Increasing Student Engagement & Enthusiasm for Writing with MS OneNote

Posted on February 27, 2014 by Sam McNeill

I had the privilege of meeting with Dr Jeni Curtis today to discuss her use of Microsoft OneNote in her Yr9 English class, and discuss how this was one of the key tools she was using to achieve her aim of a paperless environment in her classroom. I was aware that a number of staff at St Andrew’s College were exploring the different ways that OneNote could be used in their teaching and, after seeing some unsolicited parent feedback to Dr Curtis, I knew I needed to write a blog about it.

OneNote is sometimes described as ‘the hidden jewel’ in the Microsoft Office Suite and for those unfamiliar with the programme, it can best be described as an electronic version of the traditional ring-binder, replete with the coloured tabs/dividers down the side. Since all students at St Andrew’s College have access to a free copy of MS Office (along with the web-apps via Office365), the decision to use OneNote by Dr Curtis made perfect sense.

The Setup:

All students initially required some assistance with setting up their OneNote notebooks for English and then sharing this with Dr Curtis. Critically, they were able to set the sharing permissions so that she could both read and edit their notebooks. Once completed, it meant that as the teacher, Dr Curtis could look at the student’s equivalent of traditional “exercise books” at anytime, allowing direct feedback and comments.

Additionally, Dr Curtis shared a “read only” OneNote notebook with the students where they could see useful materials for the courses, explanations of various terms as well as expectations for them around homework and other activities.

The First Task – An Introductory Letter & A Video Response:

The first task for the Yr9 English students in their steps towards a paperless classroom was to write an introduction letter to Dr Curtis using their shared OneNote notebook. What they didn’t expect was that they would receive a personalised video response from Dr Curtis that they could all watch directly within OneNote itself.

Video Response to Introductory Letter

This certainly left an impression on the students of the class, and was actually achieved relatively easily through the neat feature of OneNote that allows for the recording of audio and video notes directly within a notebook. This innovative idea for marking homework and giving feedback was appreciated not only by the students, but also by the parents, with one taking the time out to email Dr Curtis the following congratulations:

I must congratulate you with using One Note for marking the children’s writing. Callum showed me the video clip commenting on one of his assignments. It was really impressive and useful. It is such a great use of technology and had helped Wayne and I appreciate the use of technology in classroom environment. We were a bit unsure with 1:1 computer concept to begin with.

I hope Callum is working hard in your class. I had seen his shifts of interests from not liking writing to enjoying writing in the last 2 assignments, which is wonderful.

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Mixcraft – Reinforcing Traditional Musical Elements By Visual Representations

Posted on February 18, 2014 by Sam McNeill

Mixcraft Timeline

The first post of this blog was about using ICT in the teaching and assessment of music. I’m going to revisit that topic again, but this time from a junior music perspective, instead of a senior NCEA subject.

St Andrew’s College uses Acoustica’s Mixcraft software to assist students in the basics of musical composition and theory in the Core Music junior classes. As Mr Duncan Ferguson points out:

At the junior level, Core Music is about exposing students to different styles of music, giving them the enjoyment factor from where they can develop a passion for music and hopefully start to learn an instrument from there.

Opportunities in these classes are provided for students to perform in a “classroom orchestra”, learn theory, and of course compose and share their own masterpieces. The use of computers allows these students to visually analyse their compositions and to quickly create good music relatively easily.

This ease inspires greater engagement from the students, particularly when they can use the technology like Mixcraft to help with things like:

Composing to Grid – meaning even if students lacked the skill to hear that their music is out of time, Mixcraft will keep it in time.
Changing the key of individual musical loops, to allow the student’s composition to remain in key

Of course, Mr Ferguson’s own direction is important here – he requires students to avoid mixing genres too much: just because you can use reggae drum loops with a blues guitar riff doesn’t mean you should! Here is an example composition from a Yr9 2013 student:

[audio https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/58349924/Blog%20Data/Year%209%20Mixcraft%20composition%20focusing%20on%20element%20of%20structure_Joo%20Young%20Kim.mp3 ]

And this is how it is visually represented in Mixcraft:

Mixcraft Timeline

Sharing of the compositions is also encouraged, sometimes by way of Moodle Forums, so others can listen and comment on their classmates’ music.

Here is another example of music composition on iPads from a school in the UK:

What Devices Are Students Bringing To School?

Posted on February 16, 2014 by Sam McNeill

With Week 3 completed at St Andrew’s College, classes are settling into routines, most problems are resolved from an ICT perspective, and it is a chance to reflect on a few things. One area of particular interest to me is this: just what devices are students actually bringing to St Andrew’s and connecting to the wireless network.

Analysing this is important because one of the key decisions that was made in 2013 was to allow students a degree of choice in what their primary device would be in the classroom. As a College, we partnered with Cyclone Computers and created a list of recommended models, but the underlying principal was this: students had to bring a device with a “full operating” system on it. By this we meant Windows 7 or 8, or on an Apple device, OS X.

The thinking behind this was quite simple: if a student had a full operating system, then most compatibility issues could be overcome, they could all run MS Office (especially important, since it is now free to all our students), and critically, teachers could plan with confidence that the activities they wanted to do in class would be supported by the devices the students had (by inference we were ruling out stripped down operating systems like iOS, Android, ChromeOS etc).

Additionally, the thinking was that if students had choice in the device they could bring, this would increase their sense of ownership and proficiency in using their laptop as well.

Using the new reporting tools from CloudPath (the company whose software we use to onboard devices to our wireless network and issue certificates) an overview of devices registered in the last month is quite informative:

Devices by Type (Laptop / Mobile / Tablet)

What is interesting here is the high number of mobile devices, and the almost complete domination of Apple iPad’s in the Tablet sector. Some caveats exist however, some versions of Google’s Android software have difficulty with EAP-TLS authentication, as does Window’s Phone8, meaning we have tended to connect these devices via WPA2-PSK, instead of onboarding via Cloudpath.

Devices by Manufacturer

Again, the popularity of Apple’s iPhone is apparent in the very high numbers of Apple products, and somewhat alarming, is the presence of Windows XP devices (despite it becoming End of Life very shortly).

From an ICT perspective, supporting a range of different devices can have it’s challenges. Having visibility like this about the devices our students and staff are bringing to the campus means we can target what resourcing is required within the ICT Department and where we may need to provide additional training and professional development to the ICT support team.

Identifying Prior Learning With Socrative.com

Posted on February 7, 2014 by Sam McNeill

Socrative.com

Today I introduced my Yr9 Religious Education students to an overview of the Old Testament. I recognised there would be a wide range of prior knowledge and so I wanted a fun and interactive way of identifying what the students actually knew at this point.

I decided to use the great tools from http://www.socrative.com and posed the question:

If you were asked to explain what the Bible was to someone who had never heard of it, what would you tell them?

As a starting “Do Now” activity, this worked effectively, because the students needed to come in quietly, get out their laptops, connect to Moodle and then click the link on our class site to Socrative.com, before answering their questions. The students were engaged immediately, especially when they saw their answers starting to scroll up the projector screen at the front of the classroom.

I had chosen to allow the students to provide their answers anonymously for two reasons:

For those that didn’t know much about the Bible, they would not feel uncomfortable due to their limited knowledge.
An opportunity for me to talk about Digital Citizenship and remind the students their replies needed to be responsibly worded.

I then gave the class the opportunity to vote for the answer they liked the best, requiring them to read through the 27 responses and then select what they felt was the best explanation. Here are the top answers with the amount of votes each received to the left:

Student responses to the question “How would you explain the Bible to someone that had never heard of it (click to enlarge)

The lesson continued with the students watching a short animated DVD explaining the broad sweep of the Old Testament, before they were required to work in groups of 3, using their laptops to identify the four main sections of the Old Testament and share some verses from within these sections in a Moodle Forum.

Instructions students needed to follow to complete the task (click to enlarge)

This was experimental for this class – they had to carefully follow a few instructions, move around the room into their groups, and then quickly locate the information they required. I was pleased that this mostly went without a hitch, although it took slightly longer than I anticipated, so I could not use the “Exit Pass” functionality in Socrative.com to receive student reflections on the lesson.

I think that as students become more familiar with some of these activities, such as logging into Moodle, looking for the task they are required to start, then speed and fluency will increase, making these viable activities for both in class and completion at home.

The different groups and how many replies they made with their answers (click to enlarge)

One of the things I particularly like about this is the record of learning that is retained – the work completed by each student is recorded in one place, their name automatically associated with it, and where appropriate, becomes a great resource for revision when assessment requires it.

I am going to continue to explore different ways Moodle and Socrative can be used in combination in lessons with this class.

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Monthly Archives: February 2014