Yay, I completed the Adobe Youth Voices online course!

Recently I have been one of 12 teachers in South Africa participating in the Adobe Youth Voices programme where youth are encouraged to make video media that gives a voice to an issue. The idea is that the teachers do the very comprehensive, well-designed course and then teach their students what they have learned. The 12 of usfrom South Africa joined a group from around the world in this online course and viewed each other’s’ progress along the way. During the course we learned how to use Adobe Premier for video editing and Adobe Photoshop Essentials for editing still photos. This was really a superb though demanding  course (especially when time is at a premium) and I was thrilled when I received my Certificate of Participation for completing the course!

Unfortunately my Grade 7, 8 and 9s didn’t get their media completed in time to enter the Adobe competition. Howver the winners have been announced and can be viewed on this post Celebrating the Adobe Youth Voices Awards Winners

[Grade 2] Reading the stories in the African Storybook website

In a previous post I talked about Introducing the newly launched African Storybook website  to a Grade 1 ICT technology class. In this post I report back on introducing the website to a Grade 2 class.

Step 1: A discussion about the African Storybook website
After discussing the amazing African Storybook website and its stories especially created for Grade 1 – 3 students I showed the class parts of the website on the big screen, and we read one of the stories together as in a Big Book lesson where the students are actively involved in reading the story. For more information on how to use a Big Book in a lesson click here.

Step 2: Choosing a story to read
For this lesson the class was instructed to choose a story from the English/First sentences section where there was a lovely selection of stories. When one clicks on Find am African Story one comes across this table. When I used the website with the Grade 1s we selected the ‘First words’ section. With the Grade 2’s we selected the ‘First sentences’ section.

Reporting back on a favourite the story
In our report back session on the favourite story read during the lesson I used this lovely idea found on Pinterest. This was a fun way to introduce the different aspects of a story.

I discovered that the favorite story was ‘A Very Tall Man’.

Step 4: Follow up to the story
As a follow-up to the story the class opened a drawing programme and drew a picture of the story they had read. Some of the students set about drawing the very tall man in the story.

[Grade 3] The African Storybook website and the Grade 3s using the story circle idea

In this post I report back on introducing the African Storybook website to a Grade 3 class. We used a fun method which I have called ‘The Story Circle’  Students always love it when a game-like activity is used in a lesson.

A discussion about the African Storybook website
After discussing the amazing African Storybook website and its stories and looking around the website I instructed the class to each choose a different story from the category First Paragraphs. I had written out the name of the story I wanted each person to look for and distributed these on pieces of paper.

Reading the stories as a story circle
I set a timer and we begin reading for 3 minutes. When the timer rang, we stopped reading and moved to the next computer on the right. We then read that story. We followed this prpcedue until we had each read at least four e-books.

Reporting back on a story
In our report back session each student reported back on the last story they had read  I used this lovely idea ‘Retell Rope’ idea’ found on Pinterest. This was a fun way to reinforce the different aspects of a story. Students were able to help each other if part of the story couldn’t be recalled.

The students enjoyed the activity and asked if they could do it again sometime. Warning: If you use this method, be prepared for moans and groans when the timer rings and students have to move on without completing the story.