Duration: 3:34
Rae Marsh teaches a Year 5 class at Avondale School. In this video she talks about how an iPad provided access and supported a student with writing.
Using Screen Chomp as a tool both the teacher and importantly the student could see the way he formed each letter and how much time it took him to form the letters. They created a table identifying his improvements as he focused on each letter. The student could replay a screencast and see exactly how to make the letter correctly.
As a result of this process, the learner is feeling empowered to write and share creatively at a young writers course.
Note: Screen Chomp is no longer available, ShowMe interactive whiteboard or Explain EDU are comparable apps to use instead.
Alright, my name is Rae Marsh and I teach at Avondale School for Year 5 class. Yeah we’ve been working with him with his physical handwriting. He’s had difficulty over the years, oh he’s left handed, forming his letters correctly. Initially many, many letters have been incorrectly formed. He, we started to think at the beginning of the year what sort of things can we do to support him, so I got him typing a lot. And, I thought in the end well he’s still going to have to use handwriting so what can we do to enhance his handwriting.
So, when we got the iPads the opportunity was absolutely golden. That was using Screen Chomp and School Writing was, you know, fallen in my lap and that was magic. It’s working really well. We used Screen Chomp as a tool to see, to clearly show the way he formed the letters, how much time it took him to form the letters.
You could clearly see his thinking time so you could see what was automatic and what isn’t. When we made a table up of looking at what he’d done from each different time he was getting quite excited about which letters he could form quickly, and doing it together I think has made the huge difference. Not just me going away and saying well this is how long you took etc etc, doing that part together and I think the last time we did it there was quite a nice change.
It’s taking time but I think that’s partly because we are doing it together. Last time we met a couple of days ago we talked about what else could we do to enhance what he’s doing. Because what I would tend to do was watch them write and then I would be making notes, this is back to front da-da-da-da, but this means he can go back as well and see exactly what he’s done, and that just gives him the heart to keep on going I think.
It’s been, yeah it has, it’s been really, really good for him. Those two things combined have given him, given him the sense that he’s improving but it’s coming across in everything.
So this week he’s been into young writers course, so we’ll just continue supporting him with his creativity. With him using Google Docs and Screen Chomp the writing app with me, he’s working a lot with me and I think that’s done a lot for his self-esteem. So I think other regular type class activities he’s actually joining in far better.
So it is hard to know what you can attribute to the technology and what individual attention, which is difficult to do in a class as we all know, how much is attributed to that. But it certainly has made things a lot easier with the apps than, you know, if I’ve looked at this sort of thing over the years well you just can’t make this sort of change in interest I don’t think