by Dion Norman, EdTech Coordinator -

Teachers continue to find engaging and innovative uses of technology to support student learning and to help them share their work with others. Grade 5 students have been busy demonstrating their knowledge with the aid of the technology on both Lakeside and TK campuses.

Publishing eBooks to an authentic audience (Janani Srikantha, Grade 5 Teacher, Lakeside)

Publishing tools such as iBooks Author (Mac) and Book Creator (iPad) have made it easier for anyone to publish their work to a global audience. Whether it be through sharing among peers for them to read each other’s work through iBooks or Learning Blogs, or by publishing to the iBooks Store to a global audience, students are increasingly able to share out their work for others to enjoy.

The Grade 5 students at Lakeside have been engaging in the writing process to create and publish stories. When this process began, as a class, we discussed the concept of having a wider audience for their stories. It became apparent that students wanted more than their teacher and families to read their stories. They wanted a bigger audience and quite possibly leading to a global audience. They wanted to know that peers and adults were choosing to read their stories because they were great authors. As a teacher, I have definitely seen that having an authentic audience motivated the students to write with purpose and passion. When we were reading each other's work during public conferences, the students read their stories like their "words were gold", as they each took ownership of their writing. They began to understand that their words had power. The creative process of writing, sharing and revising was increasingly engaging with the concept of a real audience. The students were able to use Book Creator on their iPads to format their illustrations and text to create an eBook, which can be shared to a large audience using the available technology and publishing avenues that they have access to.

1 of 7

Newscast to show understanding of Natural Disasters (Jonathan Gafuik, Grade 5 Teacher, TK)

Grade 5 students at TK just completed their UOI on natural disasters in which they inquired into how sudden geological changes or extreme weather conditions can affect the Earth's surface.

Students were challenged to create a newscast about a natural disaster after conducting research. This included providing appropriate details about the disaster, choosing a viable location where it might occur, naming it, describing how it was created, outcomes and government reactions. They wrote a script incorporating all the necessary details and filmed their report using both reporters in the studio and an on-site reporter. The newscasts were filmed in front of a green screen and edited using iMovie with the support of their teacher and EdTech Coach.

Here are just a few examples of what students created:

1 of 4