Friday 29 March 2013
Tuesday 19 March 2013
Slide shark
I have been trying out a new app today. Since getting the iPad I have been grappling with the concept of whether I can use it as a sole teaching tool - reason mostly being I walk to work and my school laptop is really heavy and chunky and gives me backache!
My two issues are SIMS, which I have no idea how to solve, and, I suppose workflow is the word. Most of my lessons to date have been planned using PowerPoint and although I am getting pretty good at importing to Prezi now, there isn't always time, and there are some times when the animations on ppt are really useful, eg highlighting verb endings, word order etc. which when you use it direct from dropbox, you can't see.
So after a google search I came across Slide Shark. You can import ppts from email or Dropbox etc, and then download them to your device to present offline. There is 100 mb of storage but you can earn or buy more. However if you were storing stuff elsewhere, you could just download the day's lessons and then delete afterwards, which is what I plan to do if I end up liking it as much as I think I will...
Good things about slide shark so far:
1) it's free!
2) it's very easy!
3) it keeps the animations and web links/hyperlinks from ppts
4) you can also download the app onto your iPhone, link it to your iPad via a PIN number, and use it as a remote. So for those of us who can't present wirelessly at school, it means you can have the iPad plugged into the projector at the front, and roam about the room while presenting. Whoopeeeeee! I cannot express how exciting and liberating this prospect is. I will be able to stand next to my more, ahem, challenging little darlings and still present.
I tried it out tonight at my adult ed class, and it worked brilliantly. So tomorrow will be the real test at school. I will report back!
My two issues are SIMS, which I have no idea how to solve, and, I suppose workflow is the word. Most of my lessons to date have been planned using PowerPoint and although I am getting pretty good at importing to Prezi now, there isn't always time, and there are some times when the animations on ppt are really useful, eg highlighting verb endings, word order etc. which when you use it direct from dropbox, you can't see.
So after a google search I came across Slide Shark. You can import ppts from email or Dropbox etc, and then download them to your device to present offline. There is 100 mb of storage but you can earn or buy more. However if you were storing stuff elsewhere, you could just download the day's lessons and then delete afterwards, which is what I plan to do if I end up liking it as much as I think I will...
Good things about slide shark so far:
1) it's free!
2) it's very easy!
3) it keeps the animations and web links/hyperlinks from ppts
4) you can also download the app onto your iPhone, link it to your iPad via a PIN number, and use it as a remote. So for those of us who can't present wirelessly at school, it means you can have the iPad plugged into the projector at the front, and roam about the room while presenting. Whoopeeeeee! I cannot express how exciting and liberating this prospect is. I will be able to stand next to my more, ahem, challenging little darlings and still present.
I tried it out tonight at my adult ed class, and it worked brilliantly. So tomorrow will be the real test at school. I will report back!
Friday 8 March 2013
The iPad has arrived!!!!
Oh my goodness how giddy am I?! I have finally got my hands in my lovely shiny new toy, and it is sooooo much fun (apologies now for the inevitable overuse of exclamation marks etc in this post).
I have had a lovely evening/morning playing with apps, and for now, I am just going to share a couple of successes/frustrations...
I have just made my first ever screencast... I proudly present today's 'mini grammar point of the day' (my AS class have one at the start of each lesson) THIS: http://www.educreations.com/lesson/view/how-to-say-this-in-french/5710937/?s=tQdtOm&ref=app
Just a little bit proud of myself ;)
It was super easy to do... I have always wanted to be able to do these but it seemed such a complicated process on a PC. I used Educreations mainly because it's free, I thought I'd give it a go before getting Explain Everything which I have seen lots of people recommend. I thought it was very straightforward for a newbie, just what I wanted, so will keep exploring that until I find things I cannot do with it. I am a bit averse to actually spending money on apps!
I've also downloaded Evernote on recommendation, but not really sure what I'm meant to do with it yet... Need time to play with that one I think.
Also thus far I haven't been able to fully use my school VLE... I can open some bits but not access resources. It may just be that I can't on iPad but I won't give up yet!!!
So much fun to be had... Now just need my cable to arrive so I can link this baby to my projector!
I have had a lovely evening/morning playing with apps, and for now, I am just going to share a couple of successes/frustrations...
I have just made my first ever screencast... I proudly present today's 'mini grammar point of the day' (my AS class have one at the start of each lesson) THIS: http://www.educreations.com/lesson/view/how-to-say-this-in-french/5710937/?s=tQdtOm&ref=app
Just a little bit proud of myself ;)
It was super easy to do... I have always wanted to be able to do these but it seemed such a complicated process on a PC. I used Educreations mainly because it's free, I thought I'd give it a go before getting Explain Everything which I have seen lots of people recommend. I thought it was very straightforward for a newbie, just what I wanted, so will keep exploring that until I find things I cannot do with it. I am a bit averse to actually spending money on apps!
I've also downloaded Evernote on recommendation, but not really sure what I'm meant to do with it yet... Need time to play with that one I think.
Also thus far I haven't been able to fully use my school VLE... I can open some bits but not access resources. It may just be that I can't on iPad but I won't give up yet!!!
So much fun to be had... Now just need my cable to arrive so I can link this baby to my projector!
Wednesday 6 March 2013
Triptico scorers... Manna from heaven for the mathematically challenged!
Ok, so as my students will readily attest, I am no mathematician! And yet I love playing team games in the classroom. And much as I try to protest, when I inevitably mess up the scoring, that it's 'only a game' or 'one mark doesn't make that much difference', to year 8, of course it does! And actually, competitive soul that I am, I would care too!
So you will imagine the peace that reigned today when Triptico was brought in to solve the problem. 45 mins of a fab little game involving 6 teams and a mini-whiteboard each, and not a complaint to be heard about my maths! Hooray!!!
So you will imagine the peace that reigned today when Triptico was brought in to solve the problem. 45 mins of a fab little game involving 6 teams and a mini-whiteboard each, and not a complaint to be heard about my maths! Hooray!!!
Friday 1 March 2013
checkthis.com for setting homework
I thought of another use for checkthis.com today on the spur of the moment. I get so frustrated with kids writing 'do sheet' or 'learn words' etc. in their planners despite what I ask them to put, and then having no idea what their homework is when they get home!
So my new idea is for them to write the weblink down to a checkthis.com poster, which has all the instructions and support on it. Obviously there are issues of accessibility but this particular class have 2 weeks until their next lesson (silly timetable!) so they have plenty of time to use school PCs at lunch etc.
It didn't take any longer to create the poster than it would have taken to write on the board, and I know that they will all know what to do!
A note on checkthis - I don't sign in when creating posters for kids as it if you do, it connects to your FB/Twitter and I obviously don't want them seeing that. You could I imagine create a twitter/FB profile specifically for this purpose. You can create without logging in, as a 'guest', but then you can't save/edit later. Swings and roundabouts I guess!
http://checkthis.com/hlks
So my new idea is for them to write the weblink down to a checkthis.com poster, which has all the instructions and support on it. Obviously there are issues of accessibility but this particular class have 2 weeks until their next lesson (silly timetable!) so they have plenty of time to use school PCs at lunch etc.
It didn't take any longer to create the poster than it would have taken to write on the board, and I know that they will all know what to do!
A note on checkthis - I don't sign in when creating posters for kids as it if you do, it connects to your FB/Twitter and I obviously don't want them seeing that. You could I imagine create a twitter/FB profile specifically for this purpose. You can create without logging in, as a 'guest', but then you can't save/edit later. Swings and roundabouts I guess!
http://checkthis.com/hlks
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