All about me in the classroom.

A blog by @mircwalsh

All about me in the classroom.

A few weeks back Apple launched the All About Me templates on the Apple Teacher Platform. The templates ask students to use the new shapes in Keynote to captures their favorite pastimes. These came at a perfect time just as my classes were starting but having students who were newbies to Keynote I waited a couple of weeks before using them. While this might have seemed a little silly especially when you would think all students would know each other by then they actually ended up being great ice-breakers. As a teacher, you might often presume that all students know each other after the first couple of weeks but this is not always the case. The All About Me templates really helped with this.

Students were able to find common interests. For example, two students were interested in astronomy. Without this exercise, I don’t know if they would have ever discovered they had this in common. The templates also allowed them to express their creativity. One particular student is the only male student in a class of females. Instead of filling in the silhouette of himself with icons he decided to leave this blank and fill in the area around it. When asked why he did this he said he wanted to show he was different and that he doesn’t always follow the rules.

The All About Me templates can be downloaded from The Apple Teacher Learning Centre.