, enjoyment and quality of work they have produced.

If you like this and want to know how you can utilise mobile technology to enhance learning in the classroom, Mr P can help with a range of training opportunities - visit here for more details.
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Alan Peat Presents Using Technology to enhance the New Primary Curriculum in association with Grow Education, 8th December, London

December 10, 2014, 1:37 pm
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I had a wonderful day sharing some ideas and strategies to enhance the new curriculum using technology on Monday in London. Around 38 teachers attended and there was a great buzz in the room!


A massive thank you to everyone who came and for all your useful and valued feedback, very much appreciated.



37 Feedback forms
31 rated the content of the training as excellent
5 rated the content as good
1 rated the the content satisfactory

32 rated the delivery of the training as excellent
5 rated the delivery as good

Some comments -
"Funny, informative, inspiring, amazing! I've read your blog for some time and it's been so useful to hear the man in person! Couldn't recommend the training enough. Keep up your inspiring work - keeps my children happy when I come in with a iPad in hand." 
This has been the best training I have ever been on! The content was exactly what I was looking for. I feel truly inspired! 
"This was a very powerful and inspiring course. I have lots of ideas that I can't wait to use in the classroom and share with colleagues. I would recommend this course to every primary practitioner." 
"Fantastic, informative with loads of exciting and innovative ideas! Hopefully will be able to convince Headteacher to purchase iPads."
"Fantastic ideas in terms of apps, uses in lessons across the curriculum to feedback to staff. Thank you very much." 
Excellent, packed training. Very appropriate - have got loads of ideas to try out and share." 
"Excellent practical ideas that you can take straight back into the classroom. The use of Apps was amazing. Thank you very much! 
 "Loads of ideas and great to see and hear how these apps can be used in class in a realistic way!"
"Loads of ideas - lots to think about and try out." 
"Really useful, covered lots of really practical ideas. Good to see examples for cross curriculum ideas. Really good course!"
"A fantastic course which has left me buzzing with ideas! Lee is a great speak and gives so many usable ideas."
"Great ideas for bring maths and literacy to life." 
"Brilliant! Thank you very much - really useful and inspiring, will definitely be sharing back at school, so useful to have this from a 'real' teacher!" 
 "Excellent content - well pitched, delivered with enthusiasm and was inspirational. Thank you."
 "Great ideas, very practical, will be using this in the classroom!" 
"Great presentation! Learned a lot from the session and will be applying some of the techniques in my teacher practice."
"Excellent. Your enthusiasm alone is worth the visit."
"Excellent - lots of info and ideas, thank you." 
 "It was very inspiring!"
"Great app suggestions and a good model of how they can be used." 
"Excellent practical ideas that can be used. Thanks for a very useful course!" 
"Thanks for so many excellent ideas. I'm leaving feeling very inspired."
"An amazing day with lots to think about and to try out in school. Definitely need to start a school blog now! Thank you so much!"
"Really useful practical ideas, thank you!" 
"Really useful and inspiring thank you!"
"Many thanks, great day!" 
"Very good delivery!" 
 "Thank you!"
"Great ideas to use in the classroom."
"Lots of good ideas!"
"Very enthusiastic!"
"Some great ideas for writing and use of multimedia to enhance writing and give writing a purpose."
"Good to see your passion shine through!"



I have other upcoming conferences and the details can be found here. I can also come and run training in your school details here. 
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A festive treat - Merry Christmas!

December 17, 2014, 8:00 am
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It has been an incredible and amazing year for me! The support from all the teachers and schools around the world who have followed my blog, invited me to run training and attended my conferences has been unbelievable and I want to thank everyone for all the help and support.

As a thank you, I am sharing the latest Christmas video created for this year's talent show. For the past number of years we have made a christmas dance video to top off the annual talent show we have at school. All in the name of entertainment, the children loved every second of each video! (Click here to see previous efforts) Unfortunately, my dancing partner is no longer at the school and so felt it would be wrong to dance without him! Instead, I decided to do something different. I apologise now for the awful singing and acting, but the children seemed to really enjoy it and had a huge smiles on their faces, so was worth it just for that!

Here it is, the teacher parody of Frozen's 'Do you want to build a snowman' -



Have an amazing Christmas, and I am looking forward to a fantastic 2015!

Thanks again!

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Combining Literacy with Coding with the Adventure Creator App!

December 30, 2014, 1:16 pm
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The question is always asked - "How should we use the iPad to cover the coding and programming aspects of the new Computing curriculum?" I usually answer by listing a range of apps that will challenge children to write and debug different programs and algorithms. I recommend websites like primarycomputing.co.uk from @DrChips_ or @SimonHaughton's fantastic websites - SimonHaughton.co.uk and computing.parkfieldprimary.com.
I then normally advise not to spend hundreds of pounds on different schemes of work to teach it but simply use twitter and find lessons usually better that what can be found in certain schemes.

I have never ran training focusing specifically on programming or coding as for me I don't feel it is a strength of mine. I was never really taught it at school myself and honestly am not blown away with enthusiasm about it. My use of technology focuses more on using it as a cross curricular tool and showing how embedding it can impact on learning in the core areas. However a new app that has recently been released by the fantastic @Joe_Moretti looks like it will be able to combine both Literacy and Coding! Introducing'The Adventure Creator!"  download it now for just £2.49 from the App Store.


I first came across this app after downloading @Joe_Moretti's FREE eBook - The Comprehensive Guide to Computing in the Classroom iPad. The app features in the eBook and is clearly demonstrated with videos and descriptions so there isn't much point me copying and pasting it here.

But this app looks very promising and could easily be used to inspire story writing or even challenge children to recreate a version of a story they have read. The ability to create their own point and click game and coding it themselves will certainly motivate and engage pupils!


I am excited to give this a go with some upper KS2 children and watch this space for the results! You can find more about the app here - http://www.theadventurecreator.com/

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Storyverse - Making Reading Exciting!

January 7, 2015, 6:00 am
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I have been eagerly awaiting the release of the app Storyverse ever since I saw their KickStarter video -



Finally, it is here! Storyverse is a free app that requires in app purchases to download different interactive 3D interactive books. These books encourage children to read the story while playing a video game as the character. They have to fight, search and collect different elements and objects by playing out the story they have read.

If anything is going to get children, especially boys, excited about reading it would be an app like this! Here is a preview of one of the books - Knoble Knight as a work in progress!



I also think from children playing the game in the role of the character could lead to some amazing first person narrative writing as well as other text types!

The team behind Storyverse have very kindly given me 5 promo codes to share, to be in with a chance of winning like and share this Facebook post -


Post by ICT with Mr P.
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An alternative way to evidence learning objectives!

January 7, 2015, 7:52 am
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Just before we started back in January, there was a big discussion on social media about whether Learning Objectives/Challenges, WALTs and WILFs should be copied down by children. This extract from Debra Kidd's latest book seemed to spark the debate -


The argument, as I understood it, wasn't whether we should use Learning Objectives but more whether there is any direct impact on children's learning by asking them to copy it out for every lesson? After asking fellow teachers what happens in their school, it seems the majority make children copy the learning objective out for no other reason than for evidence.


Post by ICT with Mr P.

I was amazed that the only alternative if children didn't copy the LO was that teachers either copy the LO out or will print them onto 30+ stickers and stick them in every child's book! Where teachers find the time for this I don't know and how much of the school budget is used on stickers, printing and photocopying. However it got me thinking about finding a way in which technology can be used to make this easier. Finding a way teachers can evidence all the learning objectives without wasting time asking children to copy it out or create more work for themselves.

One possible method would be using a combination of Google Documents and QR Codes. This would how it would work -

  • Teachers will need to create a Google Drive account. 
  • From here, they can make a Google Document, the google doc is an online word document that can be accessed/edited from any device. 
  • The teacher could write the date, learning challenge, links to National Curriculum, lesson outcomes, differentiated objectives/tasks or any other information they would need to include, but would only have to write it once. 



  • By pressing the Share button in the top right corner, the web link for the doc can be copied and pasted into the website - QRStuff.com to produce and create a QR Code link - 

  • This QR code can be printed 30+ times on one sheet of paper and glued into the children's book at the start of each week, half term or topic. 
Children then only have to write the date in their books. Teachers will still share and discuss the learning objective in each lesson so pupils know exactly what they are learning in each lesson. As the Google Doc is a working document, the teacher just adds the LO to it everyday. If there was a last minute change to the lesson or it didn't happen for whatever reason, this can be noted on the Document. All the learning objectives are evidenced in the document and can be viewed by the powers that be by scanning the QR code using any QR Scanner app such as Scan. And matching the date in the children's books to the date in the Google Doc.

This method would mean children wouldn't need to waste time writing the learning objective out. It would save on so much printing, photocopying and time for teachers. They would only need to print the QR code once a week, half term or topic. 

It is just an idea and I would welcome any other ideas for evidencing Learning Objectives that would save learning time for children but also preparation time for teachers. If you find this method useful and end up using it, please let me know whether you find it works for you. 





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Interactive Multimedia Diary Entries

January 8, 2015, 8:40 am
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Today I worked with a class using a rather chilling video from the Literacy Shed as our stimulus -
 

You can read more about the animation on the Literacy Shed here. The animation is quite scary however demonstrates some great techniques to build tension. This was all discussed within the lesson and the children had to create their own diary entry for the main character.

After writing their diary, the children used different apps to create their multimedia diary entries. They narrated some of their writing over clips from the film using the app Shadow Puppets before using an amazing app Glogster to put it all together.

I discovered Glogster over Christmas and it is a fantastic way for children to share, present and create amazing pieces of work on any topic. They can design, add pictures, videos sound recordings, media from the web as well as type to create an interactive page that can be published to the Glogster channel. From here it can be shared and embedded onto school blogs! The potential to this app is incredible and one I can see myself using in every subject across the curriculum over the next few weeks!

Here are a couple of examples from the lesson -

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A Year in the Life of Triplets - The Sequel

January 11, 2015, 2:54 am
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On January 10th 2012, I decided to start a project inspired by Cesar Kuriyama and his 1 second everyday idea. I wanted to do my own version in two different ways - one as a teacher and one as a parent. You can read all about how I used it as a teacher to keep memories of successful moments in class along with creating an amazing keepsake for the class at the end of the year - HERE.

As a parent, I completed my first year and created an amazing keepsake of the triplets year from being 18 months to 2 1/2. In the first year, I mostly used the app 1 second everyday, however when I decided to continue and make a recording for the second year, I edited the video myself. Rather than 1 second a day, I changed it for 1 moment a day, because sometimes I felt it needed just a little bit longer. I made sure no clip was over 2/3 seconds but being flexible with that half second made it better to show what they were up to. It also meant Mum, Grandma and others could get involved when they were looking after the kids.

I have created this video to try and demonstrate that mobile technology can be used in a positive way without harming my ability to be a father. Arguments, videos and articles are popping up everywhere discussing the harmful side of mobile tech and how we all now live with our heads down! With this project, I film for a matter of seconds to capture a memory before playing, wrestling, dancing, laughing, cuddling and enjoying every moment I have with my troop. When I watch that moment back, I am instantly transported back to that day, experience and memory.

Any way here is the second year - A Year in the Life of Triplets - Age 2 - 3.

Here is the first year too -

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PocketPhonics Stories - Great for the EYFS classroom!

January 20, 2015, 10:57 am
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There are hundreds and thousands of phonics apps available on the App store. Some that I have used are fantastic; others are questionable to say the least. Our approach at my school was to focus on a couple of really useful phonics apps, one of these is PocketPhonics.

What I love about PocketPhonics is that children learn initial letters and sounds, blending words but also handwriting. When I used this app over a term with a mixed reception/year 1 class, the rapid progression in handwriting especially with the boys was impressive. We invested in a class set of stylus pens and used these whenever possible as we felt this would be more beneficial for improving children's pencil grasp development, (Steve from iPad Educators recently blogged about Stylus pens.) It really helped children being able to get instant feedback if they make a mistake in writing the letters or blending words. 

The team behind PocketPhonics have now released another app, PocketPhonics Stories. PocketPhonics Stories is split in to 12 groups of letter sounds, each group is followed by a set of storybooks that contain those letter sounds. Once the child has mastered one group of letter sounds, they progress to reading the storybooks that tests their knowledge of these letter sounds. They read storybooks that are on the right level for them. Once that task is completed they then move on to the next group of sounds, and so on. 

It is another fantastic resource to help children learn initial letters, words and build up vocabulary to read their own storybooks. If children's enjoyment and engagement for the original PocketPhonics is anything to go by, they will love this app too. I can't wait to give it a whirl in class. 

You can download a copy of PocketPhonics stories here - https://itunes.apple.com/gb/app/pocketphonics-stories/id882249080?mt=8

I have also managed to get my hands on some promo codes for the PocketPhonics app that I will be giving away on my facebook page -



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Play Osmo - Play beyond the screen

January 25, 2015, 12:12 pm
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I have been meaning to blog about the Osmo since I received one in the summer. It is only after seeing so many people rave about it from #Bett2015 it reminded me to share this amazing tool!

To give you a taste of what Osmo is and what it can do here is a short video -
 

The Osmo costs around £50 but it has great potential in the classroom, the three games included cover core subjects in Literacy and Maths and help children develop their spellings, shape recognition and problem solving in a fun and engaging way. My only criticism would be to have the letters in lower case rather than upper case as children recognise these easier.

I understand the team behind Osmo are working on other games and activities using this hardware so am excited to see what they come up with.

Having an Osmo in the classroom will come in great use for group work or independent activities with primary children.

You can order your own Osmo here.

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Teaching Direct Speech with Memes

January 25, 2015, 1:02 pm
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After seeing what @inspiredmind5 did to teach speech this week -


Post by Inspired Minds.



I wanted to share something I did which was similar using blank internet memes. A "meme" is a virally-transmitted cultural symbol or social idea. Usually they are an image with text above or below like these examples -


These were made using the app Mematic, which is featured in my new book '50+ iPad lessons for Exciting Sentences.' Within the book the app is used to help children generate and share exciting sentences. 

Using the idea of a meme, I used it as a way to help children practise direct speech. In the past I have used iPhone text messaging to teach direct speech which has worked brilliantly. 

After searching the internet, I found some blank memes like this - 





We started by discussing how to punctuate direct speech, we highlighted three different parts - What has been said directly in the "", the reporting clause andextra detail/description. 
I demonstrated examples of how the reporting clause and extra description can be at the start, in the middle or at the end of the sentence. 

I then set the challenge of creating some dialogue for the blank memes. Straight away the children were hooked, they recognised the images from their favourite films/cartoons. The children could be as imaginative with the dialogue they created but then have the visual images to help develop the reporting clause and extra detail. 

I initially asked the children to type out the dialogue onto the image using the app Book Creator, just to help colour code each part so they could demonstrate their understanding of the different elements. They then wrote the dialogue into their books. Here are some examples - 





This idea can easily be used to develop children's understanding of reported speech and even changing direct to reported speech. 

 Would be really interested to see what others do with this idea so please send a link in the comments and I will add examples to this post.




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Pop - Create an app with Paper!

January 25, 2015, 1:35 pm
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I stumbled across the Pop - Prototyping on Paper app a while ago and simply put, it is AWESOME!! The possibilities are endless!

To give you a quick idea of how it works, here is a short demo from the Pop website -



I am always looking to use Mobile Technology to enhance what can be done on paper. I recently wrote an article for Innovate my School about transforming learning on the iPad referencing the SAMR model. You can read the article here. This app is the perfect example of how technology can enhance what can be done on paper. This app however, encourages users to use paper and therefore is great for the classroom.

Imagine turning the children's topic book into an app or telling an adventure story as an app, linking a mindmap at the beginning of a science topic and linking all the questions to work children have produced through the topic. Children can produce an guide to the school app, instructional text apps or apps about their favourite hobbies or interests.

With so much focus on computing in the new curriculum, this would be a great way to link computing to other curriculum areas. The app itself is very simple to use - take pictures of all your pages and use boxes to link from page to page. The apps created can then be shared and viewed on mobiles or computers.

My stepson is into sketching and drawing pictures of his favourite footballers and sports stars. After showing him this app and explaining how he can turn his pictures into an app, he created one. He took pictures of his drawings, screenshots from wikipedia and linked it all together to make this -



If this doesn't show clearly - follow this link.


I know he would absolutely love to know what people think about his drawings, he takes a lot of pride in them so please leave a comment so I can show how many people have seen and liked his efforts.

I think this app is a fantastic way to create, share and publish children's written work. Please share any examples you create with your calss and I will link them into this post. Thanks!
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