Tracking student grades to give fast feedback using Evernote

I have started to put together tracking sheets and feedback sheets on Evernote in order for student progress to easily be tracked and shared. The problem that we faced was getting students to know what they have achieved as soon as their work is marked instead of having to wait for their next lesson.

We aim to get students to use their own time in order to supplement their learning time in school but for this to happen they need to have all the information required to use that time.

Creating notebooks for each student with a feedback sheet and criteria tracking means that students have live updates on their work that they can act upon straight away. It is also in a place where students can share what they have done with their parents.

Blogging in BTEC sport

Started writing a new task today for my BTEC group. Going to get them to use a blog in order to track their progress in the module. As we are looking at fitness testing it would be useful for them to keep a diary of their daily activity and progress. Hopefully filling in the blog will be easier for them to manage (and less chance of losing) than a book.

Simple system to get them signed up to blogger. Generate a google account and then share their blog address with me. Once they start posting they are creating evidence and I can simply give fast feedback on their blog directly.

The real Beaty of this is that they can post their blogs from anywhere so hopefully they will get completed on a daily basis.

BTEC centre risk assessment feedback

Got our report back today about the CRA for the BTEC course, overall a great report but special mention for the iPad use and how it has transformed the teaching and learning practice in the sports department. Massive success and nice to have it recognised by someone outside the department. Really simple stuff but really transforming delivery, assessment and feedback processes to get the best results for students

Updates

Over the last few days I have been exploring various tools to aid teaching. Info graphics are a fantastic tool to get students looking at relevant data and getting them to discuss what the main findings are. Been looking at visual.ly for loads of different searchable infographics from nutrition to hooliganism.

Evernote and Explain Everything, flipped learning tools

Started to look at getting the students to have more time in school exploring issues and get away from the traditional role of me supplying all the information.I started by creating a resource library on Evernote, simply by mailing useful web pages etc to a shared notebook that the students can view.

I then set a homework to do the reading, to research the library of resources and make notes on some of the key points.(we are currently looking at current issues in sport so plenty of information)The following lesson we then engage in picking apart the information and making sense of it, higher thinking skills required than me just explaining the issue and asking questions.

I use explain everything to then record all of the discussion and write down support notes as students bring up issues.This then keeps a record of their discussion that can be turned into a movie and uploaded to Evernote for the students to review.

Had 3 sessions in this style so far and the student engagement has been outstanding, their desire to engage us greater as they have had time to explore the issues and generate opinions in advance and do not feel as though they are being put on the spot.

Staff training

Spent Monday doing a training session on using iPads in schools. Was quite nervous about what reaction I might face, you never know if the thing you believe in is going to be accepted by others.The result however was a really engaging session looking at the possibilities the device gave us as teachers. We reviewed several apps but the apps that really stood out to most were Explain Everything and Creative Book Builder.These two apps allow you to create products that leave a legacy. Students create the content that can then be used by students in the lower years.Evernote was a big success too, lots of interest in how we use it in PE and how other subjects could use it for various things.Looks like it was a success, guess time will tell

Spent last Wednesday at the learning without frontiers conference at London Olympia. What a great day, learnt so much more about the potential for iPads and iPods in and out of the classroom. I also met some really interesting people with first hand knowledge of implementation and the success of using these devices. Full of confidence now to take this further and really push for it at school as the potential for improving students is massive. Thanks to ESSA Academy, Kevin Chung and James Dyson and all the people from Toucan