The Learning Hub

Updated Sharing Options For Student Work

Along with author profiles and filtering options, the updated Write About This app version 3.0 offers improvements in sharing student work.  These improvements help students, teachers and parents review student work and offer flexibility for publishing and saving writing outside of the app.

Simplified Write Screen

The Write screen has been streamlined and simplified so that students can focus on their written responses.  An improved recording interface for audio is activated only when selected and all saving options are accessed in the new Share screen.

New Write Screen

Viewing and Playback is Now Self-Contained

With the new Share screen, you now have multiple options to review, playback audio, and export from within the app!  With finished Write Abouts being self-contained, it’s simple to select the media that you want to share! Send an image or video to the camera roll or share an image, video or PDF by email. This makes it even easier for students to produce and share multimedia products to the desired audience. Once Write Abouts are in the camera roll, it’s completely up to you where to put them! Upload the image or video to a blog, Twitter feed, Dropbox, or Google Drive (or anywhere you want!)

New Share View

Check out this 1 minute video tour of these updates in action!

How do you plan on using the latest updates in your classroom?  We’d love to hear!

Lani deGuia is a teacher, instructional technologist, and social media manager.  She has over 13 years of educational experience in traditional and online classroom settings for both K-12 and adult learners. She currently works in digital content and strategy for businesses and personally blogs at Rose Tinted Traveler.

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Five Ways to Encourage Inquiry in the Elementary Science Classroom with Write About This

The fusion of mobile-technology and instruction can have a powerful impact on the strides students make with their learning in the science classroom. We are constantly trying to find ways to encourage curiosity of the world around them and to develop questions to gain a better understanding. Children are always eager to explore, manipulate, and share their ideas when technology is involved. The Write About This app can help students practice, apply and reflect on basic science skills. Here are five ways you can help students apply inquiry in the classroom!

Generate questions: Have students take use the Write About This app to take pictures during a science demonstration or activity. Instruct them to select one picture and use the “Create Your Own” prompt feature to write a question prompt for the picture. Encourage them to explore the possibilities of What, How, and Why! Students can then trade iPads and answer each other’s prompts to further share with the class. This is a great way to gauge understanding and summarize an activity

Make observations: Have students find a picture from the Write About This app gallery (or they can take a picture on their own) that applies to what they are currently studying. This can be an object, animal, habitat, etc. Are you studying properties of matter? Physical traits of an animal? Instruct them to write their observations of the picture using key vocabulary terms.

Investigating prompt

Compare and Contrast: Display a picture of an object for the class to see (such as an animal, an insect, an element, a natural substance, etc). Have students find an additional picture in the Write About This app gallery of another object. Instruct them to write about how their object and your object is the same and how they are different. Then as a class or in collaborative groups, review student samples and work together to explain why they may be similar or different.

Explain Findings: Take students on a nature walk, a walk through the school, or on a field trip. Instruct them to take a picture of something they discover and write about how it can relate to their science studies.

Scientific Journal Reflection: After a science activity, have students reflect on what they just experienced with the Write About This app. What did they learn? Did they understand what happened? Do they still have questions? This is a great way to evaluate if more instruction is needed!

These are just a few ways to get students writing and exploring in the science inquiry-based elementary classroom. Students will enjoy having ownership and sharing their individual ideas and conclusions during science activities. How do you like to foster inquiry in the science classroom?

 

CCSS.ELA-Literacy.CCRA.W.2 Write informative/explanatory texts to examine and convey complex ideas and information clearly and accurately through the effective selection, organization, and analysis of content.
CCSS.ELA-Literacy.CCRA.W.6 Use technology, including the Internet, to produce and publish writing and to interact and collaborate with others
CCSS.ELA-Literacy.CCRA.W.10 Write routinely over extended time frames (time for research, reflection, and revision) and shorter time frames (a single sitting or a day or two) for a range of tasks, purposes, and audiences.

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New 3.0 Feature: Author Profiles

We are completely excited to roll out version 3.0 of the Write About This app!  Several of the changes and new features will enable teachers and students to have more customization.  The most drastic change to version 3.0 is the ability for users to create their own profiles.  This means that individual student work can now be organized by student name and profile image to allow for easier access to writing pieces and a more polished finished draft!

User Profiles

Unlimited Profiles

The Write About This app can store an unlimited amount of profiles.  This means that all of the students you teach and all of the students who use each iPad can house their work on the iPad under their author name.  This allows students to have ownership of their work through a writing portfolio within the app.

Custom Default Email 

Custom Email

 

Sharing student work with the adults in their lives just got even easier! Connect an Author Profile to a specific email address to allow for kid-friendly sending. As always, sharing by email can be enabled in the Setting and an overall default email for the class is still available and will apply to every profile.

 

 

 

New ‘Edit’ Button

Edit

 

 

Students or teachers can quickly view/play back an author’s completed Write Abouts or enter back into the editing screen for a work in progress.  Taking ownership is one of the key transformative elements of students becoming creative writers.

 

 

 

Easy Viewing with the Option to Filter by Author Profile

You can view all student work comprehensively or filter by a specific student author.  This helps students and teachers see collaborative and shared writing pieces as part of the learning community as well as provides the ability for teachers to see specific author writing portfolios. Teachers and students can easily toggle between viewing a specific author profile or all users on the iPad by using the filtering button in the bottom right hand corner of the app!

 Write Abouts

Tips for Utilizing the Author Profile Feature

Here are some suggestions for using the new author profile feature to support your classroom management and instruction:

  • Set clear expectations for students and their author profiles.  Profile names should be appropriate and utilized every time they create a new writing piece.
  • Instruct students to maintain the same profile name for all of his/her work
  • Set rules for students on restricted editing of work of other authors
  • Establish sharing by email guidelines…how often do you want students to send their work to you? To parents?
  • Remind students to use the same iPad every time they use the Write About This app
  • Emphasize to students that their author profile is a developing writing portfolio for them.

With individualized ownership of a collection of work housed on the iPad, students will feel a greater sense of accountability and responsibility for the work they produce for their author profile.   We hope this new feature will not only provide support for your instruction, but also facilitate an improved writing experience for student learning.

Check out this 60 second overview of the updated app in action!

Lani deGuia is a teacher, instructional technologist, and social media manager.  She has over 13 years of educational experience in traditional and online classroom settings for both K-12 and adult learners. She currently works in digital content and strategy for businesses and personally blogs at Rose Tinted Traveler.

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Wonder Wednesday: Why Do Flowers Bloom in the Spring?

Could there really be warm weather on the horizon?  At least the calendar says so!  One of the perks of the month of March is experiencing the first day of spring.  If you are lucky, greenery and flowers are starting to bloom.  So why is there a surge of color and lovely annual and perennial flowers in the spring?  Students can find out for today’s Wonder Wednesday!

Flowers

Students can find the above visual prompt in the Write About This gallery by searching the term “flowers” or under the Nature category. Have students select the picture and choose an appropriate Write About This prompt to start their planning.

1- What is your favorite season? Explain how that time of year makes you happy.

2- Write a poem or song about the springtime.

3-What are some things that have helped you “bloom” as a writer?

Have students share their responses and discuss any similarities and differences they hear from each other’s responses. Students can now work to generate their own investigative question for further research.  This can include the science of plants and flowers or even why flowers and spring blooming can cause allergies!  Wonderopolis has several great entries, including “Do All Plants Bloom?  Once students have decided on their investigative question, have them complete a KWL chart.  They can then generate their research questions/topics from the “What I Want To Know” column in an I-Chart.  This is a great way for students to organize the evidence they gather during their research! They can take notes in the Write About This app and add their own audio interpretations to their notes as well.

Finally, invite students to use the Write About This app and the iPads to go on a nature walk outside of the school.  They can take pictures of any available “blooms” as further evidence to write about or to add to their own Custom prompts!  They can review their original writing response from the Write About This and write a report on their chosen investigative question in the Write About This app.  They may want to build upon what they originally wrote and/or tie it in to the investigate response.

 

CCSS.ELA-Literacy.CCRA.W.1 Write arguments to support claims in an analysis of substantive topics or texts using valid reasoning and relevant and sufficient evidence.

CCSS.ELA-Literacy.CCRA.W.7 Conduct short as well as more sustained research projects based on focused questions, demonstrating understanding of the subject under investigation.

CCSS.ELA-Literacy.CCRA.W.8 Gather relevant information from multiple print and digital sources, assess the credibility and accuracy of each source, and integrate the information while avoiding plagiarism.

CCSS.ELA-Literacy.CCRA.W.9 Draw evidence from literary or informational texts to support analysis, reflection, and research.

Lani deGuia is a teacher, instructional technologist, and social media manager.  She has over 13 years of educational experience in traditional and online classroom settings for both K-12 and adult learners. She currently works in digital content and strategy for businesses and personally blogs at Rose Tinted Traveler.

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Wonder Wednesday: Why are Four-Leaf Clovers Considered Lucky?

With St. Patrick’s Day around the corner, students are probably all abuzz about wearing green, avoiding being pinched, and finding a lucky four-leaf clover! Shamrocks will adorn school classrooms, hallways, and clothing.  So why are these leafy finds so lucky?

Clovers

Students can find the above visual prompt in the Write About This gallery by searching the term clover. Have students select the picture and choose an appropriate  Write About This prompt to start their planning.

1- Where might you be if you were walking through this? What does it remind you of?

2- Deer and rabbits might like to munch on this.  Write a description of how it tastes to them and what they are thinking while they eat it.

3- Four-leaf clovers are supposed to be lucky.  If you had one, what luck would it bring to you?

Have students share their responses and discuss any similarities and differences they hear from each other’s responses. Students can now work to generate their own main investigative question for further research.  For example, students may want to compare and contrast different known lucky charms.  Wonderopolis has great supplementary resources.  This includes resources on lucky pennies and even the connection of shamrocks to St. Patrick. Once students have decided on their investigative question, have them complete a KWL chart.  They can then generate their research questions/topics from the “What I Want To Know” column in an I-Chart.  This is a great way for students to organize the evidence they gather during their research! They can take notes in the Write About This app and add their own audio interpretations to their notes as well.

Finally, have students review their original writing response from the Write About This prompt and write a report on their chosen investigative question in the Write About This app.  They may want to build upon what they originally wrote and/or tie it in to the investigate response.  Students can use their reports and research information (all in the Write About This app!) and participate in a class debate on “Are lucky charms real?”.  The debate can be in a Socratic Seminar style for older students or an open forum for younger students.

CCSS.ELA-Literacy.CCRA.W.1 Write arguments to support claims in an analysis of substantive topics or texts using valid reasoning and relevant and sufficient evidence.

CCSS.ELA-Literacy.CCRA.W.7 Conduct short as well as more sustained research projects based on focused questions, demonstrating understanding of the subject under investigation.

CCSS.ELA-Literacy.CCRA.W.8 Gather relevant information from multiple print and digital sources, assess the credibility and accuracy of each source, and integrate the information while avoiding plagiarism.

CCSS.ELA-Literacy.CCRA.W.9 Draw evidence from literary or informational texts to support analysis, reflection, and research.

Lani deGuia is a teacher, instructional technologist, and social media manager.  She has over 13 years of educational experience in traditional and online classroom settings for both K-12 and adult learners. She currently works in digital content and strategy for businesses and personally blogs at Rose Tinted Traveler.

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