This is another amazing guest post from Anthony Peters @apeters522, Anthony is a very innovative English High School teacher from Parklands College in CapeTown, who delights in using technology in his High School English classes very creatively. We are always very happy when Anthony submits a post to us. You can view his 14 previous posts on our blog via the ‘Anthony Peters’ label https://goo.gl/3We6is  under Quick links on the right side.

“E-days have always been something to look forward to, if not for the plethora of innovative tasks that the educators come up with, then for the opportunity to take one’s classes from the comfort of one’s sofa or bed! For Grade 7 last Friday, this was no different!

What is E-day?

An E-day consists of learners (usually grades 7 – 9) completing their academic day in the comfort of their own homes! The educators utilise the latest versatile technology in order to monitor and guide the learners through a series of subject-specific tasks. Such technology used for this latest Grade 7 E-Day included: the Google Suite, Quizizz, Explain Everything, YouTube and Pic Collage.

The focus – Advertising!

In preparation for their first formal English examinations this June, all seventy of the grade 7 learners have been participating in a variety of tasks to help them revise all the concepts covered so far. E-Day focused on advertising, the principles of AIDA and the subliminal rhetoric companies often employ in order to persuade one to reach for the wallet! All the instructions for E-Day were delivered to learners via Google Classroom and an integrated Google Doc. 

Task 1

The first task the learners had to complete was watching a short revision video on advertising. I made the video using Explain Everything and then posted it to YouTube and inserted the link into the Google Doc. The learners then had to complete a fast-paced Quizizz quiz based on the video’s content.

Quizizz is a fantastic free app that enables the educator to gamify learning to the extreme! Real-time rankings, fun educator-made memes for right and wrong answers, themed backgrounds and a funky sound track are just some examples of the exciting functionality. Even matric learners enjoy using it! Although I was at school and the learners were at home, I could monitor all their scores in real-time and award digital merits instantaneously to those who achieved 80% or more in their final results!

Task 2

As we all know, Fidget Spinners are the latest craze to descend upon schools worldwide. Therefore, the English Department embraced the philosophy, “If you can’t beat them, join them!” Therefore, the final English E-Day task required the learners to create their own Fidget Spinner advertisements using another free app called Pic Collage. The learners were suitably engaged and were required to demonstrate their understanding of the language area (advertising) in an innovative, constructivist, and crucially ‘persuasive’ way.

One particularly intuitive group even made a recorded advertisement on iMovie.

The learners will be showcasing their advertisements this week in order to meet the expectations of the curriculum and public speaking, as well as to encourage some budding advertisers realise their potential.

Reflecting on E-Day

E-Day demonstrated the limitless potential technology has on facilitating constructive learning even when the educator and learner are kilometers away from each other! I am a big fan of Google and Apple technology and I use it in every lesson but E-Day showed me that I was able to create and run everything from my iPad, arguably the greatest piece of technology I’ve ever come across!

Two forms of pedagogy this project utilised were ‘learner-centered understanding’ and ‘flipped-learning’ and again, this blended harmoniously with the aforementioned technology.”

-Anthony Peters