Programming with drones

Published September 9, 2019September 9, 2019 by Nick

In 2018 Paul spent considerable time developing his knowledge and understanding of how block coding worked and used this with his 5/6 class to program Sphero robots. In 2019 he has continued to extend and develop his knowledge of programming, using the Parrot Mambo drones with his class.

This Digital Technologies unit involved students extending their knowledge of block coding, learning about drone safety, how to manually fly the drones, understanding and using the Tynker app, and programming the drones through an obstacle course. Students also had to use a variety of interpersonal skills to successfully work with a partner during the program.

As with most technologies being used for the first time the drones required a significant amount of persistence and problem solving. In preparation Paul did taught himself how to use the drones ensuring he knew some of the issues students would face when working with the drones. The students demonstrated considerable problem solving skills and a good understanding of block coding to achieve the end goal of moving their drones through a series of obstacles.

Comments made by the students included:

“We had to make sure we put in the correct information to make the drones work, things like height, distance and time”.
“I really liked making the drones flip and do 360 degree turns, being able to program the drone was fun”.
“It was fun working with a partner to program the drones. I enjoyed interacting with the drone rather than just sitting at a computer”.
“We had some problems connecting to the drones sometimes but most of the time they worked well”.
“It was fun flying the drones but it was a challenge to program them correctly”.

Links to the 5/6 Digital Technologies Australian Curriculum

Achievement Standard: Students plan, design, test, modify and create digital solutions that meet intended purposes including user interfaces and a visual program.

Content Descriptor: Implement digital solutions as simple visual programs involving branching, iteration (repetition), and user input (ACTDIP020).

Elaboration: Programming a robot to operate independently through an obstacle course.

Students program drones to move through an obstacle course

What does the data say about our iPad usage at PBAS?

Published May 21, 2019May 21, 2019 by Nick

Our school set of 30 iPads are used on a daily basis (almost), certainly every week across R-10 with the majority of regular use being the R-4 students.

In the first 4 weeks of term 2 our class set of iPads has been booked for 40 out of a possible 120 lessons across R-9. On top of this 11 of those lessons have seen multiple classes accessing the iPads at the same time.

As well as how often are they used it is interesting to look at what they are being used for. With the help of the screen time function in the iPads settings I have been able to look at usage over a three day period in week 3 this term.

The screen time function categorises usage into areas like Education, Creativity etc while also tracking individual application usage.

It is great to see that in the categories section Education, Creativity, Productivity and Reading and Reference came out as the top 4 categories while Other, Games and Entertainment were lower down. Even better is that creativity appears in the top two, indicating that the iPads are not just being used for “traditional” schooling activities.

The top 4 categories mentioned combined for just over 11 hours per day across 23 iPads or an average of 28 minutes per iPad per day.

It is important to remember that this data is taken over a very short time period. Use of apps like iMove, Garageband, Scratch, Geoboard and many others not mentioned are specialty apps which get used when the need arises. For example an English task requiring students to video and edit an oral presentation would involve significant use for a short period of the Camera and iMovie apps. Apps like Safari and Literacy Planet which are research and practice based apps are naturally used on a more regular basis.

While this data is very narrow I believe it is a consistant representation of how we have used the iPads since including them as part of our ICT resources in 2013.

Green Screen by Do Ink

Published May 14, 2018 by Nick

Green Screen by Do Ink makes it easy to create incredible green screen videos and photos. Classroom-tested by kids and teachers, this app emphasizes ease-of-use and simplicity while still enabling fantastic results. With Green Screen by Do Ink, you can tell a story, explain an idea, and express yourself in truly creative and unique ways. DK Pictures, Inc

“Use Green Screen as part of a project based learning unit…highly recommended..” – Teachers With Apps

“Green Screening and creativity go hand-in-hand.. with the amazing DoInk Green Screen app for the iPad.” – UKedChat

“Recording in it is easy as pie and can be used in elementary, middle or high school.” – Examiner.com

“Do Ink’s excellent Green Screen app is a fantastic addition to the amateur film maker’s armory.” – iPad Insight

“Single best green screen app ever produced…” – iPadEducators

This app is on all of our classroom iPads and combined with the green screen and lighting kit in the STEM centre provides an opportunity for students to create some great videos.

Introduction to Green Screen by Do Ink

How to use Green Screen by Do Ink

Parrot Airborne Cargo Mars Mini Drone

Published August 25, 2017 by Nick

Daniel has made a demonstration video using the Parrot Airborne Cargo Mars drone. The video demonstrates some of its features as well as explaining the app Tynker which can be used to program and control the drone. This app is on our class set of iPads. While the app allows you to control Parrot brand vehicles it is also a coding app that teachers may find useful as alternatives to Daisy the Dinosaur, Kodable and Hopscotch.

Please note: I have only recently put the app onto the iPads and did not 
realise extra content had to be downloaded into the app (all the Tynker 
projects). This cannot be done through our filtering. So I will need some 
time to download the programs at home (15 programs per iPad x 30 iPads). 
Once these programs are downloaded they will work without the need to 
access the Internet so our school system will not be a problem. I have 
tried this process with the program Daniel used to run the Parrot Drone 
and it worked. Students can also be save their coding locally to the app.

To find out more about Parrots mini drones click here.

To read a review click here.

To find out a price click here.

Team Shake App

Published August 2, 2017 by Nick

This is a great app for creating teams in PE lessons or learning groups in your classroom. One of the powerful functions of this app is the ability to group students based on strengths. It can also be set up so that:

certain students will never be in the same group
certain students will always be in the same group
groups can be all male, all female or a mix
the teacher can randomly select one student.

These two videos provide a good overview of the app and its functions.

Apps available on PBAS iPads

Published June 25, 2017July 7, 2017 by Nick

This list covers most apps available on the PBAS iPads. If teachers have any apps they would like added to the iPads please let me know and I will put them on.

Any teachers from other sites who would like to share apps that they have found useful please feel free to do so in the comments.

Collaboration/Presenting/Creating

Pages

Create beautiful documents
• Write and edit documents using the onscreen keyboard or a wireless keyboard with Bluetooth
• Format your document with gorgeous styles, fonts and textures
• Your most important text formatting options are right in your keyboard, and always just a tap or two away
• Easily add images and video to your document using the Media Browser
• Use auto-text wrap to flow text around images
• Animate data with interactive column, bar, scatter and bubble charts
• Organise your data easily in tables

Keynote

Create stunning presentations
• Use predefined text styles or choose text options to personalise your slides
• Easily change slide masters and backgrounds
• Quickly add your photos and videos from the Photos app using the Media Browser
• Edit down to the pixel with rulers and alignment guides
• Use Instant Alpha to easily remove image backgrounds

Explain Everything

Create slides using an infinite canvas, use laser pointers, draw in any color, add shapes, text, videos, images and audio files
• Record everything you do within the app (even yourself while using the front-facing camera) to create high quality and creative content that you can quickly share on YouTube or Vimeo for others to learn from
• Import many common file types: PDF, DOC, PPT, XLS, RTF, TXT, HTML, KEYNOTE, PAGES, NUMBERS, JPG, BMP, PNG, GIF, MP4, MOV, MP3, M4A, WAV, AAC and more

Book Creator

* Add text, choosing from over 50 fonts
* Add photos and images from your iPad’s photo library, from the web, or use the iPad’s camera
* Resize, rotate and position content as you like with guidelines and snap positioning
* Add video and music, and even record your voice
* Use the pen tool to draw and annotate your book
* Choose from portrait, landscape or square book sizes
* Add super powers to your books with comic templates, stickers and styles
* A quick tap and you’re reading your book in iBooks!

iMovie

With a streamlined design and intuitive Multi-Touch gestures, iMovie lets you enjoy your videos and tell stories like never before. Make Hollywood-style trailers. Create beautiful movies.

Puppet Pals2

Children unlock creativity with this easy to use (but hard to put down) interactive puppet show! Even young children can create high quality cartoons from their imaginations. Kids can even star in the show along side the built-in characters!

Popplet

Popplet is the simplest tool to capture and organize your ideas. With Popplet you can quickly jot down your ideas and sort them visually.

POW Strip Design

Make your photos come to live and tell a story you can share with friends and family. With Strip Designer you will create comics from beginning to end: Sketch, draw, mask, add warped 3D lettering, balloons, and combine everything with complex panel layouts.

File Sharing

FileBrowser

Use File Browser to allow students to move their learning between the iPad and their student folder on our school server.

The Arts

Art Set

This stunningly beautiful app is like having a virtual art set right inside your iPad. Paint and draw via the photo realistic interface with tools that look and feel like the real thing.

GarageBand

GarageBand turns your iPad into a collection of Touch Instruments and a full-featured recording studio — so you can make music anywhere you go. And with Live Loops, it makes it easy for anyone to have fun creating music like a DJ, by triggering loops and audio effects in real time. Use Multi-Touch gestures to play keyboards, guitars, and drums. Enjoy Smart Instruments that make you sound like a pro — even if you’ve never played a note before.

WordFoto

You’ve probably heard the tired cliche about a picture being worth a thousand words. We’ve taken this phrase quite literally and created WordFoto, an app that turns photos and words into amazing typographic works of art.

Science/HPE

Build-a-Body

Build-a-Body: In this gutsy educational game learn about the human body’s major organ systems.

SunSmart

The SunSmart app lets you know when you need sun protection across Australia and when its safe to get some sun for vitamin D, making it easier than ever to be smart about your sun exposure all year. With a few clicks, you can find a 7 day weather forecast, the UV level and sun protection times for your local area in Australia so you will always be prepared for the day ahead. Personalise the sun protection alert to remind you of the daily sun protection times, either at a time of your choice or when the UV reaches a level where sun protection is required. Use the vitamin D Tracker to find out if you are getting enough UV exposure to help with your vitamin D levels.

CoachNote

Manage and control players’ movement, number, colour and direction of rotation. With CoachNote, you can even trace players and ball movement. Switching players is seamless and easy; you can set player direction and watch your plays come to life in a wonderfully animated motion. Use your finger to effortlessly create your plays for multiple sports.

Burstmode

Burst photos are perfect because they allow you to capture multiple shots as your subject moves. Just keep your finger pressed down on the shutter button while the subject moves through the scene. Once you’ve taken a set of burst photos, you can then select the best shots from the action sequence.

WhackABone

Whack A Bone is the best way to learn the human skeletal system on the iPad. The game is designed to draw beginners into the curious and fascinating world of anatomy, guiding them toward a commanding recall of the major bones of the human body.

Cardio Buddy

Instant Heart Rate
– Heart rate measurement with the front-facing camera
– Learn interesting facts about your heart

My Body

Children explore and learn about the basic functions of the human body through hands-on gameplay – guided by their own curiosity. Guessing, rotating, pulling… in each area there is lots to discover and to do.

EasyTag

Frequency statistics are displayed and data can be exported for number crunching. EasyTag-Note is an easy way to make notes on the performance-defining events of a game or practice as it unfolds – simply tap buttons to describe the KPI (key performance indicators) of your activity. You add the buttons that you need and aren’t bound by someone else’s predefined ideas of what is important to your team. Could be used to record any data not just sports statistics.

Workouts

Ten different 5 to 10 minute targeted workouts, 10 to 30 minute randomized full body workouts, 95+ exercises, Great for both men and women, Video showing how to do each exercise, Developed by a certified personal trainer, On-screen instructions and timer, No internet required to do the workouts.

Solar Walk

This 3D solar system model lets you navigate between planets, see their positions on a specific date, explore how they move and why. You will see the entire Milky Way galaxy from a far and zoom in to study all the planets and satellites in close-up, learn their trajectories, inner structures, history of their exploration, and geography. Every planet has extensive information: size, mass, orbital velocity, exploratory missions, thickness of structural layers, and composition of atmosphere.

Planets: Sun, Mercury,Venus, Earth, Mars, Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, Neptune, Pluto
Moons: Phobos, Deimos, Callisto, Ganymede, Europa, Io, Hyperion, Iapetus, Titan, Rhea, Dione, Tethys, Enceladus, Mimas, Oberon, Titania, Umbriel, Ariel, Miranda, Triton, Larissa, Proteus, Nereid, Charon
Dwarf planets and asteroids: Ceres, Makemake, Haumea, Sedna, Eris, Eros
Comets: Hale-Bopp, Borrelly, Halley’s Comet, Ikeya-Zhang
Missions and satellites*: Curiosity, Luna 17, Apollo 11, Apollo 17, Hubble Launch, SEASAT, ERBS, ISS, Aqua, Envisat, Suzaku, Daichi, CORONAS-Photon
Educational movies*: size comparison, Earth’s cycles, solar eclipse, moon phases, tidal phenomena, major circles of latitude, zodiacal constellations, Cassini-Huygens mission

Video Physics

Video Physics is perfect for science students and instructors. Perform on-the-go analysis of interesting motion. Measure the velocity of a child’s swing, a roller-coaster, or a car. Or, take a video of a basketball free throw shot. Video Physics will display the path of the ball and provide graphs of y vs. x as well as the x and y position and velocity as a function of time.

Numeracy

Bugs and Buttons

Join a beautiful world filled with adventure in Bugs and Buttons while exploring 18 mini-games and activities that make learning fun. Count colorful buttons, recycle with marching ants or dainty ladybugs, recognize letters, solve bug mazes, and more! Kids, parents and even bugs will want keep playing over and over again!

Bugs and Numbers

Bugs and Numbers provides an extensive collection of unique games dedicated to learning and practicing a wide range of math skills in a non-traditional way. Organized into three basic stages, the app grows with your child through 18 games ranging from basic counting to early fractions.

iCan Count Money

I Can Count Money Australia is an exciting & fun 8 games-in-1 money counting game for kids ages 4-12. An excellent learning tool for children of all ages. Ranked in Top 10 Educational Apps in Australia.

Mathmateer

Math can be fun! Build your very own rockets and fly them to the stars with Mathmateer! While your rocket is floating weightlessly in space, the real fun begins! Play one of the 56 different math missions. Each mission has touchable objects floating in space, including stars, coins, clocks, 3D shapes and even pizzas! Earn a bronze, silver or gold medal and also try to beat your high score.

Math Bingo

5 BINGO games: Addition, Subtraction, Multiplication, Division and Mixed.Three different levels of difficulty: Easy, Medium and Hard.

Literacy

A to Z Mrs Owls

Join Mrs. Owl in the Learning Tree’s treehouse classroom as she takes you through the complete alphabet with beautiful pictures, illustrations and great sound effects.
Mrs. Owl also knows all the correct phonetic letter sounds, so she can help you with those too, if you need a little help.

abc PocketPhonic

PocketPhonics shows children how to write letters using an arrow they can follow with their finger or stylus. PocketPhonics supports two different writing styles, and for each style, kids can write in lowercase, uppercase and cursive. Using a unique, “letter sounds make words” spelling game, children learn how to sound out and spell 160 frequently used words. PocketPhonics uses the synthetic phonics method recommended by the Australian Federal Government’s Teaching Reading Report in 2005.

Phonics Vowels

Phonics Vowels teaches each word’s phonics spelling, beginning sound, word family phonics, short vowel sound, and images with animations and interactions for each word. There are 30 different vowel sound combination groups which focus on the short vowels, long vowels and two vowel combinations phonics learning.

Literacy Planet

NOTE: You need a student account to use this application. LiteracyPlanet is a fun, safe and motivational learning environment for children, which encourages them to learn at their own pace and presents a solid foundation for the development of invaluable literacy skills. Our interactive content has been developed by reading specialists and experienced educators, and all exercises are designed to align with English curriculum standards. The LiteracyPlanet app currently includes Spelling, Stories and Comprehension content.

History

Timeline Eons

Timeline Eons, a graphic representation of the entire natural and human history!
– Scrollable timeline thousands of times longer than the Earth’s circumference, with a time range that spans billions of years into both the past and the future.
– Extensive and wide-ranging events, from the Big Bang to historical events and future projections.
– Concise and fun facts with links to additional external resources.
– Includes Natural History, World History, U.S. History, Science & Technology, Sports, and Art & Architecture.

World War 2 Interactive

Read about the major battles and events of WW2 in detail. Swipe through the timelines for every month of the war. Watch rare video clips. Listen to famous speeches. See amazing photographs. Learn about the leaders, weapons, conferences, major operations, etc.

Gallipoli – The first days

Watch and explore the events of Gallipoli as and where they happened in a 3D map space. From the first sightings of British Naval ships by Ottoman platoons and the unfolding chaos of the pre-dawn landings, to the ANZAC struggle to make gains in the unforgiving terrain. An entirely new way to look at the Gallipoli Campaign produced by the Department of Veterans Affairs and the ABC.

Geography

The Barefoot Atlas

Barefoot World Atlas puts the world at your children’s fingertips! With this incredible app, anyone can fly around the magical, interactive 3D globe and discover the rich wonders of our planet.

Coding

Hopscotch

Hopscotch is a free award-winning programming app for kids aged 9-13. Learn to code by creating your own games. You can use our video tutorials, or create your own projects from scratch.

Daisy the Dinosaur

Built by the creators of Hopscotch. This fun app has an easy drag & drop interface that kids of all ages can use to animate Daisy and make her dance on their screen. Kids will intuitively grasp the basics of objects, sequencing, loops and events by solving this app’s challenges.

Tynker

Tynker is the easiest way for kids to learn programming. Solve fun puzzles using visual blocks or Swift to learn the basics. Then you can create your own amazing games using over 100 step-by-step coding tutorials.

SUPPORTS CONNECTED TOYS
Do you have a Parrot minidrone or a Sphero robot? You can use Tynker to program these toys! Build a flappy drone game with a real drone, draw shapes with Sphero, or program your own stunt flips. This version supports Sphero, Ollie, Parrot minidrones, Lego WeDo2.0, and Philips Hue and Lux personal lighting systems.

Environmental

WWF Together

WWF Together brings you closer to amazing and endangered species than you ever could have imagined, letting you discover their lives and the work WWF does for them. Try out “tiger vision,” flap your wings like a migrating butterfly, and chop the panda’s bamboo. As part of each story, you’ll get to bring an animal into your world by taking a selfie with its origami or placing it in a scene.

Creating bilingual books with Book Creator

Published May 10, 2016May 10, 2016 by Nick

In term 1 Alison worked with the Year 5/6 Spanish class to create Spanish/English bilingual books.

The unit of work was titled las vacaciones – Que te gusta hacer? or holidays – What do you like to do?

Students learnt lots of pass time activities in Spanish such as dancing, playing sport, swimming, singing etc. They learnt how to say whether they like doing those activities or not – me gusta (I like) or no me gusta ( I don’t like).

The students assessment task was to design a bilingual ebook suitable for a preschool aged child titled What do you like to do? Que te gusta hacer? The books required a repetitive sentence throughout “do you like ………..? using the various activity words that they had learnt during the term. The book needed to be colourful with large font suitable for a young child. The text was required to be in Spanish and English with audio also in Spanish and English.

At the end of term 1 the Year 5/6 students shared their books with the Reception/Year 1 class.

This task  addresses TfEL Domain 4 Personalise and connect learning.
Element 4.3 apply and assess learning in authentic contexts
- Ensures demonstration of learning to real audiences (Reception/Year 1 class)
Element 4.4 communicate learning in multiple modes
- Encourages the use of a range of media for communicating learning (communicating through an ebook - this was something new and different to previous methods of communicating learning)
- Engages learners in practical activities to develop understanding (creation of an ebook)

iPad File Management

Published March 29, 2016March 11, 2017 by Nick

If you require your students to transfer work back and forth between the school server and school iPads then you need to use the app File Browser. Below is a poster which you can download for yourself and your students as well as a video taking you through the steps to use File Browser.

The poster specifically shows how to move photos and video from the iPad. File Browser allows other files including Pages, Keynote and Numbers to be transferred off the iPad. Just tap the share button, tap open in another app and select File Browser.

Download classroom poster – Filer Browser: Shift photos and Video from the iPad

Stratopherix

Stratopherix provides a range file transfer apps for iPad and iPhone including the original File Browser app that we use at PBAS. File Browser is not just useful in a school setting. If you want to connect your iPad and iPhone to your PC, Mac computer, stream music from devices or connect with an Apple TV then check out the range of apps provided by Stratopherix. These apps make it easy to manage files between all your devices at home.

Click here to view all the Stratopherix apps including File Browser (connect all your home devices including PC to iDevices), File Browser for Education, File Browser for Business, File Browser for TV (use with Apple TV) and Music Streamer (live stream your music from your computer to you iDevice).

Using Book Creator to record student learning

Published February 13, 2016March 11, 2017 by Nick

Learning Aim

One of the focus areas for my Year 3/4 PE class in the first half of term 1 is preparing for sports day. My aim for the students is to practice and refine the skills needed to participate confidently in our upcoming sports day. In Australian Curriculum language – “Practice and refine fundamental movement skills in a variety of movement sequences and situations”. The year 3/4 students do a 600m run, shot put, long throw (vortex), long jump and a sprint race. We will also be practising discus even though this is not a required event on the day.

Recording student learning

To record student learning I have decided to use the app Book Creator on my iPad.

The book I created has one page per student which includes their name, a space for personal reflection and two spaces for video. To simplify the process I selected shot put as the event I would video for every student. Video one was taken last week (week 2) while the second video will be taken in week 6 or 7 allowing students to demonstrate their improvement over time. The “I have learnt …” section of the page will be completed by the student. Their task will be to reflect on all the other learning they have achieved in the events other than shot put. How have they improved? Which events did they make the most progress in? What advice did they get from the teacher that helped them improve? Did they persist?

Process (I have completed up to part 2 – inserting video 1)

1. Firstly we discussed the focus and aim of our lessons leading up to sports day.

2. Collecting video in the book

In our week 2 lesson the class was divided into 3 groups – long throw (vortex), 300m run then long jump and shot put.
I worked with the shot put group recording their efforts directly into the book in Book Creator. No instruction (other than some safety tips) was given so that the first video reflected the student’s current level of knowledge. Once I had finished with a group all groups rotated to the next activity.
This process seemed to work smoothly and was easily completed in one lesson with 24 students. The process was made smoother by having the groups match the order of student names in the book. Group 1 were the first 8 names of the book and group 2 were the next 8 names etc. This meant I didn’t have to spend time finding student names in the book I just started at page 1 and worked my way through to the last page.
The Book Creator app allows video to be taken and inserted within the app so I did not have to go between the camera and Book Creator apps.
The second video will be added in week 6/7.

3. Using the video to learn

We will go through a process of examining the correct technique for shot put (images/video/me demonstrating).
As a class we will watch everyone’s video (5 secs each) and give feedback as a class to that person. We will have strict protocols around reacting to others performance and the type of feedback we were allowed to give. Showing videos to the whole class will be voluntary (hoping for 100% though – I will be convincing them through discussion about growth mindset and learning from others).

4. Collecting and inserting student responses to “I have learnt…”

In a PE lesson (week 6/7) all students will be given an iPad. Using the Pages app they will record their responses to the reflection questions. Doing this as a group will allow for some class discussion and sharing which will hopefully assist those students who are finding the reflection process difficult.
Students will airdrop their document to me and I will copy and paste their text into the book.

Teacher observations

Throughout the topic I will keep my own notes and observations on my iPad separate to the book. When assessing students I will use a combination of what is in the book as well as my own notes.

Using video as a starting point in practical lessons

Video 1 also provides me with a starting point for shot put i.e. what do the students bring? What knowledge do they already have? Taking video in the first week or two of a practical topic provides the opportunity to closely examine where students are at and therefore, starting points for future lessons. Using the iPad camera and photos apps can be powerful formative assessment tools.

Using this process with other subject areas

Use the same process to record student learning over a series of lessons, a term or semester in:

Reading
Handwriting
Speaking to the class
Explaining a math concept
Word pronunciation
Creating a hypothesis (video/text/audio) and then conducting an experiment (video) to prove or disprove the hypothesis.

There are four ways to add student evidence to a book – video, photos, text and audio. All of which can be done within the app.

Teachers are always looking for ways to record evidence of learning and Book Creator is a simple and efficient way of doing this. Once my book is completed I will share the book as a video to my MacBook and also place it into iBooks on my iPad. My goal is to end up with a document that provides me with evidence of student learning that I can reference against my own observations.

The iPad Orchestra

Published February 7, 2016 by Nick

See how Boneo Primary School created their own iPad orchestra.

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