Tech Tips Tuesday

iDoceo and Reports

I have been using the iDoceo App this year and have written about it before. While using it, I have been wondering how useful it will be for report writing. Throughout the semester I added student grades, work samples, comments, and video/audio recordings. In hindsight (as always) it would have been great to start putting together the actual written comments, however I still feel much more prepared given the information I've collected. Another aspect I haven't really got working for me yet is exporting the data to other forms and saving time on data re-entry. At this point it is quicker for me to re-enter the data than to fiddle around with the files.

What I've found useful:

Icons - I have used the coloured emoticons to represent how well students achieved different aspects in a piece of work. In the subtitle for the column I wrote the aspects that students were marked on. This helps for given specific feedback about the tasks.

Date - I like to include the date on each entry so that I can see when the information was last updated. This is particularly helpful with reading levels, so that I can ensure levels have been tested recently before allocating a grade.

Colour coding and stars - I use colour coding to mark in a fashion similar to grades. The colour coding is easy to see at a quick glance and makes it clear which areas students excel in and/or struggle with. This helps with formulating subject specific comments. I also use the star icon to mark students who received a perfect score on an assessment. In the future I would like to use the in-built function for colour coding rather than having to do it all manually - but as yet I have not had the time to fiddle with this.

Annotations - Audio recordings and video recordings have been great for grading on speaking skills, counting sequences and group work. Photographs of work samples have made it easier to mark work from home and also review student work without carting home large piles of books.

Yes/No Editor - This is great for a quick check of a skill at any given point in time. I have used it to monitor on-task listening behaviour.

A-E Grades - I used this editor to grade artworks produced by students to use to come to an overall grade.

I continue to find iDoceo to be a valuable classroom tool, and have been pleased with the level of usefulness for reporting. Obviously, it is only as useful as the data you input, but there is also something to be said for having it all in one location on an iPad, which is so portable, and backed up to Dropbox.

Tech Tips Tuesday

iDoceo - My New Best Friend!

So I've mentioned iDoceo a couple of times now, but really wanted to sink my teeth into it before I started blabbing about how wonderful it is... and that has been a hard task! At least four others at work have already taken to it on my recommendation and have started playing as well. We now need to find some time to share our ideas and tips!

Late last year I wrote about how I was looking for one iPad app to record work samples, grades, and to communicate with parents. There were a lot of apps which focused predominately on attendance, and classroom behaviors, or which focused on numerical results and averages. I was feeling disappointed and on the verge of giving up when I found iDoceo.

What I like:

It's SO easy to use! The designers provide support on their website and include a sample class with the app. If you set aside a night to play with it and then jump straight into using it to record data, you learn the ins and outs very quickly. Most things work by touch and hold or double tap - if you're not sure, try one of these! It's very easy to add images, video and audio - anywhere you see the paper clip icon.

It makes parent communication simple and effective. If you want to send an email, just look for the envelope icon. I set up email to send from my work email. In order to do this, I needed to make my work email my default account for my iPad (in the iPad settings). This isn't ideal when using other apps, but in my mind is still better than using personal email to contact parents. Before you can begin emailing you also need to include email details in the student data (found by double tapping a student's name). You can choose to email content to students, parents or all parents. You can email individual results or a whole column. I am going to have a fiddle to see if I can send it to another teacher in the case of differentiated Maths groups when I will be teaching and monitoring students from other home classes. If I'm unable to add an extra email option I will hijack the student email slot as we don't use student email anyway.

You can collect a range of data and use text, icons, numbers and annotations. As an example, the other day during a handwriting lesson I used a tick to indicate correct pencil grip, a cross to indicate incorrect pencil grip, the letter l for left handed or r for right handed. I included an annotation containing a photo of the writing sample and brief notes on my analysis of the letter formation.
Having information such as this located all in one place will make it less time consuming when it comes to report writing as the hard work will have already been done. In theory there should be fewer surprises for parents as they will have seen work samples along the way. It would even make sense for student outcomes to improve as a result of greater awareness and focussed efforts by caregivers both at home and at school.

Other tools I use alongside this:

Dropbox - for backing up. This worked a charm for me and was something I was very worried about when I upgraded my iPad. Unfortunately, only 2GB storage comes free but you can earn more with referrals, so if you're thinking of signing up, please use this link and we will both get a bonus 500MB.

Blurr - for blurring other students' faces in photos before sending to parents.

Sketch Pad Express for iPad- for writing on/editing work samples to highlight aspects without writing on the original (useful for pointing something out to parents).


If you are looking for a way to streamline your record keeping and provide feedback to students and their parents, this is the app for you. I look forward to exploring it further as the year progresses to determine how it fits with the variety of challenges facing teachers as they pass through the plan, teach, assess, report cycle.

Those Tricky Conversations

As a parent, I now realise more than ever before, how much a parent wants to hear that their child is doing well with their education. And also, how very much they fear hearing that their child is NOT doing well. Parents generally don't know what is considered 'normal' for their child's age, and thus rely on their child's educator to inform them of any concerns. While I'm sure we all recognise our children's individuality, we still want to ensure that we are providing them with a good start to life and the opportunities that will lead to their success. 

I have been aware of this with my own little boy. He has now turned two and seems to be doing fairly well for his age. How do I know this? Through comparisons! I look at other children of a similar age to gauge his development and I monitor his progress by looking at Early Childhood Development resources such as these:

• Raising Children Network - Toddler Development Articles
• Zero to Three
• Baby Zone - Toddler Week by Week

That said, however, I'm still thrown when my Family Day Care Provider mentions that my little one confused sinking and floating when talking about some objects during water play. My logical side tells me: "She is telling me this as it is an area that she has discovered that he is interested in, and that she can work on with him. Besides, sinking and floating is something that will come up continually through both life experience and education. There is no need to be concerned." But my not-so-logical side tells me: "Aaaah! There's something my little boy doesn't already know that has come to his educator's attention. She must think he should know this already! What else have I failed to teach him." RIDICULOUS!

Which brings me back to the title for this post - those tricky conversations. Unfortunately, part of a teacher's responsibility is to inform parents of the areas their child is struggling with, and to provide some suggestions for how to improve. And, whilst we try to do this throughout the year, as the issues come to light, the bulk of this information becomes evident when we collate the assessment results for the term/semester to write reports and allocate grades. 

At my school, Semester 2 reports go home during the last week of the school year. Given the process, it would be difficult to send them out any earlier. Final assessments are made in the first five weeks of term. Reports are then written and proof-read a number of times before printing and signing by the class teacher and principal. This then allows parents to read through the reports and contact the school about any questions they may have. In order to prevent issues after the reports have been sent out, teachers are encouraged to contact parents in advance so that there are 'no surprises'. This generally translates to: Contact any parent whose child will be receiving a D grade. But this year I also included students who had dropped a grade in two or more subjects. I dread these phone calls. 

This year I have worked quite closely with the students receiving D grades, and I know that they have been trying really hard, and also that they have made progress. But then, when I look at the whole year cohort, it is quite clear that they are not all performing at the same level. How do you explain to a parent, that despite their child's best efforts, they still don't understand the concepts well enough? They still struggle to perform at the standard for their grade level. What is worse is that for some of these students, their lag is such that they may be chasing the tail of the rest of the cohort for the whole of their schooling. And then, how do you explain that holding them back a year may not actually be in their best interest either. Parents just want to know the answers. They blame themselves for their child's struggles and just want to make it right. But there are no easy answers. I hate those tricky conversations.

Another Year Drawing to a Close

I keep making promises about writing more on this blog, and I really do wish I was better at keeping up with it all. However, life just gets ahead of me and I'm amazed by how one week merges into the next and before I know it, I'm at the end of the year again!

The last couple of days I have been starting to make plans for the next school year. I always tend to do this before the previous year has actually ended - as once the holidays start, I need some enthusiasm and direction in order to get school plans under way! One of my great frustrations has been my search for ONE iPad app that will do everything I want! I'd like to be able to record audio, video, pictures and notes about students and email these to parents. I'd also like it to have tagging, so that I can tag an item with more than one student name or learning area. The best solution I've come up with so far is Evernote, and I think that is a good option given I already have an account and am familiar with it. On the down side, I'm not sure how much I will be uploading and I don't really want to start up a subscription. I've also looked into Easy Portfolio, and for $1.99 it's probably not a bad option to try. The professional looking interface would be great for sharing with parents at parent/teacher interviews. On the down side, it doesn't have the tagging option.

What do others think? Have you found a solution that works well for you? Have you tried either of these with any measure of success? Or are you like me, with evidence scattered all over the place when it comes to report writing!

Feeling Starved

This week I was very disciplined in the use of my computer. Overly so, in my opinion. It was a bit like one of those crazy diets where you only eat celery or something! The reason for this was that I just did not have any free time to devote to doing all of the things I love to do online. I wouldn't have thought that writing report comments would be so draining on my time - but it was. And now, THEY'RE FINISHED!
So, what was the result of my break from blogging, emailing, twittering, etc? Hopefully nothing long term.

• My amount of visitors diminished (nothing new to look at).
• I had things to tell parents of the kids in my class, but no time to email it to them (very frustrating).
• I felt flat. I tried to keep up with a few blogs that I follow, but I didn't feel like I was learning enough.

Now that I'm back on board, I'm hoping to get a few blogs done over the weekend, I'm downloading the podcast from the K-12 Online Conference, and I'm keen to catch up on my readings of everyone else's blogs. Oh, it feels so good to be back. I think I'm addicted!

Learning Journey

Next week we will be having a Learning Journey at our school. Learning Journeys are a bit like an open house, where parents come in to see what their children have been learning. The difference is that the children plan what they will show their parents, and reflect on their learning prior to the visit. For teachers, the most difficult part of the Learning Journey is the preparation - on the actual day, it's all up to the students to run the show.

So, what do we teachers do to prepare?

Portfolios
If the school also has portfolios for collating student work, the portfolio is generally 'on display' for the Learning Journey. This allows students to access this information to show their parents as well.

Displays
All the relevant work that students have done needs to be displayed attractively in the classroom, and usually labelled with a poster outlining the task of the activity.

Activities
Parents don't want to spend an hour wading through their child's bookwork. They want to explore learning with their child. This means making sure that there are some hands on activities for parents and children to get involved with. These might be Maths or Literacy games you use in class or Science experiments.

PhotoStory
As many of our classes now have Smart Boards, we want to make use of these during our Learning Journey. Teachers may need to update their "MyClasses" page or prepare a slideshow of digital photographs taken during the year. This helps parents to see their children in "action" on an ordinary school day.

Marking Books
If students finish showing their parents all their work early, they may want to show them some of their bookwork. For teachers, this means checking that the marking is up to date. Some activities are easier to mark as you go along than others. Marking books can often be a tedious and frustrating job to catch up on. A nice idea is for students to annotate their best work in their books with a star post-it note. This is a great tool for helping students to reflect on their learning.

Invitations
Prior to the Learning Journey, it is important for students to make invitations for their parents and take these home. It helps to have an RSVP slip somewhere on the invitation so that you can monitor who will be coming. Some follow up is usually necessary as the day approaches to ensure that all students will have someone to share their learning journey with.

Learning Journey Map
My students usually create a plan of what they will show their parents when they arrive. This is a list of between 5 and 8 things that will help them get started. Once they have explained these items, they can go over other items they would like to show. I usually choose a few items from each of the Key Learning Areas and allow my students to choose one one of these items from each KLA. This way, students have some choice in what they would like to show.

Practice Run
I usually find some time for my class to run through what they will do in their Learning Journey. If you have an older buddy class, this works really well with them. It helps students to think about what they would like to share, and gets rid of any pre-day jitters.

As much work as they are to prepare, it feels great to see it all happening on the day. I get my camera out and snap shots of my kids as they talk their parents through their learning. It's great to catch them explaining what they've learnt, and to realise that it has actually sunk in! For the rest of the day, the kids feel great. They are proud of themselves for all they've learnt, and they have enjoyed showing it all off to their parents.