The Power of Infographics with PicCollage

In an age of Big Data and Information Overload, the ability to read and to create visual representations of complex sets of data are becoming increasingly important skills. Such visual representations are often called Infographics and learning how to interpret them is a mandatory element of the Australian Curriculum for senior primary students.

During the term in History, the Year 6 students have been investigating the wave of immigration to Australia over last century. One of their culminating tasks was to study census data from the Australian Bureau of Statistics, from 1910 (when information about immigrants' countries of origin was first collected), to the present. Each student was asked to select a country and represent immigration statistics in graphic format, to make the data more meaningful and easier to comprehend. They then had to write a paragraph interpreting the data and suggesting reasons for the wave of immigration.

Students could use any app they wished to create their Infographic. Some students discovered PicCollage which they put to use very effectively to make the task straightforward and fun.

PicCollage is available FREE in the App Store

Here you can see the Year 6 students hard at work on their Infographics in the library.

Below you will see some of the impressive infographics created by Year 6 students:

Infographics1 from Maria Mead

Infographics2 from Maria Mead

Expressionism in Year 6

In Art this term, Year 6 students have been looking at 'Expressionism' and how line and colour can invoke particular moods or ideas. They have created some impressive pastel drawings, inspired by a character in Aaron Blabey's book, The Brothers Quibble. 

Check out the 6 Blue artworks in the video slideshow below (created in the Mac Photos app):

New App for LOTE Lessons

Sensai has found a great new FREE app to help you learn Japanese. She would like all students to please install the app, called Kana Tutor, on their school iPads. It would be fantastic if you could all have this app ready to go for this week's Japanese lessons.

Kana Tutor by Twin Pines Software

Social Media Policy at St Catherine's

We have been seeing a few social media apps popping up on children's iPads at school. A reminder that as all children in our school are currently under 13 years of age, no current student should be using Social Media sites or apps such as Instagram, Facebook or Kik.

Our 1 to 1 Parent Handbook - Policy and Guidelines contains guidelines for Acceptable Use of ICT to which all parents and students have signed their consent. The Student Agreement for Acceptable Use of ICT Resources (page x. of the Parent Handbook) clearly states in Section 3, Point 4:

"I will not hold accounts or participate in any social media sites intended for people 13 years and older (such as Facebook and MySpace) without express written advice from my teachers to my parents/guardians that such an account is required for learning and teaching purposes."

We ask parents to ensure that social media apps are never installed on school iPads while your children attend St Catherine's. The actions of even a few students and families can affect many others in our community. We thank you for your prompt attendance to this matter.

[Image Source: "Social Media" by Yoel Ben-Avraham via Flickr CC BY-ND 2.0]

Holiday iPad Tasks: "Spring Cleaning"

Even though it's not Spring in our hemisphere, it is certainly time for a clean out of your school iPad. Many of our 1 to 1 students have been experiencing sluggish iPad performance and some of their apps are refusing to start up altogether. The most common reason for issues like this is that your iPad is crammed too full of "stuff".

Please take some time on the holidays to check your Usage. Delete photos and videos you no longer require and, definitely before you come back to school in term 2, uninstall the games and movies you've been using over the break.

Remember, the iPad is first and foremost a learning tool for school. You may enjoy using it for recreation on a rainy day, but games and movies should not be taking up valuable space and preventing optimal performance for your learning tasks.

How do I check out what's taking up most space on my iPad?

Go to Settings > General > Usage

Now tap "Manage Storage"

This screen will tell you how many Gigabytes of storage space is available on your iPad. Regardless of the total capacity of your iPad, you need AT LEAST 10% of free space for the device to run properly. When you use an app, it uses the available free memory to work.

Check out the list of apps you have installed. The apps taking up the most space will be at the top. Usually, Photos & Camera app is near the top of the list.

Go to the Photos app and delete any photos and videos you no longer need. You can connect your iPad to a computer and upload any photos and videos you wish to keep.

You can tap any app in the list to delete it from your iPad. Deleted apps will still be associated with your Apple ID. This means you can install them again without having to pay.

Last minute holiday tips...

Remember never to leave an iPad in the car if it's parked in the sun. Overheating can ruin your battery and shorten its lifespan. If you are going away and won't be using your iPad, leave it in a cool, safe place. Your iPad prefers to rest at half charge (50 - 80%). Turn it off completely so the battery won't run flat.

We look forward to seeing both you AND your cleaned out iPad back in Term 2, ready to learn and perform at optimum level!

A Window into Year 6

Time for a sneak peak at life in the Year 6 learning spaces...

Students may choose to read eBooks during silent reading time. eBooks have additional functions such as iBooks' built-in dictionary, highlighting tools and a Search function to look for words and terms in context.

Some eBooks also have multimodal features such as image manipulation and video features to assist with comprehension of meaning.

Kira has provided this retrieval chart. She has used one of the graphic organisers in the Tools4Students app to organise her ideas and information. These notes can now be used to structure a piece of writing or oral presentation, or to make a more informed judgement about an issue.

The SMARTboard allows teacher and students to access and annotate documents while the class views the processes being demonstrated.

Students can use the whiteboard to share their thought processes as well. Often students will capture a photograph of the whiteboard for later reference.

The SMART Notebook app allows students to view the teacher's lessons on their iPads as well. They can review the content as many times as they need to, away from the classroom and outside school hours.

New App Required for LOTE

Our lovely LOTE teacher, Mrs Amy Flynn, would like to use a free app called Kana Quiz in her Japanese lessons with years 4, 5 and 6. Would you please assist your children to install this app at your earliest convenience. Unfortunately the app called Fotopedia Japan (published on our free apps list last year) is now only available in the United States but Sensai will be able to keep her classes very busy and engaged with Kana Quiz.

Here's the icon and a link to the app on iTunes:

Kana Quiz (FREE)