On Friday 4 August, 25 participants attended this tech session dedicated to the 'how to' of online learning apps and websites. Over the course of the day, teachers used their new skills to create an Answer Garden, a Mentimeter (how to create surveys, ranking questions, and provide pictures as prompts for medium length writing tasks).

Jaclyn Curnow also introduced Baamboozle and demonstrated how to set up this easy-to-use game as a partner or group work activity. In the most engaging session of the day, led by Alex Yep, participants played against each other in Fishtopia (a Gimkit game), using strategies to earn the most money by ‘catching’ (answering questions) and selling fish. In fact, it was so much fun, there were many groans of dismay when we had to stop to learn how to set it up!  Alex also shared with us his Le Défi du Singe game, which was also a great hit.  Both of these games would have a great appeal to all year levels, from prep to year 12.

Kim Mullins demonstrated the many uses of Flippity – focusing on the Randomizer and Manipulative Words and how she uses them to generate sentences.  She showed us videos of her students playing these ‘games’ and the scope for multiple uses across many year levels. Kim also explained how to make better use of wordwall – over the course of a unit and utilising this app for more than just mere memorisation.

Feedback was very positive at the end; many participants stating that they were pleased with their new cache of apps to use. In fact, about half of the group stayed behind to keep working or simply chat and meet new colleagues! 

Such a friendly vibe.