How to export a multiple page PDF as JPEGS with Automator!

Last week, I was wanting to save a multiple page PDF as a series of JPEG files. I initially tried to export the PDF as a JPEG, which would only export the first page. Next I Googled "How to save a multiple page PDF as JPEGs". My search took me to this blog by PremiumBeat where it was suggested to use an Automator workflow.

I had not yet stumbled across this amazing robot on my MacBook Air and what an honour it was to meet him/her! With a few quick steps (see the link by PremiumBeat) I built a workflow and had my PDF exported into a series of JPEG files.

I havn't yet had the time to explore more of what I can do with Automator, however I did find this link by Apple where there are suggestions for its use with mail, webpages and calendar!

Will let you know as I discover more and would love to hear any suggestions on what you have used it for!

Image attribution

Maths Professional Development with Jo Knox - Calendar Maths!

We have been very lucky at Pt England School to have Jo Knox working alongside us this year in maths. Last week we had team sessions with Jo and I left feeling extremely inspired by all her ideas!

The focus of our session was fractions (I will post about this soon), however she also touched on Calendar Maths and how it can be used in the classroom to reinforce various maths skills each day.
(I had seen a similar concept on a placement with 100 days of school, however had not yet seen the many creative ideas that Jo presented us with!)

Calendar Maths is set up as an interactive wall display which you complete with students for a few minutes each day. Some teachers also use it as part of their maths rotation which can be seen in the links below.

Visit these links to see what I am talking about!

Link 1
Link 2
Link 3 

What you decide to include on your Calendar Math is totally up to you and will depend on the age and needs of your students.

You may include:

A calendar!

With this you could talk about the date - what is the number before and after? What is 10 more? 10 less?
Bundle the number into groups of ones and 10s - students will get to see how when you get to the next ten you bundle the ones and they become one group of 10 and not individual ones.
Talk about the days of the week, months, year and seasons.


A clock!

Get a clock and talk about what time the clock is showing.


A hundreds board!

Start from day one and add a number each day. You could count forwards and back from the number of the day. This will help with students not always counting up from 1 which can cause difficulties when you want students to start from a different number!


Have a daily fraction!

Pop up a fraction and get students to read what it says and maybe even match a picture that represents that fraction.


A tooth tally chart!

Each time a tooth is lost in the class add it to a tooth tally chart to expose kids to how we tally and group in 5's.


A piggy bank!

Put some money in the piggy bank. How rich are we today?


Would love to hear any more ideas you may have about Calendar Maths and how it is used in your classroom!


Image attribution 

Inquiry - Basic Facts

Last term, a colleague of mine, Charlotte Gaston, created a Google Form on which the students completed a basic facts test online, on their iPads. She had set it up so that the students answers were then submitted to a Google Spreadsheet.

Seeing as I had begun my inquiry at the beginning of the year on how to improve students' basic facts knowledge, I was excited to give this a go. On the weekend I finally got around to setting this all up!

I created a Google Form with questions I had found from a resource (basic facts tests for different stages) on Hikutaia's School Website. One of the Google Form tests was based on the Stage 2-3 test and the second form was based on the Stage 4 test.

Each question was assigned a "short answer" answer option and 1 point (This way when it was self-marked through Google Sheets we could quickly see how many each student got correct).
The only question that was set as required was the "What is your name?" question - this was so students who did not complete the questions in the 5 minutes could still submit their test. The name question was required so that students had to write their name to submit.

Next, I assigned a Google Sheet to the form - I made sure that the Google Sheet was different for the Stage 2-3 test and Stage 4 test.

Above you can see Room 27's first attempt at the basic facts test. Overall the students really enjoyed the challenge and were quick to grasp onto what they had to do to answer the questions. I will make sure to continue scaffolding this over the week, so next week students will be able to jump straight on each day after morning tea for their daily basics fact quiz.

At the moment we have said that if students get 20/20 three times in a row they are able to move onto the next level. Will keep you updated on how this goes!

Coding - A very exciting find!

Over the weekend, as I journeyed through a path of links from twitter I ended up on a very exciting site called  j2code !

It was full of not only coding activities for older students, but from Year 1 up!

I immediately trialled the first activity - it involves you flying a rocket to each of the planets by directing it either left, right, forwards or backwards. As you click each command, it lists what you have requested the rocket to do in a box on the left hand side. You can then push play to see if you were able to reach each planet with your commands.

I am very excited to have a go using this site in class...it appears to be working on the iPads. I just am still trying to find a quick way to screen record students work on the iPads without having to connect their devices to the class iMacs or my MacBook. If you know of how to do this I would love to hear!

Happy Coding!

Term 2 Inquiry - How can we make a kite that will fly?

This term our team has been inquiring into "How can we make a kite that will fly?" At the start of the term I introduced the topic of Matariki and how the making of kites are an important part of this celebration (many believed that the kites were able to spiritually connect with the Gods and were a method of communication).
I then gave the students a kite template which we made and then flew one afternoon. Although we were struck with a windless day the students came up with many other creative ways to enjoy their kites as you can see in our PENN video below.


Although the children had a great amount of fun creating their kite from the template, I also wanted the students to use the design process of technology to build their own.

In the first lesson, I introduced the students to all the materials they were going to be able to access: material, paper, straws, popsicle sticks, string, crepe paper, pegs, sellotape, masking tape and cupcake liners. The class was then given an hour to design as many kites as they wanted and to choose and label the materials they were going to use.

Last Friday they were then given the entire day to finalise their design and use their imagination to create their kites. At first, many of the students were slightly surprised with the freedom asking, "Are you not going to help us?" I replied with a simple, "No this is your time to show me what you can create on your own!" and left it at that. (Although I must admit it was a lot harder to just step back and watch than I thought!)

Initially, I was tempted to jump in when I saw students cut A3 sized sheets of paper, which would have been a great size for a kite, down into teeny tiny diamonds, but I decided that I needed to let it go and I am very grateful that I did step back because...

The students learnt all on their own! Without me jumping in students were testing their kites coming back and realising that they were too small, had a string that was far too short or had piled so much on that even running at top speed the kite would not lift from the ground.

Looking back on this lesson I think I potentially learnt the biggest lesson of all... It is okay to sometimes just let go! I know from experience that I have learnt the most from some of my biggest mistakes I have made in my life and I now realise we must let our students do the same sometimes.

A few tips and Apple tricks!

At our staff meeting Dorothy Burt had asked some of the staff to share any Apple Tips and Tricks they knew, so that this knowledge could be brought to the rest of the school (teachers at our school all work on MacBooks and iMacs). I must say I am always up for learning a time-saving/life-changing hack, so was very excited to see what others had to share!

Here are some of the new ones I learnt to hopefully make your life on an Apple easier - enjoy!

This first one I found when Googling around for a new tip to share. It saved me a lot of time for report writing - I had the report writer in one screen and my class data in the other.

The following tricks are all from my lovely colleagues at Pt England School - thank you all!

Developing in Digital Worlds - Online PLG

This term I am taking part in an online professional learning group called Developing in Digital Worlds. The focus of this group is on "Argumentation" and the importance of developing ideas and skills around argumentation in the classroom. The sessions are lead by Naomi Rosedale, Stuart McNaughton and Cynthia Greenleaf. Sessions are going to be fortnightly and conducted through Google Hangouts.

The objectives of this group can be seen here:

The opportunity to take part in this professional learning group could not have come at a much better time. I have only recently reflected on how I often see students both in and out of the class have a very "my side" bias and how the conversation of "thinking about others feelings and how you would feel if you had been standing in their shoes" has reappeared quite regularly the last few weeks.

After the first session, I realised how I haven't been explicitly planning lessons to teach students this skill. I had placed the expectation to students that they would always be conscious of the ideas and feelings of others, however had never demonstrated what steps they had to take, vocabulary that could be used and what this would look like.

A few nights of ideas wizzing through my brain and I came up with the following idea. I would pose students with the scenario that we would be receiving a class pet. There would be three options: Tim the Tiger (who no longer fitted in his cage and needed a new home), Elijah the Elephant (he has been living in Africa but is now on his way in a ship and needs a new home) and Bella the Puppy (she has lost her mum and needs to be taken care of).

The lesson began with us talking about what a good listener is - does not talk over others, listens carefully by thinking about what the other person has said, may ask questions about what they have heard to find out more. We also discussed that in the activity everyone might have different ideas and we are allowed to change our minds as we hear what others think.

Next I told the class we were getting a pet!

As you could imagine with a class of 25 six and seven year olds, the excitement erupted (only one student did not seem convinced that this was really going to happen...I let the other students believe that this could be a very real scenario as I did not want to dampen the mood!)

After I flipped over the images of the three possible pets and what their story was I let the students bubble with excitement, sharing with their friends about the pet they wanted. I then asked the students to sit in a group by the pet they think the class should choose.

Next I posed the following questions to the students (questions and responses can be seen in the slides below), giving each group time to discuss and then also time to share their opinion with the class.




I was blown away by the thought that had been put into some of the responses (especially concerns over Elijah damaging the iPads with water!). The students had really thought hard about what each option would mean for the class. Some students had even started to realise that maybe their pet was not such a good option when other groups pointed out concerns such as tigers getting aggressive or elephants being huge!

I could definitely not fault students on engagement and participation (some of my quietest students spoke up for the first time with many great ideas!) I did notice that students were still very stuck on their own opinion and would fight to get their choice regardless of others suggestions. Some students were not very focused when others were speaking, more so waiting eagerly to share their own thoughts. This will be an area I will need to look into more for the next activity.

Would definitely recommend having a go at argumentation in your class, as I learnt so much about my own teaching and the students in the process. Let me know how the activity goes in your class or any other suggestions you may have!

Oh what a year it has been in 2016!

To each and everyone who has been a part of my 2016 in both the smallest and biggest ways - thank you! This year would not have been without many others and to those individuals I will be eternally grateful. It has definitely flown by and been a huge learning journey, however one I am glad I endeavoured on and am very proud of. Look forward to seeing you all in the new year!

Here is my end of year reflection for my first year in the MDTA.

Creating a CV page/site

Today we were given the day to work on creating a CV page/site. I decided to first of all explore the past MDTA's CV pages to get an idea for how I could lay mine out. I then selected the highlights of 2016 to display on my CV page - each year I can then add a new selection on the top with the viewer still being able to visit previous years by scrolling down. I wanted to ensure I placed enough content on the page to display what I have learnt and been involved in, but also limited amount of text so that it remained interactive for the viewer.

Click the image below to visit my CV page!

My first Manaiakalani Film Festival!

On Wednesday it was the Manaiakalani Film Festival (to find out more and to see all the movies follow this link). All the students at Point England School caught a bus to Hoyts movie theatre in Sylvia Park to see our movies screened. This was a great opportunity to share our learning with both our school and other clusters. Along with Michelle George and Room 19 we created our movie "Freedom". Our movie explores the freedom we have in New Zealand to go to school and learn and was inspired by the Pharrell William's music video. Enjoy!

Getting my PCT site up to scratch

Today we were fortunate enough to be given a day to work on our PCT site. It was a great opportunity to come together as a group and share ideas for the site and reflect on all the experiences and opportunities we have this year to include in the twelve criteria. As I reflected on the year and the development of my site, I created a list of top tips for those who are starting out:

1. Create a PCT folder where all documents are kept in your drive in one place - this folder can then be shared with those who you want to share your site documents with.

2. Either design your site late out early so you have the areas for which you must collect evidence or create docs with the headings on in a folder.

3. Give yourself 30 minutes each week to update your site.

4. Collaborate with others - often we do not realise how so much we do each day can be evidence for our PCT site.

Here is a screenshot of my work in progress site:

My first Google Class Onair episode is complete!

I have finally managed to complete and edit my video and site page for my first Google Class Onair episode. This lesson works not only as maths lesson on basic directions but also as an opportunity to get newer students use to the basic functions of the iPad. Two of the students in the group had recently joined our class and are now beginning to grasp the basics of Explain Everything. I was amazed at how much I learnt from my teaching by revisiting the footage and I definitely will keep doing this in the future! Enjoy!


Click the image to link to the page below:

Google Class OnAir!

Today we had Matt Goodwin come in to talk to us about his Google Class OnAir experience so far. Manaiakalani Google Class OnAir is a site which follows a group of teachers and learners on their collaborative learning journey throughout the year. It is a rich online resource on which others can access the shared learning, what has been created and the resources required to complete the lessons in another learning environment. Matt provided us with a great insight and tips on how to create the videos that accompanies the planning on the Google Class OnAir Sites. We were then challenged to create our own version of a Google Class OnAir site to gain an authentic understanding of the process. I have decided that my lesson will be with a reading group and on how they engage on their iPads to support the learning. Although I have yet to finalise the planning of the lesson, I have used the HTML off one of Matt's sites to create my own Google Class OnAir page. Below you can see a sneak peek of what it looks like so far. Once I have completed the recorded lesson and edited the video to accompany my page I will post the link for you all to see!

Digital Immersion - Term 4

Today at the Manaiakalani Digital Immersion day we got to connect with other teachers in the Manaiakalani learning community. It was great to have the chance to share and learn about what other teachers have been learning, creating and sharing in their classrooms. A major focus of the day was multi modal learning and how we can create a variety of opportunities to meet the variety of learning needs of our students. I decided to create my mini-inquiry around Popcorn as this is an up and coming lesson for science in the next few weeks. Below you can see a screenshot of the almost finished slide I have created for our lesson (with some great help from Juanita) . I have included two texts (a PM reader at green level and an orange level Ready to Read book) which will link to a soundbite of the teacher reading the story so that students at a lower level can read by following along. I also found a video which shows that popcorn comes from the vegetable corn. The two EE activities are still yet to be created however one will include a poem with a series of related literacy activities and the other looks at students describing the popcorn by exploring the five senses. Below you can see a screenshot of how it currently looks!

Keep posted to find out how it goes!

Hour of Code - Flappy Santa

Today, I created my first online game using Hour of Code. Hour of code scaffolds you through the basics of block coding in a series of puzzles/lessons and then at the end gives you the opportunity to create your own game. You create your game by assigning a command to an event e.g. When Santa hits a chimney he falls to the ground or loses a certain amount of points. As you build your game you are given the opportunity to test the game along the way - this was extremely valuable as you notice changes that you need to make which you didn't initially think of e.g. how does the level of gravity you have associated affect how possible it is to flap through the width of the gap you have associated to the chimney spaces Santa flies through. When you are satisfied with the game you simply click Finish to get a shareable link. Hour of code is extremely interactive and I could just imagine how much fun students would have creating the games and sharing these with their friends!

Here is a screenshot of the coding for the game I created and a screen recording of the game being played:

To play Flappy Santa click the following link - Play here!

After I had finished Hour of Code I then also had a look at Scratch and Gamefruit. Osmo is another great piece of technology which includes activities on the basics of how to code for younger students.

Ignite Talks!

Today we were given the opportunity to experience what it is like to both create and present an ignite talk. I had first seen these style of presentation at the Manaiakalani Hui and it seemed like both an exciting but daunting way to present. You are given 5 minutes with 20 slides, each which must be 15 seconds long. The presentation automatically runs through the slides, so ensuring you have enough to say but also not too much is crucial.

We each selected a topic out of hat - I was given the topic Chrome Experiments with the link to this article. My topic fascinated me so much that I was drawn into a trail of exploring a new world of both random and exciting resources, forgetting that our time for creating both the slides and speech was limited. By presentation time I had only 12 slides and a speech which did not exceed my first two slides. I took on advice to create some simple filler "one-word" slides and the "wing it" approach to presenting. If I were to present again I would hopefully have much more time and would definitely take the time to write and rehearse a speech. This was both a very fun and exciting experience and I hope to be able to present another ignite talk in the future!

Exploring the endless possibilities in Keynote!

Today we had the opportunity to explore Keynote and I was surprised to find out how much you can do in Keynote (I had always thought it was a simple Mac version of Powerpoint). Not only can you create slideshows and animations, Keynote works as an amazing editing tool for photos, creating labels, logos and much more. To explore the various features I decided to create an animation on how to make a healthy sandwich. Last week in class we had made healthy sandwiches as part of inquiry and the students had come up with various words groups to explain the ingredients. The following steps explain how I built my animation:

1. I chose a blank white template - starting with a blank template when creating from scratch means you do not end up having to change the preset settings of a template.

2. I selected a background - I found an image and inserted this in the background by using the control "Back" (this sent the image to the back of other images). I then wanted to reduce the opacity of the image so selected Format on the top right of the screen and then the button on the right of Enhance (here you can change the opacity, brightness, saturation etc of the image).






















3. Next I wanted to create a title - I selected the control "Text" and then once again went to Format to select the font, border and colour etc.

4. Once I had the titles and background I went selecting my images - many of these had backgrounds so I used the "Instant Alpha" and "Edit Mask" controls to select the parts of the image I wanted and remove any unwanted sections. I also used the "Edit Mask" control to make the effect of eating the bread. To do this I first of all had to draw the desired section to be masked out by using the "Insert - Line - Draw with Pen" function. I then had to mask that section out by selecting both the image and section I had cut out and the clicking "Edit Mask".

5. Once I had created the slides I then selected "Play - Record Slideshow" - here you can record audio or simply record how you would like the slides to transition. After recording I was then able to export the recorded version into QuickTime Player and then put it into iMovie. In iMovie I was then able to add in audio and sound effects.

Here is my completed animation:

For more top tips click on the following links:

Top 10 tips 1

Top 10 tips 2

Ubiquitous learning and film editing!

As part our our "Connecting with Manaiakalani" session this morning we discussed ubiquitous learning - this is creating learning that extends beyond the 9am - 3pm boundaries. After all if we can encourage students to learn anywhere, anytime and at any pace, then we are creating greater opportunities for learning to occur. It also encourages students to see learning as a life-long process and not something that only happens within the walls of the classroom. In our Year 1 class we encourage learning at home by sending home junior readers and also getting students to take home examples of what they have learnt to discuss at home. The discussion this morning definitely made me realise the need to think more deeply about how I could encourage ubiquitous learning with my young learners.

The rest of our day was allocated to editing our movies for Manaikalani Film Festival - one extremely handy tip I learnt in iMovie was HOW TO CREATE A FREEZE FRAME FROM A VIDEO - simply right click on the video footage in iMovie and select Add Freeze Frame. Watch this space over the next few months to see the release of our class movie!

A few firsts - Toolkits and Manaiakalani Film Festival

This week I presented my very first Toolkit on Screencasting. Danni and I created a presentation to give some ideas on what screencasting could be used for and then planned for the rest of the session to be hands on "give it a go" time. Unfortunately Danni was unable to make it on the afternoon, however I was very lucky to have a small group of very supportive teachers from Glenbrae school attend. After going through the presentation we began screencasting (most of the teachers had a go at creating a screencast for parents or staff on how to access something on their blog or site). Not only was it great to support the staff and guide them through how to screencast, I also learnt equally as much along the way. By the end of the session we had created some great screencasts and I also worked with a teacher to edit his screencast in iMovie. I thoroughly enjoyed the session and look forward to hosting another toolkit in the future!

Here is the presentation created by Danni and I:

Here is a link to step by step instructions on how to screencast on a Mac using Quicktime Player.

Instructions on Screencasting - Mac


On Friday Michelle and I also began filming our class for our 2016 Manaiakalani Film Festival movie. The children were all very excited to be involved and luckily for us the weather held. Over the next week we will begin editing our footage and complete the final parts of filming. Watch this space!

@stephteachnz - I am now a tweeter!

This morning I was lucky enough to join a Google Hangout with James Hopkins and was inspired to join the tweeting world of Twitter (Twitter is an online social networking service where those who join can share messages or "tweets" of up to 140 characters). James discussed the benefits of Twitter as a professional learning network where you can share ideas, resources and be exposed to the latest news in the education sector. By others questioning our ideas and by questioning others we endeavour on an ongoing reflective learning journey. James explained what hashtags are used for - if you add a hashtag e.g. #school, it will enter a thread of all other tweets with the same hashtag. The use of a unique hashtag can be a great way to start a Twitter chat. Those involved in the chat all add the same hashtag onto their tweet and it creates a bank of tweets under the chosen hashtag. If you choose to do this make sure to Google the hashtag first to see if it is already being used, as if it is it will join onto the posts others have made with that particular hashtag.

Here is a screenshot of our #MDTAchat this morning so you can see how it comes up:

Follow @stephteachnz to join me on my Twitter journey!