Thanks to Susie Vesper for this presentation. I think it’s something that all teachers should watch, especially those who have not yet made the connection with the power of Web 2.0 to enhance and enliven their teaching and learning programme!
I have spent the last few days putting together this presentation on ICT in education. Basically there are around 60 slides with two examples of ICT use linked to from each slide so that’s a lot of content! Let me know what you think.
From Chrissy at Teaching Sagittarian comes this:
The video itself is by Bill Farren. He’s an educator in the Dominican Republic blogging at Education for Well-being. His message is quite simple:
The purpose of education should be to create well-being.
- We should educate in way that places personal well-being at the center of all educational decision-making.
- We cannot achieve personal well-being without also simultaneously promoting economic well-being, social well-being, and
environmental well-being.- We must strive to understand the relationships between personal, economic, social and environmental well-being.
PicArtia lets you upload an image (jpeg only) from your hard drive or web and
quickly convert it to an attractive photo mosaic. Ready photo mosaic
can be then downloaded to your computer and/or shared with friends. The
way it works, go to PicArtia and upload the image you want to create
mosaic for and then select the Flickr gallery that should be used for
creating mosaic.
Next customize the output resolution and single cell size. Finally
click “Create Mosaic” and wait for an email with a download code.
Optionally if you are interested in getting high quality photo mosaics
in print you can order them as well.
Watch this video, 3 Steps for 21st Century Learning
What do you think? Useful? Inspirational?
If you want to keep up with the music tastes of your students, check this out from Journeys in Literacy
Magazine – idiomag | your music magazine
In my effort to stay relevant with my students (urban middle schoolers) I stumbled across idiomag. It pulls articles as well as videos and songs from the artists you choose to follow, from many music news and magazine sources. So when you hear your students mention Lil’Wayne, TI, Tupac, Carrie Underwood, and Milli Vinilli, you can add them to your magazine and enter into the discussion with your students. Try randomly inserting lyrics into your interactions with your students, you’ll get some pretty fun reactions. Any ways, check it out.
As I don’t know the names of any modern ‘musos’ I couldn’t check it out myself but the ounger among you may find it useful.
Susie Vesper mentioned this site, Bricabox, in a recent post. While I’m on holiday I had some time to investigate it further.
Basically, it allows you create your very own YouTube or other resource site by helping you to build a similar interface and then start populating it with content (there are six ready made templates such as video sites or map sites) or you can completely design your own using their building blocks. I thought it could be handy to have my very own collection of videos that I think are good for education. At the moment, I have been embedding these into a wiki page but I think the interface much better when I create a brickabox to store them in. I signed up for a Brickabox account and then selected the option to make a ‘Video Collection Site’ which I then called http://edvid.bricabox.com (Susie’s videos)
From there I just used the ‘Add Video’ button to start putting in the content. I simply needed to give the video a name and then use the embed code from the site it was stored in to add it to my own site. I have only put in two so far but can say that the process couldn’t be simpler. There is also an Admin area (like the back end of a blog) where you can change the theme of the template (I chose the blue colour) as well as other aspects of the site. I REALLY like this tool and think it would be great in a school where you could bank great resources without anyone having to go to the sites where they were originally hosted.
I have registered and created my own collection of videos gathered from my other online subscriptions. It’s easy to create your account and then add videos. Take at look at the beginnings of my collection here.
Just read about a similar site, Start Your Tube (create your own video sharing site in 2 minutes for free!), which could also be useful. If anyone has used this you might like to leave me a comment.
These look to be useful sites for creating language games to use in the classroom.
Modern Language Teachers, Victoria, Australia has several game makers
Languages Online Game Makers are downloadable step-by-step ‘templates’ that allow students and teachers to create interactive language tasks and games using their own text, pictures or voice recordings. Game Makers are easy to use and are suitable for all skill levels. Games can be created in ANY LANGUAGE that your computer supports.
When complete, games can be saved as either a webpage or as a program file. They can be copied to a disc, memory stick or onto another computer or network to share with others.Benefits
When your students make their own multimedia language games, they are practising important skills:
- they can revise a wide variety of linguistic and cultural concepts
- they are actively using the languages in a fun way
- thinking about the purpose and audience of their game, and making decisions about the content
- ICT skills: file management and creation, making voice recordings, sourcing and saving images, understanding different file types
Game Maker Features
- A built in sound recorder makes voice recording easy
- Mistakes in a finished game can be corrected
- Games can be easily translated into another language
- Games can be copied to any computer or memory stick
- Easy to follow ‘help’ page for each steps
- Games can be included on a website or digital port folio
Supporting resources
- Examples of games
- Printable ‘planning’ sheets for students
- Clip art provided OR use your own pictures
- Assessment rubric
- Links to the Victorian Essential Learning Standards
- Information on installation in schools
- Email ‘helpline’
From there I followed a link to Languages Online which is another Australian site. This site also has
Free downloadable templates to create you own multimedia language games and activities. Use your own text, pictures or voice recordings. Suitable for all languages! .
plus
Over 220 engaging interactive tasks and games and 190 printable worksheets that introduce, reinforce and recycle vocabulary. They are self-paced and self-correcting and can be repeated as desired. Activities are presented in 35 topic-based sections, and include recordings by native speakers.
To see the list of topics, select a language. (French, German, Indonesian and Italian)
Thanks to Educational Technology and Life I found this link to Larry Ferlazzo’s blog where I found a wealth of lists detailing Larry’s best websites. He has several of these lists covering a range of topics. Below is a small selection from his Websites of the Year post, and these are not the latest! You can also access some of these lists at his website, Larry Ferlazzo, Teacher. These sites are definitely worth a visit.
The Best Web 2.0 Applications For Education — 2007
The Best Web 2.0 Applications for ESL/EFL Learners — 2007
The Best Online Learning Games — 2007
The Best Internet Sites For English Language Learners — 2007
The Best Social Studies Websites — 2007
The Best Search Engines For ESL/EFL Learners — 2007
The Best Science Websites For Students & Teachers — 2007
The Best Math Websites For English Language Learners — 2007
The Best Blogs For Sharing Resources/Links — 2007
The Best News/Current Events Websites For English Language Learners — 2007
Before I start to tell you about this great online site for literacy I have to say that if you aren’t subscribed to Kevin Jarrett’s blog, you should be! He delivers links to some amazing sites. Thank you Kevin.
Here is his latest find
StorylineOnline.net is a production of the Screen Actor’s Guild Foundation and features book readings by many popular, current actors and actresses that today’s kids will recognize. The stories are presented in well-produced videos in full stereo with great visual effects. The few I listened to were terrific, even suitable to be consumed as audio only. Each one also features a list of “related activities” and a downloadable, colorful “Activity Guide” with probing questions, discussion starters, story prompts, information about the story, the celebrity reader, and more.
I first saw this new search engine mentioned on Derek Wenmoth’s blog but seemed to have some difficulty accessing it. Since then Miguel Guhlin has mentioned it on his blog. This looks to be worthy of teachers attention. I will certainly be investigating further as part of my teaching search skill to my students and to fellow teachers during Term 2.
Thought this new search engine–Boolify–for kids pretty nifty. I like the way you build your search as puzzle pieces….
and this from Jane Hart’s blog
Dave Crusoe wrote to tell me about this new search tool that he and his team have been developing to teach children effective research. He writes:
“One of the challenges of web searching is that while it’s important for kids to know how to conduct good searches, e.g., for research, the common textual tools do a poor job of modeling, for kids, the impact that their boolean has on results. As you can guess, good results inform good research.
“So, we’ve worked with a team of librarians and others to develop something called Boolify, a graphical search tool meant for K12 use. It pulls results from Google’s SafeSearch (Strict), so it’s reasonably classroom-safe, and we get the best of both worlds: a great way to understand and build searches, as well as great results provided by Google.”
This video explains boolean searching (Thanks to Derek).
Download Video: Posted by cutemiffy at TeacherTube.com.
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Another useful link from Kevin Jarrett
Numbernut.com is a GIGANTIC collection of Flash applets devoted to math concepts that is ideal for fact review or class presentation via an interactive whiteboard:
The site is totally free, of course. Here’s what you get! Basic math activities including Shapes & Colors, Numbers & Counting, Addition, Subtraction, Multiplication, and Division; advanced math activities on Fractions, Decimals, Percentages, Estimation & Rounding, Ratios, and Money.
But wait, there’s more … check out these other great free sites also published by Rader:
Looks to be great free resources, especially for those who are lucky enough to have interactive whiteboards in their class!
Are you the first born in your family like me? This article (Why First Born Children Have Higher IQs) from The Times UK makes interesting reading. There are always exceptions to this and I know that Roger Moltzen (NZ Gifted Ed Educator) has done some extensive research on place in the family and intelligence / attributes etc.
Does your older brother think he’s cleverer than you? Well, he’s probably right. According to new research due to be published this week in the journal Intelligence, the oldest children in families are likely to have the highest IQs, and the youngest the lowest.
First-borns are . . .achievers, who are dominant, religious, conscientious and neurotic. They earn more, are more responsible, anxious and organised, and they stick to the rules.
Middle-borns are . . .rebellious, less religious, impulsive and open to new experiences. They perform worse at school and often procrastinate but act as peacemakers.
Last-borns are . . .agreeable, warm, sociable, extrovert and creative. They are the most favoured child, often a joker and questioning of authority.
As the first born in my family and looking at my first born child ( a male) I would have to say that yes, the article could be right but, after many years of teaching an accelerate class of 11 to 13 year olds with many students from the same family I could also say it’s ‘ all a load of bollocks!’
What do you think?
