Tech Tips Tuesday

Exploring Aurasma Studio with Maths

One of my coworkers has been trying to get me to look at Aurasma for quite some time, so I finally decided to take the plunge. After a little experimentation I decided to design a Maths lesson with it for our Maths rotation activities. My idea required greater functionality than the Aurasma app could provide so I went to Aurasma Studio instead. For more information on the basics of Aurasma, click here.

My idea

I wanted my lesson to involve problem solving with multiplication and division - possibly including money as a bonus. Our rotation groups are based on ability, so I wanted to embed different levels within the task so students could experience the task at their own level.

My plan

I wanted to use pictures from grocery store catalogues as triggers for pop-up questions, with secret bonus questions (as extension) to be revealed with an action. I visited the grocery store and got a group set of catalogues.

Execution

Triggers - I used my iPad to photograph images of the catalogue items and uploaded these to my iMac.
Overlays - I used Sketchbook Pro to write up question cards which I saved as images, also uploaded to my iMac. I made some 'special bonus question cards' and uploaded these to my Flickr account - as they needed to be located at a URL in order to make the task work.
In Aurasma Studio I uploaded a trigger image - one of the catalogue items. I then added multiple question cards as overlays (one a multiplication question, one a division question). Finally I added an invisible overlay over the item price which, when clicked, took the user to my Flickr image where an extension question was displayed.

In the Classroom
Four groups rotated through these activities. The first group was the extension Maths group, and while we took some time to get everyone loaded up and following my channel, they still managed to have a pretty good go at working through the questions and recording their answers in their maths workbook. I wrote the 'shopping list' on the board so that students knew which items to look for. Those students who made it through all the questions explored the 'secret bonus questions' as well. Students worked through at their own pace.
The two mid-range groups worked through the questions at varying degrees and without the need to get the iPads set up to begin with. For the support group, I asked that they begin with only the multiplication questions, returning to the division if they had time after that.
All students seemed to enjoy the activity, even with the technical complications with wifi, location services and 'following'. Some groups found it useful to capture a screenshot to refer to so that they wouldn't have to hold the iPad still the whole time. In order to mark the work with students it helped to have a copy of screenshots of all the questions.

Friday Fun

Here I am, trying again to keep the Friday Fun posts happening. I think the trick is to write it as we work through the week. A little each night is much more manageable than a big chunk at the end of the week when I would really prefer to be relaxing with my husband, enjoying take-away Indian food and a glass of Shiraz!

Our Inquiry

As well as continuing our work on reconciliation this week, we have jumped further back in time to learn about Indigenous Australian lifestyle prior to European settlement.

On Monday and Tuesday I worked with each group on their reconciliation plan and helped them to do some fine-tuning. One great thing about using the Explain Everything app, was that it was fairly easy to edit and make adjustments - changing pictures which perhaps weren't as effective, re-wording phrases where inaccurate information was being shared.

Through the students' work I was able to see some common misunderstandings and correct these during class discussion. Some things that needed clarifying were: that the stolen generations were taken long ago and are now parents and grandparents, and that Indigenous Australians don't want our pity - but rather our acknowledgement of the past and a commitment to an improved future together. On the weekend I had found out about an Aboriginal health service in our local area, so we have tailored our fundraising proposal to that end.

In the afternoons we watched the "before time" episodes of My Place Series 2. Students took notes on the first day, recording facts and questions under the headings - "The video showed" and "It made me wonder". Part way through viewing, we paused the video for students to discuss what they had seen and wondered so far. We encouraged students to think about Aboriginal lifestyle prior to European settlement (food, clothing, shelter, customs, environment) rather than focus on the plot of the story. Students then worked in teams of four to create a mind map with the Inspiration iPad app. The My Place Website is a great follow on from the videos.

Here is a picture of my mind map:

As part of our 30 Days of Drawing project (not consecutive days for us - more like one a week!) students took the statements about the connection to the land from Idjhil by Helen Bell and illustrated what one of the statements meant to them. The quality of student images was very impressive.

We also discussed the central idea of our inquiry unit: Indigenous cultures change over time. We thought of other words that could be used in place of the words in this idea. Students then used Socrative on the iPads to log how they would phrase the inquiry in their own words.
This was a quick and easy way to compile our ideas in one document, print and display. It was my second time with Socrative after a miserable failure last time. This time we ensured we were all connected to the internet before starting the app.

Maths

In our Maths lessons at the start of the week, we worked on the four times tables. We looked at the strategy "double, double again" and students practised applying this method. We practised with the Tables Toons on Mathletics along with a dice rolling game and a card game.

For the dice game, students simply rolled the dice and multiplied by 4 (doubling, doubling again if they couldn't recall the answer immediately).

For the card game, they played in pairs with a standard deck of cards (K, Q, J = 10, A=1, Jokers removed). The first student shuffled the cards and fanned them out for the second student to select one. The second student multiplied the number by 4 and gave the answer. The first student then tried to work out the card number by dividing by 4. This game helps students to see the connection between multiplication and division and assists with recall of facts.

I encouraged students to use these games at home to practise their tables.

Students also explored fractions using resources on Scootle, as well as iPads. In one of our sessions they used Notability to compare fraction sizes. In another session they worked with fractions of a group and used Explain Everything to record their thinking. These lessons will be explained in greater detail for Tech Tips in upcoming weeks.

Literacy

Students have been working on stories that they planned and began writing earlier in the term. We are trying to see these through to publication as books to put on our shelves. It is taking quite some time for students to complete the whole process, and we have had many interruptions.

We also read some Dreaming stories and students used post-it notes to jot down their thoughts on the following questions:

What are Dreaming stories?

What are their features and purpose?

Who is the audience?

We discussed these ideas and they were compiled into one document.


We've had another great week, full of new learning and challenges. Next week we head off on our school camp - hoping for warm weather and no rain!

Friday Fun

It has been quite some time since I wrote any Friday Fun posts. Generally, my school has had other ways to share learning with families, thus I haven't had time to double up. At my current school, I started writing up weekly reflections for families, which highlight the main learning in the grade level, some class specific items, information about events coming up, and some snapshots. This takes a bit of effort to put together each Friday, and needs to be left fairly broad in order to cater for all Year 3 classes. When I do Friday Fun posts, I like to add more detail, and give a better sense of the task, its purpose and how we went about doing it. In doing so, I hope to make it interesting for students and their families, as well as the teaching community. I make no promises in terms of whether this will return as an ongoing feature, but I thought I would give it another go this week at least!

Reconciliation Week

This week we launched into our new Inquiry unit, "Why Say Sorry?" The central idea of this unit is that Indigenous culture changes over time. Given that Reconciliation Week is this week, it seems very good timing on someone's part - though I think there was quite a bit of luck involved this time! 

On Monday I read Idjhil by Helen Bell to my class. This story shows the connection Indigenous Australians have with the land and tells something of the impact of European settlement in terms of loss of land and the stolen generation. I chose this narrative to give students a glimpse of these concepts through the eyes of a boy of their age. 

Once we had finished reading, we used a modified version of the thinking routine "Step Inside". Students imagined they were Idjhil and wrote down the things they thought he knew and believed. They then wrote down the things they thought he cared about. A second column labelled "What makes you say that?" prompted students to give evidence from the book for their ideas. I moved around the room marking student work, and those who finished early glued their sheet in and illustrated the border with symbols and images that were important to Idjhil. 

To conclude the lesson - we played "Hot Seat" where one student took on the role of Idjhil, and others asked him questions. It took a few questions before everyone engaged in what was happening, but by the end we were getting some well thought out questions. 

On Tuesday we read Walking for Reconciliation By Beth Hall. This followed on nicely after our story of Idjhil, and helped students to gain a better understanding of what Reconciliation is about and why it is necessary. We followed this reading with another thinking routine called Making it Fair: Now, Then, Later: Finding Actions. We talked about the stolen generation and students discussed how things could have been done differently in the past to make things fair, what we can be doing now, and what could be done in the future. Students used Google Docs on the desktop computers to record their ideas. I was a bit frustrated by some of the nonsense I got when students were contributing anonymously and had to keep on top of everyone to ensure they weren't erasing each other's ideas.

On Wednesday we looked at our Google Docs list (teacher edited) as a class, and everyone chose one idea that they would like to expand on. They wrote their individual responses in their Inquiry books and wrote the steps that would need to be taken in order for the plan to be enacted. These ideas were shared with the class and we sorted our ideas into things that could be done now, and things that could be proposed for the future - both for the school and for our city.

On Thursday students worked in teams to put forward their proposals. One group focused on writing a letter (using Google Docs simultaneously) to our local government about how we would like our city to celebrate at NAIDOC week, one focused on a fundraising proposal for our school and two focused on proposals to our SRC. The ones for our school used Explain Everything on iPad as we felt that a video presentation would be more appealing to the student audience.

On Friday I gave feedback to students and helped them to edit their proposals. I still feel that some need a little reworking to create a more professional product, however I'm impressed with the quality of their efforts and technical ability.

Maths

This week students learnt how to work out their three times tables mentally by taking the double and adding one more group. Students practised their three times with a friend. We then worked on times tables using an erasable multiplication chart and songs from the Mathletics website. Some students were extended to multiply two-digit numbers by three, and also to investigate the divisibility rules for 3. We will continue with this next week.

We also returned to some fraction work that we began earlier in the term. Students practised writing fractions along a number-line. In our computer time, students completed fractions activities from Mathletics including Rainforest Maths.

Literacy

We revisited Idjhil by Helen Bell, and discussed:

• What was the author's purpose?
• What does she want us to take away?

Students then wrote their personal response in their books using the prompts:
I think the author wrote this to...
I learnt...

It was definitely a busy week, particularly with parent/teacher interviews in the afternoons and planning for school camp. I look forward to seeing how things progress next week, particularly as we further explore our Inquiry unit of work.

Teaching Math Facts

While teaching in New York City, I was amazed to see how easily young children can learn addition and subtraction facts through regular practice. I now use this new knowledge to train my students to add and subtract numbers more efficiently.

I used to feel that drills were not important in the teaching of Maths - that it was more important that they understand the process, than practice the drills. While I still believe that it is important for children to understand the process of addition and subtraction, I now see the value in using drills to support this.

Each week, I teach a new set of facts to my students. These may be addition facts, subtraction facts, or more recently multiplication facts. I teach my students the strategy they need, using hands on materials and demonstration models. Students then make a set of flash cards to practice these facts. For the rest of the week, my students are given a Fact Sheet to complete at the start of the Maths lesson. This worksheet contains 25 practice questions for the fact we are learning. They usually take about 6 minutes to complete this, and then if they finish early, they take out their fact cards and practice working out the answers. We go through the answers together at the end, and if there are any discrepancies, I demonstrate through illustrations on the Smart Board.

I found that by beginning with some of the simple facts, the class realises how 'easy' math facts are, and build the confidence to deal with the trickier facts later on. Adding zero, or adding one are great facts to do early on. They also like the subtracting zero, and subtracting a number from itself. I actually find that one of their most favourite sets is the doubles facts. They get very excited when they see how these connect with the multiplying by 2 facts. One of the most difficult strategies for some of my students was near doubles, or doubles + one, as it involves a couple of steps. I found that when students struggled with the concepts, they reverted to the use of their fingers to solve the equations.

I'm now a strong believer in the use of this focused drill time, for building confidence and fluency in manipulating numbers. My students now show excitement about playing with big numbers, and some of them are able to apply the strategies they have learnt to solve equations with one or more 2-digit numbers.

UPDATE: I found this great website where you can make and print out math fact sheets - Math Drills. com

(Photo by "Old Shoe Woman" at Flickr)