Today’s blog post is by Juliet Revell, a second grade teacher in New Zealand. Juliet got in touch with us through Twitter in August, sharing the fantastic way she’s used our apps in the classroom, and has kindly written about the experience for us.
Learning to retell Fairytales gathered a new lustre last term with the addition of Nosy Crow Apps.
The pieces for this Literacy learning started coming together late in Term 2, when I visited Jo Makinson of Richmond School for some professional development in phonics and story writing. I was completely buzzing after this, and enthused about overhauling my Phonics programme and diving into some Fairytale retelling. I mused over the holidays about infusing some eLearning tools. Soon after that, I read a tweet that Allanah had written recommending Nosy Crow fairytales. Twitter serendipity strikes again! You can find the links to these apps on her initial iPad set up site.
One of Allanah’s prior recommendations had been The Fantastic Flying Books of Morris Lessmore, an all time favourite with my kids. Now, while I have guided the kids (with the assistance of @Rm13DreamTeam) to ensure our classroom mantra is Think before you click, it is not something that I have got entirely down pat. Click. Install. I knew I wouldn’t be disappointed.
Initially, I shared the Little Red Riding Hood app with the children as a whole class, using Apple TV (you could use AirServer or Reflector.) Wonderment and Awe abounded. You may be thinking that terms of the SAMR model that this is just an example of substitution, inserting an app to replace a picture book. Well, on the surface you would be right, but please take the time to think about the interaction involved in that shared reading. Children are able to be chosen to click on the blue dot to activate the character’s dialogue and even chose the path of the story.

“Shall I take the path to the flowers, or to the feathers?”
The children were motivated and inspired by the subtle changes in the retelling of the stories. They were particularly taken with the options of choosing a path, both literally and metaphorically. This produced some great results. The kids seemed to be aware that a story could take different roads to an end, and their imaginations dictated how that would be. During the term, I would often find them choosing to this app during Listen to Reading.
After the children had completed their retelling, they used Audio Boo to record them. To do this, they pair up, and one records while the other reads. They save the file and upload it. Then they are able to listen to it and self and peer assess how it sounds. They know that the reason for this recording is to assess their fluency, and they love the analogy that they need make their voice sound “like a roller coaster,“going up and down. They are still at the age where listening to their own voice is a source of great entertainment and interest.
Audio Boo has an added bonus. It produces QR Codes. My kids are mad about these.
The final stage (in this part of the journey) was to add some examples of the children’s writing/ recordings to our class blog to share with a Global Audience. It was amazing to receive feedback from the team at Nosy Crow Apps, who loved hearing about their apps’ use in the classroom.
Juliet_Revell</a> <a href="https://twitter.com/Allanahk">Allanahk How fantastic – thanks for sharing! Would you consider writing a blogpost for our website about using the app?— Nosy Crow Apps (@NosyCrowApps) August 29, 2013
A big shout out to Allanah King, who documented this example of iPad workflow for sharing on the Virtual Learning Network. Super “how to” stuff link there too. Thank you!
Thank you for sharing this, Juliet! You can find Little Red Riding Hood on the App Store here – and if you’d like to use it in the classroom and want to find out about the Volume Purchase Programme for Educational Institutions, get in touch at [email protected].
