Heather Latter
Science, Technology, Engineering and Math (STEM) co-ordinators Brad Gushulak and Shane Beckett have been introducing new apps and technology in classrooms throughout the Rainy River District School Board for learning and communication purposes.
“They really have an impact on the students,” Gushulak told trustees at the board’s regular meeting here last Tuesday night.
The pair have been supporting students using assistive technology in the classrooms (i.e., iPads, laptops, and Chromebooks), as well as assisting teachers in modifying lesson content to suit the needs of students.
The technology also promotes an increase in electronic communication with parents by helping teachers in the development of classroom blogs, Google Classroom accounts, and other online communication tools.
Gushulak demonstrated several of the newest apps for trustees.
“Pic Collage is a versatile app that we’ve been using mainly in the primary classes,” he explained, noting they can have students go around and take pictures of something curriculum related.
For instance, a Grade 1 class recently was taking pictures of shapes.
“Rather than just talking about what a triangle is, what a square is, they went and actually investigated the school, found different areas they were located in the school, came back and made a pic collage,” Gushulak noted.
“The students are engaged, it’s real-life applications, it’s engagement where they are collaborating with each other, getting up and walking around the school, and they are really enjoying themselves,” he added.
Gushulak said the app also can be used in science and language.
An app being used for communication is called “Seesaw.”
“Once you’ve done a pic collage or whatever you’ve done, any document, you can upload it to the class ‘Seesaw,’ which you can show to classmates,” Gushulak explained.
“Or if the teacher has e-mail addresses from the parents, as soon as it’s approved by the teacher, the parent gets an e-mail with the work that the child has done.
“So at the end of the day, you have that communication between home and school,” Gushulak noted.
“You can have conversation at dinner time about what did happen rather then just saying I don’t know what happened today.
“You can actually see the work,” he stressed, adding even grandparents can receive e-mails about work their grandchildren are doing.
“Once it’s sent to the parent, they can comment on the thread, as well,” indicated Kelly Forbes, principal of School Support Services.
“So they can comment back to the child or teacher about how proud they are or how much progress they are seeing.”
And Gushulak added there is an accountability piece.
“When students know it’s going to be shared with home or with their classmates, they are going to do a better job on it,” he reasoned.
Gushulak also highlighted an application called “Goformative.”
“It’s a web-based program where students can log on to their Chromebook or iPad or own personal device,” he explained.
“The teacher can put questions on there and they all have an interactive white board that they are working on at the same time.”
He noted the teacher can see all students working at the same time.
“If they see a couple students stuck on the same spot, or maybe they see a student who is doing a really great job, they can pull up one student’s work here and have them all look at that strategy,” he suggested.
As well, Gushulak said teachers can use a product called Google forms to administer quizzes electronically.
“When they’ve submitted the quiz, it goes into a spreadsheet,” he noted.
“If it’s multiple choice, the teacher can use an add-on called ‘Flubaroo’ and it will mark the quiz for the teacher, which then instantly sends an e-mail back to the student with their grades.”
Gushulak indicated there is a colour-coded feature that shows the percentage of students that got each question correct.
“So teachers know what they need to focus on,” he remarked.
“And by doing the marking for the teacher, it frees them up to be able to conference with the students more.”
Finally, Gushulak demonstrated “Read & Write”—an app purchased for all students in the board.
“It’s accessible anywhere in the world, as long as signed in to Google Chrome,” Gushulak said, noting one of the key features is the speech to text option, which allows a voice to be recorded and put into text.
“Of all of the exceptionalities we have throughout the board, those with learning disabilities make up the largest amount,” Forbes noted.
“So it’s really important that we do have software that is accessible, and that is something they can be using to help gain access to the curriculum like any other child would,” she stressed.
Gushulak noted “Read & Write” also can read back to the students and provide definitions of words with the click of a button.
He added there are some excellence reach tools associated with the product, as well.
“We’ve had other technology that did similar things but there is nothing as integrated as this,” echoed Forbes.
“I can tell you from the classrooms I’ve been in, and the seeing students using the program, it has really opened the door for a number of our children,” she added.
“And it’s available to everybody,” Gushulak said. “It just opens up opportunities for students.”
Going forward, Gushulak said he and Beckett are going to be using “Spheros,” little robots that are controlled with the iPad, and starting work on coding.
Also at last Tuesday night’s meeting, trustees:
•presented the monthly “Recognition of Excellence” to Robert Moore School’s Gay-Straight Alliance (GSA) club;
•approved the following policies—4.60 (First Nation, Métis, and Inuit Student Voluntary Self-Identification) and 7.22 (emergency response);
•approved the following policy for stakeholder consultation—1.10 (board goals and commitments);
•approved the 2015-16 Revised Estimates for $50,619,319, pending ministry approval;
•committed $112,000 to the Multi-Use/Tennis Courts project contingent upon the satisfactory revision of the Joint Use Agreement, with written assurance from the Town of Fort Frances in terms of the $112,000 capital commitment and maintenance of the multi-use/tennis courts; and
•approved an adjusted budget for the Donald Young School renovation project and re-tendered it this month, pending Ministry of Education approval.
