Guest Blog Post - Using Maps and Vidra To Learn About Contrasting Localities in Geography by Bryn Goodman

The new Computing Curriculum for KS2 talks about ‘selecting and combining a variety of software (including internet services) to design and create a range of content’. I decided to combine the Maps app with a presentation app called Vidra. A mini-project I completed with Year 6 helped to cover this.

Our school has many international links with partner schools all over the world. One of those links is with a school in Australia. This led to our Year 6 staff deciding to plan work in Geography using Australia as a contrasting locality.

As part of this work, I decided to use a feature of the Maps app that comes with every iPad (not to be confused with Google Maps which has lots of other great uses).  Many of the major cities of the world have flyover tours built into the Maps app. Wherever there is a 3D symbol next to a city, you are able to take a flyover tour of that city.


The tour shows you all the major landmarks in that city in a way that makes you feel like you are flying over the city. While this is happening you can take screenshots.

I asked our Year 6 children to go to the flyover tour of Sydney and take screenshots of the major landmarks.


These could then be cropped to get rid of the borders around them. Next the children opened the Vidra app and started a new ‘story’. Vidra enables the children to add text, images, voice recording, icons, slide transitions, background music. All of which creates a very professional-looking presentation in a relatively short period of time. The free version has enough features for use in the classroom.

The Year 6 children created a slide for each landmark. They imported their cropped screenshots. When this was completed, they researched information about each of the landmarks and added this to the presentation. Finally, they added effect like background music, transitions etc

Here is a link to one example of the finished products -




If you would like to follow me on Twitter, my handle is @bryngoodman and my blog is www.computingintheclassroom.wordpress.com


- Thank you so much Bryn for sharing this fantastic idea! This was one of many ideas shared at a brilliant TeachMeet in Astley last week. The Teachmeet, organised by @Mediashaw, had an iPad theme where REAL teachers shared real, successful IDEAS. These included Bryn's lesson above and also @MissKingsley85's amazing Goldielocks topic. Other ideas included -  @TypingAdvice sharing how to use an iPad to encourage speaking and listening in SEN settings, @NathanAshman demonstrating how to flip the classroom with an iPad and the successful use of Aurasma demonstrated by some other teachers (I apologise as I don't have your twitter handles) to evidence the fantastic work children were producing on their school iPads. Overall, it was a great opportunity for teachers to see how others are using mobile technology successfully in the classroom and I'm sure most were overawed with inspiration!


Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

A Lovely Poem for Your Leavers Assembly

Image
I am always asked to put a little video together for our Year 6 show and end of year assembly. Each year, I always include a special poem that I finish the end of year video with. It is called Leaving School by Jade Hughes and it is beautiful: We've now left school, It's how the story ends, Tears of happiness is what we recommend,   It's what we say, But there's always a little pain, Because once you've left, It's not the same,   You could walk through school and you would see, Your friends who have grown up incredibly, But now you've gone, It's not the same, As you may never see them again,   Your friends who have grown up right beside you, Who have helped you through your daily strife, Will go ahead and leave behind them, You who wants the same old life,   But you can not live your life in the past, Hoping that the same memories will last, You have to move on and just be glad, That leaving has made you so sad, As this just shows that
Keep reading

Using Disney Films for Geography!

Image
Last week I came across a tweet sharing this picture: I thought it would be a brilliant way for children to learn about the location of different countries around the world.  Before we looked at the map, I asked the class to list as many animated Disney films (excluding Pixar) as they could think of. We shared some of our ideas and discussed the origins of some of these stories. Some were books, others fairy tales, legends or folk tales.  This gave us a link with Literacy to discuss different types of stories, how most films are derived from written texts and also looking at some famous authors. We also talked about whether they could remember where in the world the film was set.  I then shared the map with the children and gave them time to look and see whether they knew any of the countries themselves. They had to make estimated guesses as to where they thought each film was set. After they had had a go at trying the name all the countries, they then were able
Keep reading

Teaching Direct Speech Punctuation using the iPhone text messaging!

Image
Teaching direct speech is always a tricky aspect, there is so much to remember and very few useful visual pictures that clearly help children know what and how to use speech punctuation properly. Lets look at some of the tips to remember: The words that are spoken have to go within the speech marks. Any punctuation needs to also go inside the speech marks. A reporting clause, who and how they said it can go before, middle or end. A comma follows the reporting clause at the beginning. You need to start a new line when a new character speaks.  I think that is most of them?? I have heard of endless different ways to try and get children to remember these tips - keeping the sheeps in the pen  or speech mark sandwich  which are a couple of examples however they do not have any visual help for tips such as starting on a new line, which is something some of my children find hardest to remember.  I decided to use a different approach, to help cover the aspects of correct
Keep reading