A Book Review of Oaky and the Virus

Oaky and the Virus: written by Athol Williams and illustrated by Tarryn Locke. Published by Theart Press 

I am a primary school teacher – a technology integration specialist, and I used a Grade 1, a Grade 2, and a Grade 3 class to help me write this review. We downloaded the book from the Oaky website to our Chromebooks, and used it as a class read-aloud in the three classes. We all read aloud at the same time, in unison. Each class loved the experience because the book was very relevant to the COVID pandemic. The three classes helped me write parts of this book review. 

Oaky and the Virus is an educational and fun story about two acorns, Oaky and Oaket. The two acorns learn how to avoid a virus when it comes to their town. The book is the first in the OAKY series of 7 books that follow the adventures of OAKY, an acorn who grows into a big oak tree.

In Oaky and the Virus, Oaky and his sister Oaket hear about a dangerous and tiny virus that has come to town. It could make people very sick. That means the virus could also make them, Oaky and Oaket, very sick if they caught it. The two acorns think of ways that they can protect themselves from the virus and also keep themselves feeling positive and hopeful. Oaky wants to help his anxious sister, Oaket, feel safe. He teaches her a song about how she could protect herself from the virus so that she will feel comforted when she sings it.

The song is available to listen to on YouTube.

What did we like about the book?

All three classes liked the book because it is about the Covid19 pandemic, and children everywhere are worried about the pandemic. The book gives good ideas for keeping oneself safe and positive. The pages are brightly illustrated and written in a large, clear font, which makes reading a pleasure for Foundation Phase learners.

The common favourite part of the story was when Oaky thinks of ways of protecting himself and his sister from the virus. The classes liked Oaky, as a character, because he thought of ways to help keep him and his sister safe, and he didn’t give into fear. He was kind to Oaket. Some children said they feel a bit like Oaket at times, so they liked that way she felt happier when she knew how to protect herself.

Do we think the book could be improved?

All three classes felt the writer should have created the song to a well-known tune so that they could sing-a-long. They tried fitting the words to 'The wheels on the bus' which added another fun aspect to the lesson. The Grade 3s also felt that the book didn’t have enough excitement for them. They suggested that the writer should have added some more relevant scenarios to make the story more interesting, such as:
- hearing about a friend whose parent was very ill from the virus
- maybe one of their own relatives could have caught the virus but fortunately didn’t have to go to hospital. As a result Oaky and Oaket had to be careful to keep away from the relative.

Would we recommend the book to a friend?

Everyone said yes to this. They let that the book gives children hope in the midst of a frightening pandemic. The Grade 1s and 2s gave the book five stars! The Grade 3s gave the book four stars!

An important point to mention is that at the end of the book there is quiz. My three classes had clearly absorbed the story content as they were able to answer all the questions in the quiz.

This is a lovely book. It is available to purchase or as a free download from www.oaky.com. The publishers recommend the book for Grade 1 - 4 learners.

November is OUR Hour of Code month!

I blurred our Gr 3 students faces using https://www2.lunapic.com/

Although we do Coding lessons at school every week with our Grades 1 - 7 classes, we always participate in the Hour of Code. 

What is the Hour of Code? 

The Hour of Code is a one-hour tutorial designed for all ages in over 45 languages. It is run in 180 countries from 7 - 12  December - although one can do it any time.  We always choose November at our school. There are loads of different options based on your students' age etc on https://code.org/learn. The Hour of Code is a global movement to introduce people of all ages to computer programming in a fun way, and it certainly achieves that. Our students love it.

The image below, taken from https://hourofcode.com/za shows how popular the event is already... 

Where to find Hour of Code resources

1.  As mentioned, my favourite website to find Hour of Code activities is https://code.org/learn. They show what is suited to each age. 

2. The Minecraft Hour of Code activities on www.code.org are always pupular with my students https://code.org/minecraft. 

3. Jacqui Murray on her website 'Ask a Tech teacher' has some great ideas for the Hour of Code: https://askatechteacher.com/hour-of-code-heres-why/#more-63085. She also has a page of Coding ideas per grade on her website: https://bit.ly/3HYlzeB

So,, if you are a teacher, and your students have access to devices - why not try out the Hour of Code this year. Your students will love you for it!

The Grade 3s researched endangered animals - using www.kids.kiddle.co

For this lesson I wanted the Grade Threes to research an endangered animal, and to try and rephrase what they read in their own words. This is a task one needs to start as early as possible at school so that students don't get into the habit of plagiarising by copy and pasting.

How did we go about the lesson?

1. After finding out what the students already knew about endangered animals we watched a video and answered questions about them. The video was the engaging, short video entitled ‘Endangered animals’ by the SciShow Kids: https://bit.ly/3Ed7hUU.

2. The class was then given a selection of animals to choose from - gorilla, leopard, rhino, sea turtle, giant panda, tiger, or blue whale, - and they found out more about the relevant animal using the search engine Kiddle: https://kids.kiddle.co/.

3. After reading about their selected animal using the Kiddle browser, the students opened their template downloaded from Oakdome.com entitled ‘Animal Research Paperless Graphic Organizer’ https://bit.ly/31aajdZ . They then filled in their answers as far as possible in their own words by researching the key words in the template.

4. Finally they turned in their work so that I could take a closer look at it. They did well I thought,

Here are some examples of the finished products

The examples are by Kaleb, Carol, Elia and Lily. (The students always use their online names when they produce work in ICT) 

Post settings Labels Grade 3,research skills, No matching suggestions Published on 11/7/21 8:36 PM Permalink Location Options Post: EditPost published

The Grade 2s ceated posters about the National Symbols, using Google Slides

The Grade 2s recently created presentations about South Africa using Google Slides. Today I wanted to see if they could remember seven of the national symbols and present them neatly, each with an image, as a poster in Google Slides.  

Skills focus

• copy and paste
• search images
• find a suitable image and paste it into Google Slides
• create a light-coloured, abstract background
• resize images

Examples of the finished products

The examples below are from Julian, Kayla and Kaleb (the students always use their online names for anything that goes online in ICT).

 

Good work, Grade 2!

The Grade Ones love Coding

At our school the Grade Ones start coding straight away when they come to school...and they can't even read yet. It is amazing!

What is the Pre-Reader Express Course in www.code.org?

This is a sequence of 11 lessons appropriate for students who either aren't reading yet or still need help reading. It is part of www.code.org. I am the computer teacher at our school and I love using the free www.code.org offerings. 

What is Code.org? 

The Code.org website says, "Code.org® is a nonprofit dedicated to expanding access to computer science in schools and increasing participation by women and underrepresented minorities. Our vision is that every student in every school has the opportunity to learn computer science, just like biology, chemistry or algebra.' Code.org.

What I like about www.code.org is that you can choose a course for your classes and add your whole class, and at any time you can see exactly where each one is up to in the course. The students work at their own pace so they don't feel rushed or inadequate, and I circulate so that I can help them if they have any questions.  Each lesson in code.org has a lesson plan for the teacher to go through. 

The Pre-Reader Coding course captures the class's names and shows their progress

After my Grade 1 students have completed the Pre-Reader course we will go on to using Scratch Junior. 

The Grade 6s created short videos about famous medical researchers using Animoto

 

The Grade 6s researched famous medical people and created Animoto videos summarising what they found.

What is Animoto?

 Animoto is a cloud-based video creation service that produces video from photos, video clips, and music into video slideshows, and customized web-based presentations. We used the free version. 

Structure of the lesson

1. First of all we went over the process of creating a video using Animoto. 

2. After that each student chose a famous medical person to research. 

3. The students had to find and download free-to-use images of their famous person to use in their videos 

4. For content the students needed to think about the following questions: 

•  Who was this person – when was he/she born and in which country do/did they live? 
• What made this person famous? 
• Something about his/her early life
•  Interesting facts about this person’s reason for fame. 

Structure of the video 

• It should use about 7 frames with images text that summarises key points about the famous person. 
• It should include music. 

Here are three examples. 

The students used their online names on their videos. 

1. Dustin: Edward Jenner
https://animoto.com/play/PPBUzI3QJFo6NBat4cdTNw

 

2. Blake: Louis Pasteur
https://animoto.com/play/nccdBoPE1AShXlStqQWFAQ

   

3. Grace: Alexander Fleming
https://animoto.com/play/j0NDvA8CRgx1gR2jgvqMUw

  

The Grade 7s created videos about famous people using Animoto

There are many different ways to present research in a classroom. In this lesson we decided to use the free version of a video-creation tool, ‘Animoto’. www.animoto.com.How did we go about the lesson?

1. First of all we went over the process of creating a video using Animoto.

2. After that each student chose a famous person to research from the Biography section of the Ducksters website: https://www.ducksters.com/biography

3. The students had to find and download free-to-use images of their famous person to use in their videos

4. For content the students needed to think about the following questions:Who is this person – when was he/she born and in which country do/did they live?

• What made this person famous?
• Something about his/her early life
• What did this person study after school?
• Interesting facts about this person’s reason for fame.

Structure of the video

• It should use about 7 frames with writing which summarises key points about the famous person.
• It should include music.

Here are some examples of the created projects:

Andy Wahl by Casbru: https://bit.ly/3DWGRXz

Donald Mustard by Calcam: https://bit.ly/31dIZfe

Nikolai Tesla by Ethkau: https://bit.ly/3120sqJ

The Grade 7s used Book Creator to present their Diseases projects

The Grade 7s worked on a Diseases project in class and presented their individual research as a hand-drawn project. I thought it would be great for them to take their research and use it to create digital books in Book Creator.  The final step would be for them to also narrate their projects in Book Creator. 

I have written a post about how to use Book Creator in another part of this blog: https://bit.ly/3xx24Vt .

The Diseases projects turned out well in Book Creator.  You can visit our Grade 7 library on this link, https://bit.ly/3FY3Fqj and read (and listen to) some of the books.  

Our Grade 2 'Dot' map stories to celebrate International Dot Day 15th September 2021 -

I am always excited about Dot Day on 15 September. What is Dot Day? It is HUGE around the world! Dot Day was inspired by Peter Reynold's story 'The Dot'. The message is simple but profound: “Start with a dot and see where it will take you,” It is an encouragement to children to find their gift and make their mark in their community. I love this positive approach. Children all over the world love celebrating International Dot Day.

Dot Day in 2019 was especially exciting. My classes were part of a Team blog made up of students from four different continents. (The Team blog can be found at https://dotday.edublogs.org/) We did activities together and the teachers and students loved every minute. I wrote six posts about it on my blog here: https://bit.ly/3EKK0KY 

This year My Grade 2s participated in Dot Day. First we read Peter Reynold's famous and lovely story, 'The Dot' online and discussed it. Children love this story. So do I. Here it is below: 

Our map story activity

1. After reading and disussing the story, we used our imaginations and wrote about a dot taking us on a trip around the world  I gave them maps of the world.  You can find the template here: https://bit.ly/3o355dx

2. The class copied and pasted textboxes and arrows at various places on the map,  and wrote about their journey around the world. 

Examples

Here are some examples of their work.

The Grade 3s researched endangered animals - usng www.kids.kiddle.co

For this lesson I wanted the Grade Threes to research an endangered animal, and to try and rephrase what they read in their own words. This is a task one needs to start as early as possible at school so that students don't get into the habit of plagiarising by copy and pasting.

How did we go about the lesson?

1. After finding out what the students already knew about endangered animals we watched a video and answered questions about them. The video was the engaging, short video entitled ‘Endangered animals’ by the SciShow Kids: https://bit.ly/3Ed7hUU.

2. The class was then given a selection of animals to choose from - gorilla, leopard, rhino, sea turtle, giant panda, tiger, or blue whale, - and they found out more about the relevant animal using the search engine Kiddle: https://kids.kiddle.co/.

3. After reading about their selected animal using the Kiddle browser, the students opened their template downloaded from Oakdome.com entitled ‘Animal Research Paperless Graphic Organizer’ https://bit.ly/31aajdZ . They then filled in their answers as far as possible in their own words by researching the key words in the template.

4. Finally they turned in their work so that I could take a closer look at it. They did well I thought,

Here are some examples of the finished product

Congratulations! You've been accepted into the Microsoft Innovative Educator (MIE) Expert Program!

My heart jumped when I received an email yesterday, 2 September 2021, with the header: 'Congratulations! You've been accepted into the Microsoft Innovative Educator (MIE) Expert Program'.  This year Microsoft made it especially difficult for teachers to enter the program, so I was totally delighted when it happened. 

What did the email say?

"Dear Fiona Beal
Congratulations on being selected as a Microsoft Innovative Educator Expert for 2021-2022! Each year, Microsoft selects Innovative Educator Experts to be part of this exclusive global community paving the way for their peers to share ideas, try new approaches, and learn from each other. We are inspired by your achievements and look forward to working with you throughout the one-year engagement, and beyond.

You will be joining a group of some of the most amazing educators who are empowering the students of today to create the world of tomorrow. At Microsoft, we believe that technology alone cannot build 21st century skills for students. It is an accelerator, but the power of change lies within educators. That is why we bring changemakers, like yourself, together to recognize and grow your achievements.

You have been chosen as an MIE Expert because you are self-driven, passionate about your work, have true collaborative spirit, and strive to inspire students with outside-the-box thinking on technology in education. We appreciate your resourcefulness and entrepreneurial spirit. As agents of change, you have achieved excellence in education, using technology and social media. We are grateful for the opportunity to tap into your enthusiasm and enable others to benefit from what is clearly your passion."

The coveted badge has arrived

This is my seventh year of earning this badge. The words accompanying this badge say: "Earners of this badge are educators who have been selected as Microsoft Innovative Educator (MIE) Experts for 2021-2022. They are self-driven educators who are passionate about teaching and learning. They inspire students with creative thinking, and work in a collaborative spirit to share their learning with the world. Resourceful and entrepreneurial, they relish the role of change agent, and work to achieve excellence in education using Microsoft technologies paired with innovative teaching."

The year will be very exciting. Microsoft will see to that! I think teachers love to be appreciated. They love earning badges taht have a lot of meaning. Added to that teachers enjoy being linked to a group of like-minded educators around the world in various events. They are notified of new ideas, new programs and have a wealth of free courses to upskill themselves in. I enjoy all of this so much. 

I am looking forward to this year with Microsoft!

Our Grade Ones love using 'Teach your monster to read'

The online version of Teach Your Monster to Read is free and my Grade 1s love it.  I allow them to use it in the last 10 minutes of our computer lessons https://www.teachyourmonstertoread.com/. Whenever I announce that it is time to play our reading game, I get a chorus of 'Yays'!

What is Teach your Monster to Read? 

This literacy game has been funded by the Usborne Foundation, a charity set up to support initiatives to develop early literacy. The program is free if you use it online, but you pay to use it as an app.  

The game is for children in the first stages of learning to read, or for older children who need a bit more practice. There is a video trailer on the Home page of the online version of 'Teach your monster to read' that shows how the game works. 

How does it work?

The information provided on the website version says, "The game takes children on a magical journey, meeting colourful characters along the way and collecting fantastic rewards. When children are engaged, they’re motivated to learn. As they progress, they rehearse a range of essential reading skills; matching letters to sounds, blending, segmenting, tricky words and reading full sentences."

Commonse Sense Media provides great reviews of programs on their website. This is one of their reviewers, Caryn Lix, says about "Teach Your Monster to Read" https://bit.ly/3cSm4Zt. 

"Teachers can have students play the game at home or at school. Each student creates an account, which allows teachers to monitor their progress through a dashboard, including how often they play, what games they're playing, and how well they're doing. This makes it a great way to assess basic reading and prereading skills as well as a fun way for kids to learn, on their own time and on their own terms. Students can also use the story as a starting point to come up with their own creative ideas: Write stories about how their monster damaged its ship, for example, or design their monster's home world in art class. Flash cards also provide an opportunity for students to review frequently confused sounds." 

How do you enrol students as a teacher?

You go to the website and sign up for a free teacher account. After that you create multiple players and give each student their login credentials.  The players log in to thir account and play. The app keeps a record of where they are at. As a teacher you can track their progress. The players can use these login credentials to log in to the app on any device, even when they're at home.

All I do in my Grade 1 Google Classroom is provide the link to the login page.  The students click on that and then each one signs in with their credentials - and they start playing and learning.

This is a great online game to add to your Grade 1 collection!

The Grade 7s created posters about their strengths using Adobe Spark

In this lesson the students were encouraged to think about their strngths and make a poster about them that included a photo. isn't it strange that most people cannot think of their strengths but can rattle off their weaknesses!  We used Adobe Spark to create the posters. 

What is Adobe Spark?

Adobe Spark (https://www.adobe.com/express/) is one of those programs that teachers love because the students can easily create social media posts and graphics, web pages, and videos fairly quickly — with no design or technical experience necessary.

Some examples of the posters

I thought the posters were great.

Grade 7s created stories from pictures and turned them into videos

I love thinking of different ways to get my classes writing and seeing themselves as writers and story tellers. I used the following method with Grade 6 and 7 this year, but in this post I will only talk about Grade 7.

I used the following process with Grade 7:

The elements of a good story

As always, our  lesson concentrated on the elements of a good story – characters, setting, a plot, a conflict, and a resolution to the project. We practised this in different ways orally in the lesson.

Tell the story from pictures

Some time ago I downloaded some wonderful Creative Commons stories from the African Storybook website https://www.africanstorybook.org/  . I removed the title and the words, but kept the art and details of the original stories as a Creative Commons requirement. I put the art on to PowerPoints and I numbered the stories. Each student in Grade 6 and 7 chose a number. Their task would be to turn the pictures into their own story and make sure they included the elements of a story. 

Create a video of your story using Screencastify

The Grade 7s then used the Chrome extension,  Screencastify, to narrate their stories and turn them into videos.  

Examples of the stories

1. Original: The Girl Who Could Fly by Ingrid Schechter. llustration - Ingrid Schechter and Amir Bachir António Necas. Creative Commons: Attribution 4.0 Source: www.africanstorybook.org

Casseddie’s Big Surprise by Casbru

2. Original: A Hot Saturday by Nathi and David; Translation - Nathi and David; Illustration - Wiehan de Jager Language – English. Creative Commons: Attribution 3. Source www.africanstorybook.org

A Hot Saturday by Ethkau

The Hottest Saturday by Geolev

The Grade Ones had fun making Gingerbread houses using Google Sheets

The template is on the right, and the student's work on the left

I absolutely love using Google Classroom on our Chromebooks with the Grade Ones.  They find their way around so easily. They log into their Chromebooks, and find Google Classroom just like that.  

Today I wanted them to get acquainted with Google Sheets. All the instructions and templates can be found in their Google Classroom - each student gets their own copy of everything.  Our lesson was divided into three parts. 

1. First we learned about Google Sheets and practised drawing a staircase up and down to get familiar with colouring in cells. We also created other simple drawings.

2. After that we listened to the story of the Gingerbread Man on YouTube.  What I love about Google Classroom is that the students watch the video within Google Classroom and aren't distracted by noticing any other YouTube videos. 

 

3. Then I gave the instructions for the main lesson where they were provided with a template and had to replicate it exactly.  I also recorded my instructions on the online program https://online-voice-recorder.com/, downloaded it and attached it to Google Classroom so that the students could listen to it at any time if they needed to, 

4. The students then created their houses in Google Sheets and when they had finished they turned them in. I was easily able to look at each one and assess it later on, and I returned their work to them with an encouraging comment made with my Bitmoji Google Chrome Extension.  

A couple more examples

I have to say - I LOVE using Google classroom! 

Using Canva to create animated posters in Grade 4

Canva is a fantastic tool for learning. A picture is worth a 1000 words and my students are continually inspired by all the beautiful designs in Canva  I am using Canva in different ways  with my Grade 4 class of 9 and 10 year olds.  

In the lesson described below I wanted to get them familiar with animation so I thought we should make a poster. There are several ways to use animation in Canva, but I thought we would start with the simplest way – “Find an animated image and make it your own.”

The task

I asked my class to think about an important event that was coming up in their lives in the next week or two, find an animated image that they liked, and then change the image accordingly to make it a personal poster. One girl was going horse-riding and was very excited about this event. Two were attending birthday parties. One was getting a new puppy. And so the list continued... The class loved what they discovered in Canva.

Here are four examples of what the class came up with:

     

I am really hoping that I will be able to get the Canva for Education free account for teachers (Canva is available for free globally to all educational institutions and qualified teachers with proof of teaching certification). Then I will make use of some of these tips from the video below with my Grade 4 class in one of their upcoming lessons.

Create stories from selected images and publish them in Book Creator (Grade 6)

One of the things I love doing at school is getting my students to write stories in different ways. I want them to see themselves as writers, able to tell and write amazing stories that hold the attention of whoever is listening.

I used the following process with Grade 6.

The elements of a good story

Our story lesson concentrated on the elements of a good story – characters, setting, a plot, a conflict, and a resolution to the project. We practised this in different ways orally in the lesson.

Find the story in a selection of art

Some time ago I downloaded some wonderful Creative Commons stories from the African Storybook website. I removed the words, but kept the art and details of the original stories as a Creative Commons requirement. I put the art on to PowerPoints and I numbered the stories. Each student chose a number. Their task would be to turn the pictures into their own story and make sure they included the elements of a story. Here is an example. The following art was from a story from the African storybook website called ‘Bongsa and her landlord – best friends’ by Roth Odondi. The illustrator is Rob Owen. Creative Commons: Attribution 4.0. https://bit.ly/3EkaRgr 

                

Using Book Creator as a publishing tool

How would they present their stories? I felt that they should get to know the wonderful program Book Creator which is a free program.  I created a PowerPoint of instructions that they could follow and off we went into our storytelling adventure. The final step would be for them to narrate their stories in Book Creator. 

The result was very pleasing. Book Creator set the stories out neatly in a bookshelf. 

You can visit our Grade 6 library on this link, https://bit.ly/3gLYU8k , and read (and listen to) some of the stories. 

I love Book Creator

 I love Book Creator. You can do so much with it in a classroom.  The limited version is free for teachers and students to use. So awesome!

What is Book Creator?

Book Creator is a program one can use as an app in Google Chrome, in iOS on the iPad,  or as a browser app. Itois an amazing program that enables students to create and read multimodal digital books. They can do this so easiy and end up with an amazing digital resource. My students love it. They use it on their Chromebook browsers.  It is an ideal tool for enhancing student engagement through story creation and multimedia design. This YouTube video explains Book Creator so beautifully. 

 

What can you do with Book Creator?

So far I have used it with classes for presenting their stories and for presenting their projects. The results have been so inspiring. I will be showing examples in later blog posts. But there is so much more one can do with Book Creator at Primary school level. Take a look through this e-book. It gives ideas of what you can do with Book Creator in an elementary classroom.

Using Book Creator in the Elementary Classroom

Click to read this book, made with Book Creator

https://read.bookcreator.com

How do you use Book Creator?

Jen Jonson gives a really great tutorial on how to use Book Creator, so I am going to embed it here. 

Try it out! you'll fall in love with it, like I did!

The Grade 4s wrote and illustrated lovely stories using Google Slides

I wanted the class to practise their story-writing skills digitally. A great application for story-writing is Google Slides or Microsoft PowerPoint. We used Google Slides. The story templates came from the wonderful site: Communications4All:  
http://www.communication4all.co.uk/http/StoryMaker.htm

How did we go about the lesson? 

1. First we looked at the story map image also found on the Communication4All website http://bit.ly/2P9lU71. I wanted the students to be aware that a good story always has a problem in it that needs to be solved. 

2. Then I wrote a story called 'The Fairy and the Three Wishes' along with the class using one of the templates from the  Communication4All website.  We followed the steps of the Story Map. This was to show the class how it was done,  and to let them see the finished example. We read through this story together. 

The Fairy and the Three Wishes by Fiobea

   

 3. The students then chose our individual stories from the Communication4All website. The students wrote their stories and illustrated them. They turned them in using Google Classroom so that I could take a look at them.

Here are some of the finished examples 

 Kalben ‘The Pirates of the Ocean’

   

The Superhero Who Saved The Day by Lilnas

  

The Three Pirates by Isasim

'Technology Ideas for the Classroom #1' via Wakelet

CC BY 4 -Bing Images

I'm so excited about all the things that you can do with Wakelet. Not only is it a great curating tool, but it has 101 other uses. In this post I am using it as a curating tool. I thought that I would pass on some ideas geared to our staff at school every week to, hopefully, inspire them as they prepare their lessons. So here is my first attempt at embedding a Wakelet - Technology Ideas for the Classroom  - Term 3 week 1. 

Story writing #1: Using 'Design Ideas' in PowerPoint to create attractive story backgrounds with Grade 5

I am starting a series of story-writing posts today. This is the first one of three. 

One of the teachers at my school wanted help in publishing stories digitally rather than having the students write them in their books. So we worked together in creating lovely stories in PowerPoint. Powerpoint is a perfect application for publishing stories. In this post I want to suggest a way for a student to use the Bing browser and PowerPoint to create a background for an illustrated, digital story - a background that will vary from slide to slide, but keep to the original theme. 

Write stories that can be published

One of the things that I love doing in my classes is getting the students to write stories and publish them in different ways. I've always been of the opinion that it's such a pity to write a story at school and then let it just 'disappear into nothingness' in an exercise book. Why not get it published digitally, and share it with the world! My classes all have blogs, so they are able to publish the finished products on their blogs.

Use PowerPoint for writing stories

Microsoft PowerPoint is a great tool for writing stories.  Our students use mainly Chromebooks so we used the online Office and PowerPoint which they sign into with their Microsoft accounts. (Our school is in the throws of getting Office 365 for the learners – I can’t wait!).

Create backgrounds using 'Design Ideas' in PowerPoint

The wonderful thing about using PowerPoint is that it has a feature called Design Ideas. So every time you insert an image into a slide, Design Ideas comes into play down the right side and gives all sorts of suggestions for placing the image on the slide. Consequently you can use one background image in a variety of ways. Here is an example: 

How to create varied backgrounds

My class was writing a story about ‘Three wishes’ so, after the story had been planned, they needed to prepare a presentation in PowerPoint and create suitable backgrounds for the story on their slides.  

This is how to go about it:

1.  In PowerPoint create a presentation with around 5 – 8 blank slides.

2. Go to Insert/ Pictures/ Online pictures

3. This automatically opens the Bing Browser which you can set to only include Creative Commons images which are free to use. Type in, for example, ‘Clipart nature scene’.

4. Choose one and select Insert

You'll notice that 'Design Ideas' immediately goes into play and suggests ideas. Choose from these ideas. 

Examples of backgrounds 

Here are a few examples of backgrounds my class created using 'Design Ideas'. Take a look through. They created around 8+ different backgrounds, in the same theme,  with each image.  

 

 

Next steps

Once their presentations had been created, with varied backgrounds, the class added their stories and then set about adding illustrations. That process is for another blog post! But in the meantime - here is a link to the finished stories which i have captured in a Wakelet: https://wke.lt/w/s/epv3qS

The Microsoft Educator Center provides a great, free way to upskill yourself as a teacher

I have just earned my '21st century learning design: Introducing 21CLD' Course 1 badge on the Microsoft Educator Center! It introduces the six important skills for lesson planning, namely collaboration, communication, ICT skills, self-regulation, knowledge construction, and real-world problem solving and innovation.   This first introductory course provides the background leading to the selection of these specific skills. It is very interesting!  The others enlarge on each skill separately.  Here is the link for the first course:  https://education.microsoft.com/course/8220d07e/overview 

The Microsoft  Educator Center is full of relevant, free professional development courses for the modern teacher. Take a look: https://education.microsoft.com/en-us