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Enhancing literacy skills
and literature study with
iPads and Blue-Bots
Kelsie Brosnan
S
t Patrick’s is a Catholic primary school with 480 accessing the written text.
Prep to Year 6 students, located in Bundaberg During the second reading children took a
in regional Queensland. St Patrick’s teaching screenshot of the pages that showed the characters,
focus places a strong emphasis on student literacy setting, problem and solution, to insert into a graphic
and numeracy development, enhanced through the organiser. The graphic organiser had been uploaded
use of Information Communication Technologies to Seesaw by the teacher and children were able to
(ICT). The purpose of this paper is to share some log on to Seesaw and save it to their camera roll.
examples of the classroom work we are doing, Seesaw is a digital portfolio and learning journal
integrating ICT into our teaching to meet our tool available as an app for iPads. Students can easily
curricular goals. access teacher created resources and then upload
their own work, photos, videos and audio files to
Task 1: Re-interpret fairy tales Seesaw to share with teachers, parents and peers.
Apps: Epic!, Seesaw and Pic Collage Kids. Children inserted the graphic organiser into Pic
Collage Kids and set it as the background. They
inserted their images from the story into the correct
places in the graphic organiser and used the clipping
tool to crop their pictures to size. Once completed
they saved it to their camera roll and uploaded it to
Seesaw. Children then orally recorded their retelling
of the story in Seesaw. By uploading their work to
Seesaw the teacher was able to monitor who had
completed the task and determine who may need
further support or extension with identifying story
components and retelling stories. This task was
completed during literacy stations where children
complete several literacy activities at their own pace.
Before completing this task, children had many
Two students looking at Story Map A) opportunities as a whole class and in small groups
to explore and learn the basic functions of each of
As part of our Year 2 English unit children have the apps. When children encountered difficulty
been reading and identifying key components of with this task they were able to ask other children
fairy tales. They used the Epic! app to assist them in working on the same task for assistance or refer back
planning and writing their own fairy tale. to the visual instructions.
Epic! is an app that gives teachers and students
access to thousands of digital fiction and non-fiction
texts. Many titles have a ‘read-to-me’ option, along
with quizzes and activities for students to complete
after reading the text. Teachers can assign texts to
P R AC T I C A L
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Task 2: Retell the story
Jack and the Beanstalk
Resources: Blue-Bots, storyboard, Jack and the
Beanstalk mat.
the children were required to write the algorithm for parents to see and for myself and the children
they would need to use to instruct their Blue-Bot to to reflect on. I enjoy the professional challenge of
O C TO B E R
move to that part of the story. Children have had finding and learning new ways to use technology
multiple opportunities to explore and play with the in the classroom for the benefit of all my young
Blue-Bots prior to this task. Previously they have learners.
used their Blue-Bots to answer literal and inferred
comprehension questions about fairy tales. For References
3
example, ‘Move your Blue-Bot to show where Jack ACARA Australian Curriculum, Assessment and
N U M B E R
to ensure they used all eight of their storyboard critically and creatively, to work collaboratively, and to extend
boxes. Children had the option to complete this task and record their hands-on learning.
independently or as a team during literacy stations Kelsie_brosnan@rok.catholic.edu.au
28