Getting our #ict4red groove on again!!

The start of the new year is always a shock to our systems with all the planning, getting used to all the learners, the noise and the buzz!! I feel for you all! But it is also very exciting to be back and see all the new and old faces again!

We are just over half way with our #ict4red tablet course and it is time for some serious planning while we are at it! I will be virtually talking/working with each of you individually over the next few weeks to make sure that you get back on track and help with some lesson ideas, apps and tools that you can use to get your #ICT4RED jaribaaa back. The strategies that we have dealt with over the first 6 modules are totally fun, practical and ready for you to implement in your classroom into what you have to do in any case! So there is nooooo reason to panic!!

I know that having done the last few modules just before the end of year examinations, did not leave any time for classroom implementation. It is therefore essential that we plan our lessons this year in such a way that we can earn our badges and create award winning jaribaaa lessons at the same time!

Talking about badges..... Here is our top 10 badge earners from last year. It looks like the Queenstown Primary school is taking the early lead!!!!

1	Olivia	Horn	8
2	Christine	Murray	7
3	Nelia	Moss	7
4	Sarah-Lee	Frewen	7
5	Vicki	du Preez	7
6	Didas	Tumusiime	6
7	Gweny	Van Deventer	6
8	Jessie	Kay	6
9	Patrick	Adjei	6
10	BENJAMIN	MILLS	5

Our assessment this year is moving up a notch as we will be looking for the top #ict4red #GAPSchool achievers. To earn the #ict4red merit badge we will be identifying  innovative lessons that can be used as inspiring case studies in our #ICT4RED integration book/site and the lessons will also be entered into the #ispasuperteacher competition! So now is the time to get your groove on!!

The following rubric will be used to evaluate all badges this year.

Modules 1 to 10
The pink indicates the minimum requirements for earning a badge. The rest of the criteria will count towards a merit award.

CATEGORY	4	3	2	1
Lesson plan description	Lesson plan is described in detail with Grade, Topic, CAPS alignment and specific outcomes and the lesson implements the given strategy with all tech well described.	Lesson plan is described in detail with Grade, Topic, CAPS alignment and specific outcomes and the lesson implements the given strategy.	Lesson plan is described in detail with Grade, Topic, CAPS alignment and implements the given strategy.	Lesson plan is briefly described but I can't quite get what the lesson is about. No CAPS alignment.
Badge criteria	All badge criteria is handed in and is accompanied by a detailed lesson plan and uploaded to Google drive.	All badge criteria is handed in and is accompanied by a detailed lesson plan.	All badge criteria is handed in.	Not all badge criteria is covered.
Originality	Lesson shows a large amount of original thought. Ideas are creative and innovative.	Lesson shows some original thought. Work shows new ideas and insights.	Lesson uses other people's ideas (giving them credit), but there is little evidence of original thinking.	Use other people's ideas, but do not give them credit.
Technology use	Tablets and technology were used in a WOW seamless way and it was a paperless environment throughout with focus on pedagogy.	Tablets and technology were used seamlessly in an innovative way during the lesson	Tablets and technology were used during the lesson in a basic way (Photos, videos) and badge artifacts were uploaded to shared Google drive	No technology was incorporated into the lesson except for accessing the material in digital format.
Reflection	Your online journal is up to date and you are using it for everyday reflection and to capture all learning, notes and memos. You are constantly reflecting on your teaching practice and creating learning briefs e.g if anything did not work, you reflect on why it did not work and how you can change it to improve your practice. Your journal is WOW!	All lessons are captured in journal with what worked and what did not work with photos and voice recordings and detailed explanations of what happened before, during and after the lesson.	All lessons are captured in journal with what worked and what did not work.	Some evidence of reflective teaching (Some journal entries).
Total Score

Other badges:
The pink indicates the minimum requirements for earning a badge. The rest of the criteria will count towards a merit award.

CATEGORY	4	3	2	1
Email	Ongoing email communications, letting me know when you have uploaded your module stuff to your gdrive	You have send an email with a class photo attached to ict4red@gmail.com from your tablet	Email address is set up on tablet	Can access email using a browser
Twitter	Are a twitter ninja with over a 100 tweets, are flowing over 50 education related tweeps and is being followed by over a 100 people. You have shared at least 30 educational resource tweets	Have retweeted at least 5 educational tweets and replied to 5 tweets, shared a photo and a video in your timeline	Have followed 20 educational tweets and colleagues and have tweeted 20 education related tweets with the #ict4red #gapschools hashtag	Have registered for twitter and twitter is set up on tablet. Bio is complete and egg has been hatched
Content creation	The item is innovative and fresh and can be used in learner centred classrooms	The item can be used by other teachers in their classrooms and subject.	The item is clearly aligned with outcomes and can be identified as something that you have created as part of your teaching strategies	You have created an object about a topic that you are currently teaching. (Video, slideshow. infographic, tutorial, informational document.)
App Assessment	Have sourced apps and used it in innovative ways with completed assessment forms	Have identified new apps that are not part of the course for use with the strategies with completed app assessment forms and examples	Have looked at, at least 10 apps and completed the app assessment questionnaires in electronic format (photos/form/word doc)	Have looked at, at least 5 apps and completed the app assessment questionnaires in electronic format (photos/form/word doc)
Assessment	You have made innovative and creative use of technology and methodology to create your assessment tool.	You have used technology to create or capture your assessment task. (e.g. google forms, testmoz) and your students have completed it electronically	You have supplied a scanned/completed learner instrument as well as the Assessment Motivation Template	You have created 3 different assessment tools (e.g. rubric, self-assessment questionnaire, scoring sheet, test with memorandum)
Blogging/Blog collaborator	You have created a blog for your class/subject and have used embedded objects. Your learners are actively participating on your blog via comments and posts	You have created your own blog and have made at least 5 blogposts	You have contributed a blogpost to our www.gapict4red.blogspot.com blog.	You have made at least 5 comments on any of the ict4red school blog posts (www.gapict4red.blogspot.com)
Mobile skills	Have used apps and tools in innovative and creative ways throughout the course	Have created how to tutorials for apps and tools not defined in the course	Can do more advanced mobile skills required in the course	Can do some all the basic tablet skills required in the course
Jaribaaaa Badge	Your classes are transformed into learner centred innovation hubs and you are an exemplary guide on the side. You have the Jaribaaaa factor	Enthusiastically participated and are very excited about using the strategies and tech in the classroom	Helped others and actively participated in the gamification and fun	Attended the minimum no of training sessions (8) and participated
Total Score

 I would also like you to revisit what you have done last year and make sure that your ICT4RED google drive folder has the following in for every module (even if you have already been awarded your badge). This will be your online portfolio for SACE accreditation.

• Your lesson plan describing what you have done. You can use the lesson plan template here (goo.gl/dlZL7g) or use your own, making sure that I will be able to use the above rubric to "evaluate" your lesson, know what it is about and how you have used technology (mobile devices in your classroom.  It has to be in electronic format in your folder. 
• Make sure that you have covered all the criteria and that all evidence have been uploaded to your google drive folder. 
• Do not put ALL your photos and videos in your google drive, choose the ones that best describes the lesson and adhere to the criteria.
• If you want to do another lesson on a badge that you have already earned, feel free and let me know to look at it for merit achievement!!

If you need help getting back on track with what to do for each badge, see the badge support posts: 

Module1 Jigsaw Support

Module 2 Storytelling support

Module 3 Role Play

Module 3 Role play support

Module 4 Learning stations

Module 4 Learning stations support

Twitter Badge support

Content Creator Badge Support

Module 5 Mind mapping

Module 5 Mind Mapping badge support

Module 7 Game Based Learning

Module 7 GBL badge support

If you need help or just want to talk with me about what you are planning to do. or if you are ready to submit, let me know and we can set up a skype session for you. My skype name is Maggieverster. 

See you online and don't forget to get your tweet on again....#ict4red #gapschools

Game based learning support post

We had a lot of fun on Saturday exploring all the facets of Game Based Learning, but as always, when you are having fun, you always run out of time! So this is the first thing that you have to bear in mind when planning a game-based lesson -make sure you allocate enough time for fun!!

Games is a great way to do revision seeing that it is almost the end of the school year. Research (goo.gl/1y34Ny) is showing us that playing educational games, as a way of learning, is incredibly effective! Games also provide a safe place to "loose" and act a a great motivator! The following 2 articles will inspire you to get going:

• What is GBL (Game-Based Learning)?
• GBL Checklist for educators

So what do you need to do to get the Game Based Learning Badge?? 

You need to create a lesson where you will use educational game(s)  for your learners to play and achieve your learning outcomes. The place to start is as always with: "What do I want my learners to learn?"  (your lesson outcomes). You can then go and investigate what educational apps and tools are available that can be used in your lesson to achieve the learning outcomes.

As our "lesson" session topic was "Copyright", we used a quiz to make sure that  all the learning is centred around that topic. Dividing the learners into groups, where each member has to research a section of the work, also resulted in every group member taking responsibility for their learning and contribution to the communal group's quiz knowledge.

You can make use of the Quiz slideshow template in your resource folder to create your own class quiz (goo.gl/gdtQCC ) by replacing the markers with your own questions and answers. You can use the online Quiz maker called Flipquiz (Flipquiz.me) to create your quiz as it keeps track of the teams, categories and scoring for your.

You can create flashcards and use the app Quizlet (see previous blogpost) to re-enforce the gaming topics and to create an automated drag and drop time based game! Remember, any quizlet, flipquiz or slideshow quiz you create for your students can count towards your Content creator badge as long as it is a "freestanding" learning object. In other words, it covers a curriculum subject topic that can be used by another teacher anywhere!

There are many gaming apps for almost any educational topic. As long as it support or extend your learning outcomes, you are welcome to use it.

Here are the criteria for getting your Game Based Learning Badge:

Remember to upload your lesson plan and your learner photos to our shared Google drive folder. If you have any questions, feel free to contact Maggie or leave a message below.

Mind mapping badge support

So what do you need to do to earn your Mind mapping badge?

Let's just look at the badge criteria and then  we will investigate some ideas:

Content Creator badge support

This badge you can earn anywhere along your journey and you will probably have many items that you can submit for this badge already! You may place the items in your Google drive folder. So let us first look at the criteria for achieving this badge:

So where do you start?
The main aim is to create an item that is "freestanding" and can be used by any other teacher in their classroom. So, look at what you are doing according to your subject CAPS and decide that you are going to create.....

• A video, soundfile, podcast, slideshow.... explaining/teach something from your classroom related topic
• A ebook pdf worksheet
• ........

Combining it with your learning station strategy is a good idea. For example, you can create a learning slideshow/video to leave at one of the stations that the learners can use to learn the information/ skills that they need for that station. 

Some Examples of various multimedia items:

• My twitter slideshow is an example of a learning object/item that teach a concept. (Why and how to tweet) 
• Solving quadratic equations by completing the square (slideshow)
• The digestive system (slideshow)
• Population explosion (slideshow) 
• Short story for children in english (video)
• Gr 12 Geography: Geomorphology & Climatology (video)
• Mapwork calculations (video)
• The state of maths education in South Africa (podcast)  (podcast) 

I am looking forward to see what innovative learning objects you guys will be designing!

Twitter support

Twitter has consistently won the annual top learning and teaching award for the last 7 year. So it is important that we investigate what makes it such a stunning all round educational tool. In order to do this you will need to get stuck in and make sure that you get your tweet on!! The good news is that the most difficult part of tweeting is to register and remember your twitter password. After that it is plain sailing.

The following is important:

• Upload a profile photo (We do not follow eggs)
• Add a bio so that the right people can follow you. 
• Follow a few worthwhile tweeps from who you can learn a lot. 
• Follow your colleagues and @ict4red and @maggiev
• Retweet some tweets that you feel are good.
• Don't forget to include the hashtags #gapschools #ict4red

For more information and guidelines and why you need to get your tweet on: 

The badge requirements are as follow:

Some ideas:

• Tweet some of the classroom integration photos.
• Post a short video (30secs) of what your lesson is all about. 
• Ask your colleagues for help via twitter. Because it is happening out in the open you will get a lot of additional help! 
• Follow your colleagues and encourage one another! See the list (so far) here:
  https://twitter.com/ICT4RED/lists/gap (if your name is not on the list.... tweet me! Just put @maggiev somewhere in your tweet!!
• Retweet some of @sarahperidis lovely tweets!! 

Module 2: Storytelling Support

Everybody has got a story to tell! In this module we look at how we can use storytelling as a strategy for learning and teaching in the classroom. We purposely asked you to do a story about yourself during the workshop so that we can get to know you a little bit better and understand what makes you tick! You used a slideshow app to create your storyboard.

You will also remember that you did a video intro showing us what is your inner animal. That also tells a story. So let's look at what I will be badging for storytelling:

As long as I can tick all the above, you can be as creative as you like, but here is a walk through of how you could approach it:

Firstly, you are going to yet again start with what you will be teaching (CAPS). You can use the storyboard template to do your planning. A story has a beginning (intro) a middle part and a conclusion. Then you will actually create your lesson story using a slideshow presentation. Don't put to many concepts on each slide. Then lastly you will present your topic to your learners and ask at least one learner to video you doing this (presenting your slideshow). You can then test their understanding of how they understand the topic by asking them to briefly tell (take a video of) the story of... what was this lesson/topic about? Always try to do it in group context as to not allow for "passive time" e.g each group must create a video story of understanding. Pick a group/learner to present their story to the class using the Random student picker. Sounds good? 

Some ideas (You can consult your storytelling manual to see how you can do it with 1 or more tablets):

Some more ideas:

Suggestions on how to integrate storytelling in lessons #gapschools @maggiev pic.twitter.com/ha43kgP0b5

— Vicky (@verytrickyvicky) July 23, 2016

• Maths: Ask your learners to dramatize the story of a quadratic equation. Each group member must do the follow on line of the solution starting with once upon a time.......
• Questions can be a great way to get learners to think about story-fying a topic. e.g. why does a L look the way it does? 
• If you have any ideas or want to get some feedback from you peers and me, share what you will be doing, are planning to do in the comments below. 

Using technology

Video is of course a great way to record stories. Using slideshows to create your storyboards and visuals can add and provide focus while telling your story. Incorporating photos, cartoons and animations have the potential of really grabbing learner interest. But most of all..... asking them to be creative to solidify understanding is definitely the way to go!! 

Here is the Module resources and I am looking forward to see what you will come up with!!! Jaribaaaa!!!! 

Module 1 Jigsaw support

So you had fun in the workshop! But now you have to implement the Jigsaw strategy in your classroom and you find that, like anything, there will be challenges. So this post will try to tease out the criteria, give some suggestion and encourage you to to take the leap and be innovative beyond expectations! We are looking for the ICTChampions among you and even if you have not been the ICT guru in the past, this is your opportunity to shine!

So lets start with a summary of what the Jigsaw method entails. You take your classroom topic, design 4 (or more depending on how many learners you have in the classroom) tasks that will teach your learners different aspects of your relevant topic. They start of in a home group where you allocate a number and then leave to join a expert task group where they learn 1 (or more, but try to keep it simple) concept or skill. They have to concentrate as they have to explain what they have learned back in their home groups. After a period of time (you can split this over 2 periods) they have to return to their home group and take turns to explain to the rest of their home group members what they have learned.

So this strategy involves 2 processes, figuring something out together as a group and becoming experts, and then explaining your understanding what you have learned to others. So let's get started!

You have to look at what you want your learners to learn. For this you need to consult your CAPS documents and think of how you can use the Jigsaw strategy in what you would have taught ANYWAY in your classroom. So I am not asking you to do anything extra, I am asking you to do it differently!

Then last but not least, you have to incorporate the use of tablets in your lesson plan. It should n ot be the main focus. Think about the different mobile skills that you used in the workshop and then decide how you can incorporate these skills into the various tasks. For instance, you learned how to take photos, selfies and videos, you annotated PDF's and used your Memoires app for reflection. You shared files to one another, you used a back-channel for classroom discussions to name but a few. So ask yourself, how can technology (tablets) be used effectively (and seamlessly) during this jigsaw lesson?

This is what I am going to need from you in order for you to earn your Jigsaw Badge:

So you have to take your topic and divide it into 4 expert tasks. Some ideas to get you started: 

At at least one of the task groups, the learners have to use a tablet(s). It is up to you how they can use the tablet(s). You can leave a video explaining that specific task topic, or simulation, or the learners can take a video of what they have to go and explain back in their Home groups. Important. they have to explain back in their home groups they cant just show the video. See your manual for more ideas of how to use the tablet during this strategy. 

The expert task groups can be bigger (e.g. 8 learners) but make sure that the home groups do not consist of more than 4 members. It takes time to explain each of the tasks. 

Additional assessment. 

To bring the gamified fun and competitive element of gaming into this strategy, you can ask each leaner to evaluate their peers. Use a scoring rubric for this (see example scoring sheet). You can have a prize for the learner with the highest score and collect the sheets for formative assessment. 

So what will happen during badging? 

I will collect the evidence as per the criteria from you:

• Your lesson plan with the 4 tasks as per your classroom topic. You can use the lessonplan template or you can just explain it in your Memoires journal. It has to be in electronic format, so if you have printed the lesson plan, or did it on written piece of paper, you will have to take a photo of it as evidence. You can also take a photo of each of the task instructions before the learners do it in their task groups. 
• Take a photo/short video of the task group figuring out how to do the task and a photo of a learner explaining how to do a task in the home group. 
• You can even add the photo(s)/videos to your lesson entry in your Memoires journal. This will count towards your reflective practitioner badge at the end of this course where we will check if you have reflected on what you are doing all along. As the Memories journal entries are time stamped, you cant wait till the end to  do reflections, you have to record what you are doing as you go along!
• Please save all your evidence in your documents folder using your file manager (or ES File Explorer)  Make sub folders to make it easier to find (e.g 1 Jigsaw, 2 Storytelling..). 
• You can also upload it to your Google drive and share your drive folder with me. (We will look at how to do that at a later stage) 

I will ask you to briefly tell me:

• What your lesson is about.
• How did your learners and you enjoy it?
• What worked what did not work. 

I will check your Memoires journal entries and export it to myself. 

See you guys on Thursday the 18th and Friday the 19th for badging. Training is on the 19th and 20th. 

If you have any questions, feel free to add that to the discussion below where we can help one another.