Digital Resource Book Creator

This digital teaching resource aims to engage a Year 2 Class learning

about healthy food choices. I have attempted to redesign a task that
the teacher had set for a substitute where they were to write an
expository essay titled, should the canteen sell healthy food? My
aim was to create a resource that was more positive, engaging and
creative than filling out a worksheet.
Within the Health and Physical Education component of the
Australian Curriculum, students in Year 2 are expected to explore
actions that help make the classroom a healthy, safe and active
place (ACPPS022). In Health and Physical Education the curriculum
aims to take a strengthbased to learning which aims to identify,
complement and support students existing capabilities and
highlight their strengths rather than focusing on a problem.
My digital resource asks students to use the iPad application Book
Creator, and create their own book about a healthy lunchbox with a
peer. This resource would be used after reading a discussing the
book The Magic Lunchbox written by Angela Barrett. This book is a
captivating and fun story about packing a healthy lunchbox for
school. After students have brainstormed positive and healthy
lunchbox choices, students would work in pairs to create their own
Magic Lunchbox story in order to persuade others to eat a healthy
lunch. Furthermore, within the Australian Curriculum for English at
Year 2, students are expected to, create short informative and
persuasive texts using growing knowledge of text structures and
language features for familiar and some less familiar audiences,
selecting print and multimodal elements appropriate to
the audience and purpose (ACELY1671). This lesson achieves this
content descriptor and related with the classroom teachers lesson.
I believe this task has reached the modification level of he SAMR
model. Students are reaching their teachers requirement of writing
an expository piece of work, however, students are engaging with
ICT in a meaningful way that asks them to engage in their lives or
recognizing food in their own lunchboxes. This task will encourage
students to think critically about the choices they make and be able
to justify the items they put in their book. Ultimately, students are
extending but simplify the original task.
Furthermore, Laal and Ghodsi (2011) and Janassen et al. (2008)
have found that collaborative learning often leads to higher
achievement and greater productivity, greater social competence
and self-esteem. Through working in pairs, students will work
collaboratively and share ideas in order to reach that higher order of
learning.

In the past, students have had limited use of ICT in the classroom
and as such, I chose an application that I believe is not only
engaging, but simple to use. Jonasson et al. (2008) believes that
meaningful ICT learning can only take place when knowledge is
constructed, not reproduced, when students converse with learning,
when it has a collaborative element and allows students to reflect
on their learning. I do believe I achieved these aspects with my
lessons.
This application can easily be shared with parents and members of
the wider school community. Students will save their Book onto
iBooks and thus, be able to privately share their book with any other
Apple device. Furthermore, this application is also safe and ethical
for students to use. Pictures for students to use in their book will be
preloaded and Internet will be disabled to prevent students
searching images or finding images online which is inappropriate.
Through using photos I have pre-loaded onto the iPads, students will
easily be able to add and position images from on each page of their
book. The classroom teacher has been reluctant to lose control of
her classroom through the use of ICT. However, with pre-loaded
images she will find that she still has the same amount of control as
normal as children will not using various websites to gather their
own. Furthermore, adding text is easy and engaging as students are
able to change the font and colour to suit their book. I am expecting
students will find the application more exciting to use than the
original essay and be excited to use a tool that they can interact
with. This application will provide students with an activity that has
an authentic purpose and something they can have ownership of
through sharing their book with other students and their parents.
If you were in this classroom, how would you use an application
such as Book Creator knowing that the classroom teacher has a
controlling manner?
Is there another way you would teach students about persuasive
language and healthy choices using ICT?

References:
Australian Curriculum Assessment and Reporting Authority (2015).
English, Year 2, Literacy. Retrieved from
http://www.australiancurriculum.edu.au/english/curriculum/f-10?
layout=1#cdcode=ACELY1671&level=2

Australian Curriculum Assessment and Reporting Authority (2015),

Health and Physical Education, Years 1 and 2, retrieved from
http://www.australiancurriculum.edu.au/health-and-physicaleducation/curriculum/f-10?layout=1#level1-2
Barrett, A (2012), The Magic Lunchbox, Central Coast, QLD, Central
Coast Local Health District
Jonassen, D., Howland, J., Marra, R. M. & Crismond, D. (2008)
Meaingful Learning with Technology (3rd Ed), Upper Saddle River:
Pearson Chapter 1
Laal M and Ghodsi S (2011), Benefits of collaborative learning,
Precedia Social and Behavioural Sciences, Volume 31, Pages 486490