Journeys in Education
Ramblings on ICT, Education, Web 2.0, Christianity and Staff PD
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We have recently purchased 6 Flip Ultras for use in the college. The website for finding out more info is here. They are very easy to use simple video cameras that can enhance learning in your classroom in a myriad of ways.
How to use:
Here is a link to the one page user guide that you can download and keep
1. Turn the power on by sliding the switch on the side of the camera
2. To Record press the red button once and start filming. To stop filming press the red button once.
To View
The videos on the Flips can be viewed on the Flip itself (although the screen is way to same for showing a whole class) on a television (by using the supplied cables) ans by downloading the videos from the Flip to your computer (this is done through the ‘flip out’ USB connection on the camera)
To view on the computer just insert the USB connection on the camera into a USB port on your computer. The software should load automatically and you should then easily be able to transfer the videos accross. Once they are on your computer you can do all manner of things with them!
Teaching ideas….
So what can you do with one or more of these in your classroom? Here are some ideas
- Film any debates or plays so students can see themselves and give a critique for improvement
- Film students having a conversation to help improve their speaking and listening
- Film any exciting activities in your classroom E.g. Miss Mac filmed her Grade 1’s finding insects they were then able to watch as a class and gain even more insight into the insects in the school grounds other than what they found individually
- Film a science experiment then student can rewatch it to gain further insight into what is happening
- Students can make their own movies, commercials, speeches, presentations
- Interview students (could be good for goal setting?)
- Make a video to send to another school
I have included a link to a great slideshow by Tom Barrett which gives 35 great ideas for using the Flips for students and for staff learning.
If you have any other ideas please leave a comment on my blog so we can all share!
Blogging is a wonderful way to engage students in class, to help develop writing skills and to connect with other students from around the world. What makes blogging different to using a word processor is the ability to comment on each other’s posts. This gives students an authentic audience and creates engagement in the classroom. A blog would be a great way for students to reflect upon their Personal Learning Goals and to allow you and their parents to encourage them on their progress.
There are lots of different ways you can blog in and out of the classroom:
- 1 blog for the whole class, teacher does the blog posts students can read it and comment on it:
- 1 class blog teacher and students share the blog posting responsibility
- Each student has their own blog
- The teacher has their own blog to reflect on their personal learning journey in an area of interest (highly recommended and an excellent way to learn about blogging and to model this to your students)
Where do you get a blog??
There are several different websites where you can sign up for a blog each have their own advantages and disadvantages. All of them are free but some do have an option to get more space and turn off advertising for a small fee.
This blog is an edublogs blog. Set up sepecifically for teachers and schools. It is fully featured and easy to use. There are two options a basic servioce which is free and aedublogs supporter option which costs $40US a year which gives you all the bells and whistles.
Designed for schools. It is an easy to set up otion for blogging. Not as many bells and whistles available but the nice thing is that you don’t need student emaila ccounts to set it up. You can also kepp the blogs private until you are ready to unleash them on the web!
Out LMS has a blogging function you can put pictures and videos into the posts but you can’t change the look. This is great as you don’t have to do anything to dset it up. If you are not planning to use the blog for connecting ewithoutside classes this is a great option.
A website set up by edublogs for victorian teachers. Thos is another really good option if you want bells and whisltes with out cost. It is run by the Victorian Government
This is the student version of the above blog site and where you would set up a class blog.
This is Google’s version of a blog provider and offers a good free service. Not
specifically design ed for educatinala purposes but easy to use and lots of teachers use it none the less
Some blogging terminology and goodies
Post: An entry into a blog. It can contain text, photos, sound or videos. They appear on the blog with the most recent entry on the top
Page: A blog has a main page but can also have other pages where you can add additional information. For example I have an About Me page on my blog.
Comments: These are added to blog posts and pages by other people you can then reply to the comment on the blog and start a conversation. It is a really good thing to comment on someones blog!
Tags: A list of topics that your post or page is about. Kind of like cataloging a book in a library. E.g. the Tags for this post are: blogs, blogging, edublogs, eduKate, Global Student, Global Teacher, etc
Widgets: These are tool and gadget you can have on the side of you blog to make it more useful/entertaining. Such as a voki, map, calendar, favorite links
Clustr Maps: This is a little map that shows you which countries people have come from who have viewed your blog. Click here to go to Clustr maps website and sign up for one. The kids love them….even the big kids!
Blog Roll: A list of blogs that you read or that have useful information on them.
Tag Cloud: A visual representation of the Tags on your blog posts. A very quick way to see what your blog is about
Categories: A good way of separating blog posts by giving them a category. If you click on Wild Wednesday Workshops in my categories section you will see all the posts relating to that topic on my blog.
Very useful blogging info
The Edublogger Fabulous blog with HEAPS of hint and tips on how to blog with your students. I read this all the time!!
Blogging Challenge i If you have had a class blog or understand th fundamentals but would like to take it a bit further this year I would STRONGLY ENCOURAGE you to give this a go. It looks like great fun and a great way to connect with other classes!
Connecting with other classes Here is another blog post that has some great ideas on how to connect with other classes when doing your blogs.
I would encourage you to have a go at blogging either personally or with your class. It is great fun!
This week’s workshop is on Interactive Whiteboards. Commonly known as IWB’s. The type we have at out school are Team Boards.
These are soft touch boards that can be operated by your hand or a pointer. To be able to use the boards with you laptop you first need to install a driver. They can be downloaded from this site or alternatively you can use the CD. A driver is a piece of software that allows the IWB to talk to the computer. The software that comes with the Team Board is called easiteach.
This suite of CD’s can be installed on your laptop and it allows you to create lots of different activities to complete with your class.
You can also use the myriad of websites that have been developed for IWB use!
Some resources…..
This will link you to some great videos that will show you how to use and give some ideas for IWB’s
This is a great UK blog that is FULL of resources for the IWB
Great online spelling site!
250 Games that the kids absolutely love with lots of educational application great for the whiteboard! Tried and tested by last year’s grade one’s!
The website for the software that comes with Team Board. Lots of goodies to download!
Loads of online interactive activities in all subject areas
A link to an Australian developed IWB challenge to help you learn to use the IWB better. It is definitely worth a look. A good way to improve your IWB skils for your Performance Appraisal
A very challenging Middle Eastern Map. Great as a class challenge!!
Cool geometry site. Excellent for hands on learners!
168 Interactive resources for primary students
Wonderful Music site developed by the San Francisco Symphony. I had fun playing with this one!
Excellent literacy website based on the samish principals to THRASS. Matthew tested this one and loved it!
Lots of great web tools which can be used by primary and secondary students. Many of which can involve the IWB.
If you are over making PowerPoints and want a presentation with a little more pizazz try Prezi. Lots of application for the IWB and makes presentations soooo much more interesting than the linear PowerPoint model.
Remember if you don’t have an IWB in your classroom most of these activities can also be used on a PC!
I had a very interesting time at a staff meeting on Thursday afternoon. To set the scene…… we have purchased a you-beaut, whiz-bang Learning Management System this year and we were having our first all in staff training session. We had all the teaching staff in a computer lab, a Go-to-Meeting set up with eduKate up in Qld and the lovely Kate from eduKate on the phone for the voice component. The session went for half an hour and to me it seemed fairly simple. But at the end of the meeting there was a few enthusiastic looking staff members and the rest (about 95%) looking at me absolutely shell shocked! At first I wondered why? To me it was nothing new I have been looking at learning management systems for the last year anda half, there has been lots of talk in our local area as well as in our school system about schools getting LMS’s set up and what they were doing with them. The staff had all gone through basic ICT training the precious year, and I had been talking to them about eduKate for the last 4-5 months! I assumed everyone would have a basic understanding of what a LMS is and have the basic ICT confidence to be able to make a start on using it. Hmm I was very wrong as the silence of my staff was overwhelming! But then my lovely Principal jumped up and gave a fantastically reassuring talk to the staff that it was OK to be totally overwhelmed with this and that we have a year to learn how to use it. Immediately the mood changed in the room.
Some things I realised…..only 1 or 2 of the staff (other than the small group of teachers that have commenced expert training) members had actually seen a Learning Management System before and knew what one was! I had assumed (incorrectly) that because staff had completed the ICDL last year that they now had the skills to explore all web 2.0 and ed tech has to offer by themselves. But obviously they don’t! So what to do?? How do I inspire, encourage engage this group of adults to embrace ICT and want to integrate it into their curriculum, to encourage collaboration and to look at Project Based Learning? Without needing constant hand holding?
My current strategy up to now has been to showcase a little bit of everything to the staff and hope that they will pick and use some of it. Whilst this has worked for some people; the people who have a natural tendency and a confidence with technology and aren’t afraid to try new things, it hasn’t worked with many of the staff who have found all sorts of excuses not to use technology in their classroom. I don’t think it has been a deliberate attempt to thwart my efforts but it is borne out of a genuine fear of the failure and a fear of the unknown. Our culture demands that we have the right answers all the time and that we don’t make any mistakes so experimenting with something as ‘risky’ as technology (so much can go wrong) is going to be a major issue for some staff.
So I am changing my strategy some what. I am still going to showcase lots of different web2.0 tech for those staff that are willing to embrace it. But for the staff that are struggling with the leap I am going to encourage them to pick one tool and gain mastery of it. E.g. master the Interactive whiteboard or a class blog or wiki. A tool that is foundational that will lead to the use of other tools. For example if they are using a blog well and then want to pop up some video footage of what they have been doing in class then that will enable them to explore the Flip and You Tube etc, etc. I am also going to resource as much material as I can from educators who are not tech gurus who can inspire my staff that all you have to do is take the first step. Sometimes having someone who they see as an IT geek talking to them all the time does not help as it produces the “well that’s OK for you, you’re good at IT!” response.
I have realised the importance of baby steps and keeping thing simple, and trying a strategy that build confidence and not fear or resentment.
This post has been written on Ideas for getting educators involved with using web technology as part of The Edubloggers birthday celebration competition.
Delicious is a Social Bookmarking website. What does this mean? It allows you to organise all your favourite websites online so they can be accessed from any computer that is connected to the Internet. It also means that others can see your links and you can see theirs which makes it a very powerful tool for finding great resources. You can create a network of people who can all share their links together.
It has plenty of application for education from a new way to research an assignments to sharing resources among staff and with parents.
It all works around a concept called Tags. This is where you add categories to a website not unlike what you would do to a book in a library catalogue. For example if I was going to add The Age website I might tag it newspaper currentaffairs Australian broadsheet
The delicious website is www.delicious.com
Delicious provides two buttons for your browser that make saving a website to delicious easy. At school we have the delicious buttons already installed on the network. At home or on your laptop you will need to download and install them. It is a very easy process!
Activity One
- Go to the delicious website and sign up for a delicious account!
Activity Two
- Find a website that reflects who you are
- Bookmark it in delicious
- Write something about yourself in the notes section that you don’t mind being public
- Tag it with BCCWWW01
We will then be able to see everyone’s websites when we look for that Tag!
Activity Three
- Save away!!
Tip: If you highlight some text on the website you want to bookmark it automatically appears in the notes section. Cool!!
