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
Wednesday, 27 February 2013
Observations
Like most teachers I would imagine, I get in a real flap when I know I'm being observed. I think it is because so much is riding on such a small part of your practice. Anyone can have an off lesson as we all know, even the best of teachers, plus there are bits of lessons that just have to happen sometimes, that can't be made 'whizzy', that don't demonstrate 'rapid and sustained progress', that are teacher dominated etc. I am not saying that this is ok all the time, but we can all think of examples! I was having an interesting chat with a colleague today and we decided that in some ways it would be better to be observed all the time, like you are as an NQT, as at least then the overall picture would be properly reflective. Rest assured I won't be suggesting that to SLT however!
This week at work is the MFL departmental review, where SLT drop in on and observe 2 lessons over the week per teacher, and also look at books/marking/assessment, progress trends, SoW etc. All a bit stressful! I was really chuffed today as my AS lesson was given an outstanding grade, in no small part thanks to all the ideas I have picked up from twitter / people's blogs / ililc3 over the last few months.
The Prezi for the lesson is here, and I will upload it and the other texts used to the MFL twitterati dropbox asap. Things that went down really well with the people observing were the focus on skills rather than content (in this case independent listening skills, as introduced by Isabelle Jones' fab 'escalator failure' clip, the links between the tasks (sounds focus in starter leading to listening gap fill etc), differentiation afforded by the Tarsia puzzle among other things, the group work 'donut task' for the reading on bacs and the students' reflection on the strategies used in an attempt to bring a bit of metacognition into the equation! They also liked the plenary puzzle for which I used Triptico flip selector to present a random series of questions checking their understanding of the content of the lesson, and the activity reflecting on progress towards objectives. Finally the feedback forms I have designed for essays and speaking cards were highlighted, I will add these to the dropbox too in case anyone is interested. They are WJEC specific but could be very easily adapted.
THANK YOU to everyone on twitter who shares things... I am feeling really inspired about work at the moment, and although this week (and half term) have been completely manic and exhausting, it is always a good feeling when your hard work pays off! Now roll on Friday and LARGE glass of wine!!!!
This week at work is the MFL departmental review, where SLT drop in on and observe 2 lessons over the week per teacher, and also look at books/marking/assessment, progress trends, SoW etc. All a bit stressful! I was really chuffed today as my AS lesson was given an outstanding grade, in no small part thanks to all the ideas I have picked up from twitter / people's blogs / ililc3 over the last few months.
The Prezi for the lesson is here, and I will upload it and the other texts used to the MFL twitterati dropbox asap. Things that went down really well with the people observing were the focus on skills rather than content (in this case independent listening skills, as introduced by Isabelle Jones' fab 'escalator failure' clip, the links between the tasks (sounds focus in starter leading to listening gap fill etc), differentiation afforded by the Tarsia puzzle among other things, the group work 'donut task' for the reading on bacs and the students' reflection on the strategies used in an attempt to bring a bit of metacognition into the equation! They also liked the plenary puzzle for which I used Triptico flip selector to present a random series of questions checking their understanding of the content of the lesson, and the activity reflecting on progress towards objectives. Finally the feedback forms I have designed for essays and speaking cards were highlighted, I will add these to the dropbox too in case anyone is interested. They are WJEC specific but could be very easily adapted.
THANK YOU to everyone on twitter who shares things... I am feeling really inspired about work at the moment, and although this week (and half term) have been completely manic and exhausting, it is always a good feeling when your hard work pays off! Now roll on Friday and LARGE glass of wine!!!!
Tuesday, 19 February 2013
First steps with QR codes and Prezi
So, it is finally half term, and that means I
a) have some time to process the wonder that was ililc, and
b) start putting some of the ideas into practice
Prezi v PowerPoint
Yesterday I made my first Prezi, based on the French school system for y12. It took me the whole morning but there was a fair bit of faffing about on Google looking for resources to include as well. Prezi was more straightforward than I though it would be. I managed to insert my original ppt presentation fairly painlessly, although I couldn't get it to occupy the frames in the template. I suspect there is a way, I just haven't found it yet!
Inserting a sound file was a bit of an issue at first as you can't embed MP3 files, but after converting it to MP4 it was ok, and I like the fact that I can play the sound file and have the questions displayed at the same time easily. After lots of googling for FAQs, I managed to do pretty much everything I wanted to and was quite chuffed with the end result: http://bit.lyYtms1T
Now, the question is, will I continue to use Prezi as my main tool for creating slide shows? Probably not in the short term as I think I need to keep practising and get a bit more fluent. It's not realistic to spend that much time preparing every lesson. I will keep going though on the days where I have less prep. Also, it won't be as easy to share with my lovely dept as I am not sure how readily they would all take to Prezi. However, I do think it looks really cool and will impress the kids, but I am always a little wary of the 'show' overtaking the 'content' of the lesson... sometimes it would be easier just to scribble it on the board - the end result in terms of learning would be the same. Also, I know myself, give me a tool like this and I will spend HOURS making it into a thing of beauty, aligning everything straight, designing colour schemes etc etc... I am bad enough on PowerPoint! Watch this space.
QR codes
My second achievement of halt term so far was to put some QR codes into action. Baby steps and all that! So, I have revamped by 'whizzy word wall' - my all time face classroom display - and added a QR code for each section which leads to a poster created with www.checkthis.com, (e.g. http://t.co/6Flkokg5) to explain how to use the words in a sentence. I then used QR stuff to create a QR code from the link.
And the finished article:
a) have some time to process the wonder that was ililc, and
b) start putting some of the ideas into practice
Prezi v PowerPoint
Yesterday I made my first Prezi, based on the French school system for y12. It took me the whole morning but there was a fair bit of faffing about on Google looking for resources to include as well. Prezi was more straightforward than I though it would be. I managed to insert my original ppt presentation fairly painlessly, although I couldn't get it to occupy the frames in the template. I suspect there is a way, I just haven't found it yet!
Inserting a sound file was a bit of an issue at first as you can't embed MP3 files, but after converting it to MP4 it was ok, and I like the fact that I can play the sound file and have the questions displayed at the same time easily. After lots of googling for FAQs, I managed to do pretty much everything I wanted to and was quite chuffed with the end result: http://bit.lyYtms1T
Now, the question is, will I continue to use Prezi as my main tool for creating slide shows? Probably not in the short term as I think I need to keep practising and get a bit more fluent. It's not realistic to spend that much time preparing every lesson. I will keep going though on the days where I have less prep. Also, it won't be as easy to share with my lovely dept as I am not sure how readily they would all take to Prezi. However, I do think it looks really cool and will impress the kids, but I am always a little wary of the 'show' overtaking the 'content' of the lesson... sometimes it would be easier just to scribble it on the board - the end result in terms of learning would be the same. Also, I know myself, give me a tool like this and I will spend HOURS making it into a thing of beauty, aligning everything straight, designing colour schemes etc etc... I am bad enough on PowerPoint! Watch this space.
QR codes
My second achievement of halt term so far was to put some QR codes into action. Baby steps and all that! So, I have revamped by 'whizzy word wall' - my all time face classroom display - and added a QR code for each section which leads to a poster created with www.checkthis.com, (e.g. http://t.co/6Flkokg5) to explain how to use the words in a sentence. I then used QR stuff to create a QR code from the link.
And the finished article:
I will be encouraging kids to use it in lessons next week, so fingers crossed!
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