Snapshots of Learning

Towards the end of last term, I began dabbling with my class and making use of the Show Me app on my I-Pad. This was all part of a personal inquiry investigating the use of I Pads and how they might support learning at our school.

Nick created an Show Me presentation to share a maths strategy. I asked him to do this as a means to evaluate the potential use of this app. He did a great job right there on the spot.... but...

This explanation was made at the end of a few weeks when Nick and I had been working on Tidy Numbers. He is definitely at Strategy Stage 7 and has been working on Number Knowledge re tenths and hundredths for a term. Having said all this, he has still reverted to his safest strategy (place value/partitioning) when put on the spot.

How do you develop children's ability to select the best strategy? Lastly, with the increasing use of apps and mobile technology, talk of OTJs and evidence appears to be manageable and not an added extra given the ease and use of technology. Show Me seems to be one of these tools - quick, easy to use, a relevant sample for portfolios and evidence as opposed to a display tool... Do we really want to display children's thinking and strategy stage on our blogs? Is our class blog a space to share this or are we beginning to develop portfolios for our OTJs?