Below is an excerpt from the blog
Apps in Education by
Greg Swanson. This looks like a really fun way of thinking about the myriad of possibilities of using apps in the classroom.
App + App + App = Outcome
In July this year at our annual two-day conference, we presented a session to staff with the intention of clearly demonstrating the possibilities of combining apps to meet a lesson outcome.
After lots of brainstorming we finally had the idea!! To use dice to help show how easy it is to combine apps and have a little fun! We used three dice, each dice represented a particular e5 principle; explore, explain or elaborate. It was easy to develop lists of apps for each e5 principle, but we narrowed them down to six apps for each dice with a focus on introducing new apps.
Explore – QR Reader, Notability, Twitter, Pinterest, Pulse and Wikinodes
Explain – Evernote, Over, Haiku Deck, Skitch and Messages
Elaborate – ReelDirector, Storify, iMovie, StripDesign and inFlowChart
During the workshop we encouraged staff to consider an outcome for one of their lessons. Then, they needed to roll the dice and come up with a combination of apps that could be used to meet the lesson objective. This idea encouraged our teachers to consider the spontaneity of combinations of apps. If one app didn’t particularly meet the lesson requirements teachers were encouraged to roll a dice again.
What occurred during our session was teachers working together developing lessons with technology in the forefront of their minds. At the end of our sessions teachers had written a lesson that they could put straight into action when they returned to school, some even begin this process during our session.
As part of our objective for App + App + App= Lesson, we encouraged teachers to implement a culture of planning lessons around using apps that meet a certain criteria, rather than specific apps. We also encouraged teachers to encourage their students to use apps they felt met the outcome, rather than relying on the teacher knowing how to use every single app of the app store. We want to develop a culture of students teaching teachers, and students to think creatively to choose the best way for them to produce work for an outcome, rather than teachers limiting the only options.
Our workshop was really successful. We had teachers implementing their planning the very next week in classes, and students were excited that they no longer were told which apps to use for what. They had the freedom to conceptualise the product for each learning outcome.
Read the full blog post here.