Pokemon Go and Augmented Reality.

There is no doubt that Pokemon Go is hot right now, you cannot turn on a news report or drive down the road without seeing or hearing about someone Pokemon catching.
Man quits job to go pokemon hunting

So what is all the fuss about augmented reality and how can we capture that enthusiasm and fascination and use it in the classroom?

Augmented reality (AR) is a live view of a physical, real-world environment where some elements are augmented (or added to) by computer-generated additions such as sound, video, graphics or GPS data. With the help of advanced AR technology, information about the environment and other objects are overlaid on the real world.

In simple terms, your device uses the camera and GPS (global positioning system) to show images of the real world while AR overlays other images, sound, information etc in response to your location or other triggers.

Here are a range of apps you can use in your classroom to bring AR to life and provide great motivation for writing and oral language.
Use the screen shot function on iPad or iPhone to capture the image and then have students write about it.

AR dinopark Bring ancient dinosaurs to life in front of your eyes! By making use of AR (Augmented Reality) let the ancient dinosaurs appear in various scenes taken by the camera as if they are alive. 

Dragon detector "Lift your device to fly, put down to land, push to walk and tap to breathe fire.  

Action Movie FX lets you add Hollywood FX to iPhone and iPad movies that you shoot.

If you are in Auckland your students may have been out exploring local parks already using an app. Dinosaurs spotted in Auckland parks.


QR codes are another way of inserting information, video or voice recordings into an image. You use a QR reader to activate or access the linked information - more info and examples in this blog including QR codes in Art and how to make a QR code treasure hunt.






Aurasma "Aurasma is changing the way we interact with the world."
Aurasma uses augmented reality (AR) to turn everyday objects, images, and places into new, interactive opportunities to engage with others.
5 ways to use Aurasma in the classroom
Ideas for using Aurasma in the Classroom

Have a go, try one of these with your class and see the magic come to life.

Junior Journal, School Journal and SJSL PDFs are embeddable.

Embed your School Journal, Junior Journal, and School Journal Story Library Stories in your class blog for sharing. Instructions here

The horror of having to present a speech in front of a real live audience.

Speeches are and probably always will be a part of our school curriculum. Along with cross country they remain one of my most dreaded primary school memories. I love the idea of students being able to share in front of a smaller group or maybe practice and then record their presentation to share. Even if they also have to share it orally to a small audience, to be able to share a practiced and pre recorded version with a larger group is empowering and in my experience requires far more reruns and practices of the speech than may be attempted by a student who is just going to (reluctantly) stand and deliver. My 13 year old practiced and practiced his speech by recording it on his iPad until it was a stunningly expressive piece. When he had to stand up in front of an audience and deliver it, this practice stood him in good stead, although the nerves still got the better of him, and I wish the teacher had given him the option to play his recorded speech to the larger group and then share it again orally with a trusted few. Taming the nerves of speaking to a live audience is one that can only improve by practice but hearing oneself recorded and seeing the audiences response to that is a powerful driver to improve. We can use a variety of online tools and apps to record ourselves.
Try Movenote - stunning to record over a slide presentation. Tutorials here https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CYGMdEEjuJE
Vocaroo - online tool to record and share voice
Quickvoice iPad app
Smartvoice recorder Android
Tellagami - avatar recording app for iPad or android
Fotobabble - free online tool or iPad app - talking photos

Digital Mihi.

Here is a presentation I put together for the VPLDFFI hui in Auckland on the 29/30 May 2014.


I presented the first 5 slides to the participants. Below are my speaker notes.

Why mihi?
Mihi is a way of establishing a connection with an audience. We are looking to tell a story, to establish links or find commonalities, to establish our identity and in some cases to establish our credibility.


Why digital?

Mihi are traditionally delivered orally but using a digital format enables accesssibility for all. (Multi lingual, sign language, voice over recording, text and images) 

Adding images allow you personalisation, to tell your story your way, images give us more information than text alone can, you can add sounds and music to your images.

Images = building a story = building a connection, we are more likely to engage when someone shares information as a story, the act of storytelling relaxes us, makes us feel safe, is familiar to us, allowing us to more easily process and retain new information.

Embed + link + share, being a digital format means you can link to your mihi online or embed it into a presentation shared online. You can also share your story more widely engaging a wider audience and connecting beyond face to face.

Telling a story 

More on the importance of storytelling as part of presenting, includes a link to a stunning piece on the psychology of storytelling.

What's in a mihi?

Traditional and modern options. Modern allows you to share as much or as little as you like, to share what is important to you and what is appropriate to your audience.

How do I want to share? 

Time for you to think about what you want to include, how you want to share, what format you want to use. 

The next slides are like a mini inquiry - you pick your path through getting more information, examples or tools to produce you own mihi.

Feel free to have a go with your students, your colleagues, yourself, use my links and have fun!

Collaborative Projects and the Goodness of Google.

Earlier this week I participated in the Google Summit and so am fully googled inspired. : )

One of the google features I have not made full use of in the past is the google form. Many of the workshops used google forms at the beginning to gather starting data about the participants and to get feedback at the end. 3 questions seemed to be a good number to gather info but not make the task onerous.

For those of you new to google forms and wondering what on earth I am on about, here is a link to creating a google form.

For those of you keen to give google forms a go in your classroom but not sure where or how they would fit in, here is a link to a whole list of examples of google forms used in the classroom (scroll to the bottom of the page)

One workshop I would like to share with you used google forms as a way of getting us into working teams.

Julie Lindsay - Collaboration: Concept, Power and Magic

Julie sets up collaborative projects internationally for schools/students and so this session demonstrated the use of digital technologies to support geographically ‘dispersed’ collaboration.  It used Google Form to assign collaborative groups, Padlet to ‘virtual handshake’ group members, Google Docs to collaborate on tasks and finally Google Presentations to present learning.

Julie stated the session by talking about the importance of giving our students opportunities to develop the skills to work collaboratively across cultures, time zones and distances. She says “It is imperative students receive a global education and have the opportunity to connect and work with others in the world.”

In this workshop we started by completing a google form (choosing a favourite colour) to group us into working teams. Even though we were all in the same room we did not move to sit with the people in our group, instead we stayed in our seats and worked collaboratively online, using google chat and comments in the google docs to communicate. This was very challenging at times and I was so tempted to jump up and rush across the room to tap a team mate on the shoulder and say “read my comment!” : )

We started by introducing ourselves and getting to know our team, then we began to work on a collaborative presentation. We only had a short time to complete the presentation so had to divide tasks up and work as a team.

This exercise was a great introduction to working collaboratively across distances.

I would love to hear of you trying this in your school. I imagine starting as we did in a classroom and then moving to collaborating with students from another class in the same school before moving to inter-school, inter-island, inter-country collaborations.

You can find more information about the Flat Connections Project by following these links.

More information about Julie Lindsay

Flat Connections website

Using green screening to motivate reluctant writers.

In my early years of teaching I encountered many reluctant writers. Often the reluctance was due to a lack of having anything to write about. By providing an exciting motivation to write alongside scaffolded vocabulary these once reluctant writers became keen writers. One such motivator is green screening where the student is able to see themselves in the story.

Using green screening to motivate writing from Catriona Pene

Not a mac school? Here's a video clip explaining using Windows Movie Maker to do a similar thing.

or apps for iPad Green Screen Movie FX By EPOCFIELD LTD or chrome webstore Green-Screen

Work flow and Learn flow.

The fabulous Silvia Tolisano (Langwitches blog)  talks about work flow and learn flow when using iPads.

I really like this term and I encourage everyone teaching using technology, to encourage the flow between apps and tools to get the best possible result.

Recently I was working in a school with iPads, I created this workflow example to work with a group of students and share back with their teachers.

Mystery Bus Tour- Literacy sharing.

Last night I had the privilege of joining 100 other Whangarei teachers on a Mystery Bus Tour, organised by the local literacy association.

We toured 3 local schools, 2 primary and an intermediate and had a chance to talk to staff and look through the classrooms, libraries and staffrooms.

What an amazing chance to see what is happening in our neighbouring schools, an opportunity most of us don’t get very often as we get caught up in the busy-ness of our own school day.

The highlights for me were the amazing literacy rich classroom environments displayed in all schools, the adventure learning and self-managed timetables being explored by Simone Gentil at Morningside, and her classroom culture built around the bucket filling concept. 

I also loved the modern learning spaces explained so clearly by Adam at Morningside.

Whangarei Intermediate’s literacy lead teacher Karen Hinge shared her reflective blog and Tracey Allison at St. Francis Xavier’s classroom and blog show how effectively e-learning can enrich a classroom literacy programme.

Such a huge amount of learning is gained when a large group of teachers meet to share, discuss and learn from each other. I can’t wait for the next opportunity to visit new schools and share ideas with other teachers.

How about contacting your local literacy association to see if they already hold or will organise a similar event in your teaching community? 

On a smaller scale - spend a lunchtime at a neighbouring school.

Take one of your staff or team meetings to a neighbouring school and factor in some exploring time.

Run a shared staff meeting with another school(s) and then plan to do this every term with a different school - remember to factor in exploring and sharing time.

 - cross-posted from my update on the ICT in English list serve.

Creating reading responses using Sock Puppets.

So here is my number 2 app of choice.

Sock Puppets!

Sock Puppets are free but you have to purchase extras like save to camera roll and the ability to import your own backgrounds.

Great for independent reading responses, easy to embed into blogs and share!

Making full use of the (still) camera on the iPad.

I remember my excitement when the iPod introduced the camera feature. Suddenly our ability to quickly document our learning journey increased ten fold.
Now all iPads and iPods come with excellent built-in still and video cameras and spending a little bit of time ensuring the students can use the camera effectively will pay huge dividends when you are using other apps.

How to improve camera skills.

I introduced a bingo camera skills challenge. I gave each child a sheet, a device and sent them off to tick off the skills they already knew and could demonstrate. Once they had ticked off all the skills they already knew they then had to buddy up with one another to try and find others to show them how to do the rest.

Here are my bingo sheets - feel free to use and share.

Simple - Year 1 and 2.

Medium  - Year 3 - 6