Book Creator: the Panacea App?

Over the past few years I have had the privilege of being a beta-tester for the Book Creator App.

It all started with a reach-out via twitter to Dan Amos who created the app. Soon after I was invited to join the book creator basecamp. A place where teachers and users could contribute idea's and solutions in order to improve the overall experience of book creator.

The app has come a long way!

Initially an iOS only ePub app the team at Book Creator have continued to push the boundaries of the app. Nowadays it is a cross platform publisher that is easily used by students across the ages.

In fact at my school I have seen it used by 5 -16 year olds, each in their own unique way. The ease of use and familiar controls make using the app a breeze.

Some examples I have seen done at my school or used by myself are:

1. 13 year old students creating 2nd language readers for 7 year old students. Using a little trick that allows the younger student to have the book read to them by touching the writing. (PS thanks @Joe_Moretti for that one)
2. Project progress reports at age 12/13 level. The reports include research interviews, photos and video's of progress, reflection, feedback and self-assessment.
3. Instruction booklets for Lego Robotics. The students were required to design a complex machine and then create an instruction booklet for younger students. The feedback loop for this project was extraordinary as students got to see whether the instruction they created made sense and, often, they had to go back and add steps or explanations.
4. Age 7 research projects. A book created on a specific topic presented by Grade 2 students.
5. Age 5 my holiday projects (This one is by my own daughter #proudfather).

However, more important than the uses the app has is the ease of sharing. Book creator allows a student of teacher to share book in 3 ways:

1. As an editable ePub (and therefor into the ibooks store)
2. as a PDF
3. and, amazingly, as a video

Once an option is chosen the student is able to share into any app that allows 'open in...', including Showbie, Google Drive, Dropbox, mail, messages, Evernote, Box and dozens of others. This makes book creator extremely versatile.

Once the book is shared, teachers and other students can download them to read or to add to their own book by combining existing books. 

One thing is for sure, if it's not the actual panacea the book creator app is as close as it comes currently.

Version 4.0 gets even better with comics!! Red Jumper Studios haven't yet sat on their laurels. Don't expect them to do that soon either.

GEG South Africa...and all it's branches

Whoop, Whoop! GEG Dainfern launched today.

GEG Dainfern founder members

'Google Educator Groups. Learn. Share. Inspire. Empower.' is the calling cry of GEG's all over the world.

Recently the GEG program was launched in South Africa. With local partners SchoolNetSA and a group of enthusiastic and dedicated leaders and trainers Google hopes to establish and maintain a training and development program that could change the way teachers and schools approach technology.

According to Google:

'Google believes that the best inspiration to educators are other educators. It is for this reason that Google helped start a community of passionate educators, who bring the benefits of technology to schools, classrooms, and communities across the world.

GEGs provide a platform for educators to collaborate with one another, allowing them to pick up new creative ideas from one another, and to help each other best meet the needs of their students with Google solutions. GEG activities take place both online and offline. Online GEGs provide a space for educators to discuss together and learn about one another through Google+; offline, locally run events and workshops are a way to learn and share face to face.

Anyone is very welcome to join GEG. You may be a principal, a school administrator, a professor, a student, or just someone interested in using Google products to help people learn. Each group is organised by a local volunteer (GEG leader) and is entirely independent from Google, the corporation.'

This means that although Google provides resources, in terms of tools and training, it has no influence on the direction and thoughts of the GEG participants.

But what does this all mean? Does a GEG just talk Google, are they limited to what Google provides. In short, no, I do not believe this.

GEG's are device and platform agnostic (although GAFE helps), they admit anyone who is interested and do not look at background, means or even connectivity. The idea is to embrace #edtech and run with it.

What Google have foreseen is a rapidly changing world in which teachers and schools need to adapt to changes on an ongoing basis. The GEG is designed to be a place where teachers receive training and advice that provides the tools they need to cope in a modern classroom. One where knowledge is empowered by the use of research, analysis and critical thinking around any given topic. A place to share ideas on teaching philosophy, on networking (both physical and social) and on being in the classroom.

The best thing so far about the process of establishing a GEG is the training I have had the opportunity to receive. A mad weekend of getting to know 25-30 passionate teachers and administrators from around South Africa (Abrie Pepler,  Nomusa Keninda, Anthony Peters and so many others), a Google+ community that is growing fast and provides solid advice and discussion on a variety of topics and a local group of teachers from Crawford's Fourways, Lonehill and Italia, St Peters School,  Dainfern College, Cedarwood School and Rivonia Primary.

What I look forward to is getting more schools involved. The more the merrier. No-one 'owns' a GEG and they can evolve, split and reconvene, as long as the needs of the teachers are met.

Over the next few months a network of GEG's should be established around South Africa, take the opportunity and join one. It might change the way you teach!

Thanks to all the teachers who were present. If you are interested please contact me to join. We are especially keen for government schools to join us. So far there is only one.

A screaming need...

Over the past 2 months I have had the privilege to attend two separate and distinct events.

The first was organised by SchoolNetSA and was the initial training for Google Educator group Leaders and Trainers. About 30 people spent a weekend learning everything there was to know about Google in the classroom and how to enable teachers and allow them to use GAFE (Google Apps for Education) effectively in their classrooms.

The teachers and officials who attended the course were all highly knowledgable and had a need to spread the use of tech in the classroom beyond their own schools and into the wider community.

This event was held at a upmarket private school in Johannesburg, South Africa and the facilities available were top notch. We were able to explore all the tools that Google has made available to educators, all free of charge.

At one stage a few of us estimated that the combined technology in the room we were using was in excess of R500000 ($45000), macs, PC's, iPAds, Tablets, phones, Smartboards and all...

The second event was organised by the Corona Schools Trust in Lagos, Nigeria. I was invited to help introduce Google to the invited teachers. The trust had organisied a conference to introduce their teachers to the use of ICT's in the classroom, to show them the possibilities that tech offers them as teachers and to open their eyes to the possibilities of international cooperation. My role was to show the teachers the tools that Google offers a teacher.

This event hosted 1000 teachers over 5 days, 75 in a group and little or no access to computers and the internet.

The room I presented in was barely 6m by 6m and had no air-conditioner.

Two very different experiences, but similar in topic...

What was emphasised was the gulf in technology across the continent of Africa and the desperate need that teachers feel when they cannot access the amazing resources that the internet offers to them and to their students.

For those who are interested I am posting my report on the training:

_________________________________________________________________________________

Over the course of the 1,5 hour workshops I introduced the teachers to 6 tools that Google offers them. All the tools are made more effective using a Google account (accounts.google.com).

The first tool looked at was Gmail. Gmail offers a free mail service to any person on the planet, and although there are many such services, Gmail is the most common starting point on Google products. In most classes we looked at how to set up labels and filters and then talked about using them to manage email.

The workshop then moved on to looking at Gcal, the calendar functionality of gmail. Gcal is very effective for department meeting planning, parent teacher interview appointments and everyday planning. The workshop looked at how to use Gcal to send and accept meeting invitations.

Tool three was Google Drive, a free, online service offered by Google that allows a user to create documents, spreadsheets, presentations and more. The power of Drive is in the collaborative aspect of each document. They can be shared with as many users and necessary and only one copy of the document will exist. In the workshop teachers were shown how this might increase learning opportunities, even from a mobile device.

Each of the first three tools require the teachers to have a Google Account, the second group are available without an account, but can be used more effectively with and account. These tools are Google maps, Youtube.com/edu and Google search.

In Maps we looked at virtual field trips using street view, in Youtube we looked at how to find subject specific videos that are relevant and how to download them for offline viewing using savefrom.net and finally in search the teachers were introduced to Google search operators and shown how to use them to make search results more relevant to their topic.

The idea of each workshop was to give an idea of the possibilities that Google offers teachers and students, to open their eyes to the range of free services that are available online and to start them thinking of ways to use these tools in an offline environment.

Reflection

During each workshop I tried to gauge the ability and interest of the teachers, in terms of both teaching and learning with ICT. In this respect the teachers, in general, and the 150 or so who emailed me afterwards in particular seemed to recognise the importance of getting their students online. In fact, getting students online could boost the economy of the whole country and continent according to “Lions go digital: The Internet’s transformative potential in Africa” by McKinsey & Company (2013) in which they note that “Internet could contribute up to US$300 billion to African gross domestic product (GDP) by 2025 if internet penetration becomes as widespread as that of mobile phones”.

I truly believe that by empowering our students we empower the country and continent and therefore my reflections and recommendations are based on the belief that the more students we have interacting with the different ICT’s and, more importantly, doing so online the better it is for all.

 

Recommendations

The first set of recommendations I make are ‘big vision’ goals that might not be immediately possible. The start of which is to continue the sort of training that was done over the course of the week. It is vital that the teachers in the city continue to experience the power and purpose that the various departments have provided them. Even more helpful would be to have smaller groups that are intensively trained and encouraged to implement the training, or even better, to train other teachers. The ‘ICT champion’ is a well used method of introducing ICT to a school or district.

Secondly, I would ask you to consider ways of getting the schools connected reliably. This can be done through IT labs, or in a more radical way, by looking at the impact of Bring Your Own Device (BYOD) programs at schools around the world. The impact of accessible knowledge on the teaching and learning environment is huge and it allows the teacher to focus on skills development rather than content delivery.

On a more day to day level I would recommend getting Google Nigeria, who have a good education division, involved in your schools. By ‘Going Google’ schools get access to all of Google’s tools for all their staff and students. This allows the school to administer the email accounts and decide which tools the students can access through their email account (http://www.google.co.za/edu/apps/ and http://www.google.co.za/edu/solutions.html). Once the school is registered and online the tools are free and the process is quite simple. Even if the connectivity is not available immediately I would recommend you register the schools domains and Google Apps for Education licence for future rollout.

Secondly I would pilot a BYOD solution in one or more schools and, from there, consider the impact BYOD has on teaching. Starting small would allow schools and districts to have the correct disciplinary and school processes in place before a larger rollout. BYOD also allows the schools to avoid the costs of assigning devices to students and the maintenance of said devices.

Finally I would suggest that a group of teachers who are really interested and able are trained to be trainers in Lagos. Local knowledge is always more powerful. There will always be a need for ‘outside’ trainers and the knowledge they have but they could train this smaller group and therefore have more impact on a larger number of teachers.

Conclusion

There is a high demand for access to ICT’s and the impact they could have on the teaching and learning environment of a school. By allowing teachers to see the possibilities doors are opened to future opportunities and growth.

Thank you for the opportunity to visit Nigeria, Lagos and CTC and I look forward to meeting more teacher sas this project moves forward

_________________________________________________________________________________

Thank you for taking the time to read this! Please feel free to add suggestions and if you have the inclination and time to connect with the teachers in Nigeria please join our Google Group at https://groups.google.com/forum/#!forum/google-in-nigeria

GAFESummit 2014

WOW!

What a busy 2 days of learning and networking (Both physically and in a 'internet' sense). It was brilliant to see what was happening all over the school.

Thank you to all the delegates who attended and a special thanks to all the presenters, both featured and local!

So, in keeping with my '10 things' vibe, here is what I will take from the Summit 2014:

1) YouTube is huge and getting bigger!

Starting with youtube.com/edu which collates education videos on the regular youtube.com, to the personal youtube channels and then the video editor Youtube continues to redefine itself as an educational smorgasbord!

2) IFTTT

One presentation and a demo slam confirmed that the time of IFTTT has arrived. If you haven't explored it now is the time!

This brilliant tool allows a user to create 'receipes' (or just use the ones other people have shared) to manage and maintain the internet of things.

3) Chrome Extensions

Little tools that make life simpler, look around to find the ones you like and make chrome work for you!

My favourites are CheckerPlus for Google Calendar, Docs Quickly, TabCloud (My personal best extension!) and OneTab which come a close second.

Just remember that with the pace of internet development these do change often.

For more extensions for education check out this doc: 50+ Chrome Extensions for Educators
with permission from Jake Duncan

4) Google+

Dee Lanier did a workshop on Google+, and this platform is growing fast. Time to get involved:

Check out Dee's resources on his doc or get involved in the new Google Educators Group South Africa

5) It not about the app!

Many sessions talked to the idea that we need to concentrate on ensuring that our teaching is solid and not based on teaching the app but rather the Child (Adult?). There seems to be a move towards ensuring that the pedagogy is correct before we concentrate on the technology. This will ensure that lessons are designed to stimulate and grow the knowledge and enthusiasm of both teachers and students!

6) Paperless

Not only is the conference paperless (although some felt uncomfortable with this) but Glenn Jones of Western Province Prep School presented a session on using scripts to enhance the paperless classroom. This is definitely a growing trend and it will be interesting to see how teachers adapt to a paperless classroom.

7) Personalisation

The growing trend for people to choose different devices for different uses makes it vital that the 'internet' works for the individual and for each student and teacher. The trend is to customise the experience for each individual and allow them to decide how to make things work for them.

8) Gamification

With badges, both electronic and stickers, handed out throughout the conference, the trend towards gaming the classroom has grown over the past year. Helen Robertson the Content Coordinator at Mindset Network did a great presentation on planning and preparation for the gamified classroom.

9) Custom Searching

One tip I picked up was on how to create a custom search engine for use on a blog or in class. Sean Hampton-Cole, who is Edtech Integrator / Senior Teacher at Crawford College Lonehill, shared a whole bunch of resources for his talk and among them are the instructions to set up a custom search engine

10) The people

Once again, the greatest buzz from #gafesummit was the time I spent talking to and networking with teachers from all over South Africa and the world. Thank you all for coming to Dainfern College and see you next year!

For the lowdown check out https://storify.com/ajegbers/gfesummit-za

2nd Language on a Tablet

Over the last few weeks I have been asked, by a few teachers at school, to help them plan second language lessons using a tablet.

Ideally a tablet or computer should not be the focus of a lesson plan but rather an aid to the completion of a task. I, therefore, asked the teachers what topics they were planning on covering and the time-frame (in terms of lesson time) we had to cover the topic.

In collaboration with the teachers, and taking the content and time-frame into account here are some of the idea's we came up with:

1) Comic to written work

From           to      

App Smashing is the new thing! So using this as an idea step one will be to get the students to create a photo comic book. In this comic (which they are allowed to create in their first language) the students will have to act out a story and photograph the action. Then they add the dialogue in the form of speech bubbles and captions.

Once the dialogue is complete it will be translated into the second language using Google Translate (As pointed out by another teacher, it is not always advisable to translate whole sentences, rather use translation apps to translate words. Thanks, Nicole!) and everyday dictionaries. This should allow the students to relate new second language words to their first language context.

In step 2 the completed comic will then be published and used as the basis for a written dialogue:

Ben: "Hello!"
Fred: "Hello, how are you?"

During this part of the project the teachers will focus on using and correcting punctuation and grammar in the second language. They will discuss similarities and differences between punctuation and grammar in the first and second languages and the students will, hopefully, start to understand proper punctuation and grammar usage in the second language.

Once the dialogue is complete the student will have 2 pieces of work that are the same content in different formats.

Step 3 will use both of these in aiding a 'formal' piece of written work in the form of a descriptive essay. The comic will be used to aid the student in describing the scenes (using the pictures the students themselves created) and the dialogue will be fitted in at the appropriate places in the story. This can be done in first language and translated but ideally the previous 2 steps should have the students ready to write in their second language.

This process is expected to take 4-5 hours and comprises 3 formative assessments, later on the students will write a story independently for a summative assessment.

2) A story in 3 tweets




This can be done on or offline, on twitter or not but the idea remains the same. Students have 3 tweets to tell a story (140 characters if offline) and must compose a beginning, a middle and an ending to their story.

This should be helpful to students who are just starting the second language writing journey as it allows them to be very specific and concise.


3) Class story in tweets

                   or             



This exercise needs an online environment via a back-channel app such as todaysmeet or twitter. If you are using twitter please remember a hashtag, and check to see that it isn't being used elsewhere!

Working together each class member contributes 1 'tweet' to a class story. The teacher then uses storify for twitter or copy and paste for todaysmeet and other similar sites and then publish the results as a story.

I will add to this post as we try new things, feel free to share some of your idea's with me or let me know if you try any of these in class. I would love to know how it went!!

Getting Students going on a Tablet

Wow! it has been a while since I blogged.

At my school we have been running a BYOT (tablet) programme for two years. This involves both the Grade 6 (11-12 year old) and Grade 7 (12-13 year old) students.

I our first year we struggled to get the grade 6 students up to par with using the Tablets in class and so in January 2014 we implemented a Tablet licence for these students. The idea was to use Edmodo to introduce the students to the schools workflow solution, to introduce them to working on a tablet and to make sure they all had the required apps in order to use a tablet effectively at school.

To start the process we used a Google Doc to get input from all the Grade 6 teachers and create an outline to follow in order to ensure that we covered all our bases. At the end of this process we had 30 major items that every student needed to be aware of in order to use their tablet properly. These were then grouped into Modules or learning tasks.

1. Create an outline document for your schools work flow

Once we had the modules we needed to find a way for students to access them, without having tablets at school.

For this part I decided to run the licence via Edmodo, firstly because we use Edmodo at school and secondly because the students need to be comfortable using Edmodo to both receive tasks and to hand in completed work. The first step was to create a group that the students could join:

Create a group

After that I created modules for each student to complete. The licence is self-paced and open to all Grade 6 students. I started by loading to Assignments (Modules) each week. The module below used commonsense Media's Digital Passport to introduce the students to sensible online behavior.

3. Set assignments that cover your content

Once a student finishes a module to my satisfaction they receive a badge to show that they have completed the specified task.

4. Award your badges as work is completed

In this case once a student had earned the first 9 badges they were allowed to bring a tablet to school. This signals the start of part 2 of the licence which will show students how to use their Tablet in class. The 'Whoo Hoo' badge signaled the specific students permission to bring a Tablet to school, get the key to their Tablet Locker and start using the Tablet in classes.

5. Hand out the licence

Part 1 on the licence covered the following 'modules':

1. The schools Acceptable Use Policy.
2. Digital Citizenship.
3. Password Management (Security of and remembering their passwords)
4. Email etiquette
5. Email Setup (Labels and filters)
6. Edmodo assignment turn in.
7. Google Calendar.
8. App/Play/Windows store account setup
9. Social Media safety
10. App readiness (in terms of getting all the recommenced apps for school)

Over the course of administering this process the main problems I had were:

1. with keeping up with the administration of the modules (96 kids and 11 assignments so far, with 12 to go) 
2. keeping all the students on track on a self-paced project. The issueing of  the first few 'licences' did help though.
3. handing out the badges. As of now Edmodo has no way of automatically awarding a badge with a pass mark (Would love it if more people suggested this as a future feature for the Edmodo developers)

At the end of it all this licence has empowered the students in terms of knowing what is expected of them once they have a tablet at school. The teachers are more comfortable with the fact that students have tablets because they know that they are able to assign tasks and use the tablets in class knowing that the students are prepared for this sort of teaching.

Phase two of the licence start in May and I will do another post on how that goes. This part will cover:

1. Setting up the tablet
2. It's crashed, now what?
3. Backing up and restoring the tablet and work on the tablet.
4. Reading on the tablet (Kindle, iBooks and others. Also looking at the differences of the various formats, PDF, ePub etc)
5. It’s safe! Safety and security of the Tablet. Including having a cover, using the school lockers and tracking the device.
6. General classroom rules an the Tablet AUP.

A year in review or 10 Things I learned this year

As usual, when a year draws to a close, people look back over the previous 12 or so months and reflect on opportunities or misses. I am looking back to record what I learned this year in terms of training, BYOD and staff and pupil development. I am starting to enjoy these '10...' posts so you can expect more:

1). Everyone learns at their own pace...

...and sometimes, as a trainer, we need to accept that. Along with this goes the provision that some people will not want to learn what we prescribe. This goes for adults and children. As teachers and trainers we need to 'hook' a person by showing the possibilities of a technology and not necessarily the end point. At school we call it a 'technological journey' that every staff member is on and we try to help them along their own path rather than a path we have chosen. As a teacher I believe that we need to do the same for our children. In my view this is the only way to create a lifelong learner, a child or adult who studies for the love of learning and not just for tests and exams.

2.) Technology can help us do this.

It allows a teacher the space to differentiate, set multiple projects on the same theme, or just give the children time to learn their own thing or in their own way. To this end I tried a very short version of 20% time after reading 10 Reasons To Try 20% Time In The Classroom and gave the students a project that was self directed and self paced but had the underlying premise of looking at the technology behind their favourite hobby, sport or passion.

3). Google knows everything but can't teach it!

It is up to the teacher to teach children how to research, analyse and interpret the things Google can tell them.

4).Google is awesome

After attending the GAFESummit in Cape Town (Here is my post on that: 10 things I will be taking from the za.gafesummit.com) I decided Google was awesome. Not for the content but for the technologies it drives or associates itself with, either through the 20% time they give their staff or from a passionate group of educators and developers around the world. There is a passion for education that is at the core of Google and that it shares with a large group of educators around the world.

Oh! and the Loon project, Google is awesome because of the Loon project!! (Project Loon)

5).Apple is awesome...

...and especially the South African Apple team at ThinkAhead who constantly strive to show the power of technology in the classroom. As a BYOTablet school we have had to lean on their knowledge all through the year. Best of all we have been able to teach them too, with neither side worried about ego's or point scoring.

6). Put them together and a classroom is awesome!

IMHO, my situation would not work without the combined resources of Google and Apple, both in terms of technology and cloud computing. With a growing Google Apps ecosystem on all tablets and the ease of use of the Apple devices our school has been able to push the limits of what students are capable of in terms of technology and learning. I no longer have to draw information from unwilling minds, the student is able to show their ideas and knowledge in so many forms that it is possible for every student to show their knowledge.

7). Creative Commons Search

I have written about this before but it is just so useful I put it in again!

8). Content Creation Apps

Along with many others I have moved away from content delivery apps and towards the apps that allow a student to create something of their own abd share it with someone else. Especially useful for this type of teaching and learning is the Book Creator App and I would like to thank +Dan Amos for the opportunity to be a part of the development and testing of the latest version of this app (and good luck with the Android launch!), it just gets better and better. Other useful apps include ExplainEverything, iFiles, Edmodo and Dropbox. Each of these have helped with our schools workflow solution. Speaking of which...

9). Workflow Solutions

every school must have one, especially in terms of effective assessment and learning. Also, every school needs to find on that suits their style and philosophy. Very often 'pre-packaged' solutions just don't cut it!
So...find a way that suits your school and don't delay because you are unsure. Rather be flexible, apologise for mistakes and accept feedback and criticism then act on it.

10). 10 things posts

I have really enjoyed this type of post, both as a writing style and for reading. I find the idea of a list to work through or a list to create allows me to pick and choose what I find valuable. Edudemic.com uses this style of blogging often and very effectively.

Lastly, Thank you to everyone who read my posts this year. Next year is a year of comments, so feel free to leave yours!