When the school bell goes… activities club

If you asked a teacher what their most challenging time of the day to teach is it would probably be undoubtedly the last session of the day. Primary students are tired, ready to go home and engagement tapers off. It is in this session that instruction needs to be short and sharp and hands on …

three quarters gone

It's such a strange thing to feel as though I have almost been at St Luke's a full twelve months. The job advertisements have just started for the 2019 school year (and yes you should apply) and it is a bizarre feeling to think that in a few weeks time we will begin the orientation …

Part B: Digital Story Telling Project INF533

Life of Rosie

5 digital texts to use in your classroom

Early Years ABC Education has produced a series of digital books for children on a range of topics. The text being analysed is ‘Growing Up in the Early 1900s’ and is a series of chapters including videos and text and highlights key aspects of life for a child in the 1900s. The text is recommended …

Hyperdocs to promote student agency

I've recently been using hyperdocs as a form of choice with my stage 1 students for menuboard tasks. Students log into a chromebook or iPad and choose an activity to complete. Not only does this give students a sense of agency in their learning, it hopefully allows them to choose skills they need to work …

Rhyming words with Spheros!

Recently I wrote a blog about using ozobots in literacy. I also recently had a play with Sphero's with my literacy group and thought I'd share the resources. This lesson was inspired by Peter Abt's presentation at EDUtech 2018 about using sight words - you can find that lesson on his website. https://twitter.com/StLukesMP/status/1010012857797263364 The lesson …

Inquiry Learning – My five takeaways

Over the past four weeks I have been delving into a personal inquiry project into inquiry learning.  This learning journey was an opportunity to dive deeper into inquiry mindsets and how we could foster this within our classrooms. Through this time I have come across many worthy comments, articles, blogs and strategies about how teachers …

INF530 Critical Reflection

As I sit and reflect on my thoughts on INF530 I began to revisit my notes I had taken early in the semester and in particular my first blog post. The exert below was taken from my original thoughts where I quoted Mark Prensky (Prensky, 2001) and his thoughts on digital natives. It seems appropriate …

INF541 – Reflection

My learning curve throughout INF541 has been a steep one. My blog post (Ryall, 2018) highlights my lack of knowledge early in this subject and I reflected at each part along the process about my growth in knowledge. When I began the Game Based Learning (GBL) course the term was something that I had heard …

Learning Intentions In Maths

If you had asked me when I was at school what my favourite subject was, mathematics probably would have been last on my list. I struggled with a mix of lack of understanding and a series of teachers I didn't connect with. I can't really recall much primary school mathematics besides snippets of singing multiplication …