Adventures in Teaching and Learning

This is in response to Jo’s comment earlier on. Sorry it’s taken so long, Jo!

How to quit …

It is much easier if you are using OpenMind to set up the page – each branch represents one page, so before you export your mindmap to Mediator, add a branch that says quit – it will make it much easier later on. If you don’t have Open Mind, then I presume you need to add a Quit page and a quit button on every page that leads to the Quit page.

On the quit page … Have a question that also explains what decision the user needs to make. So on my Mediator package, I ask: Do you really want to quit? Type Y or N.

Then I have a “input object”. Next to that is a submit button. The submit button has an event, and that’s where it gets a bit complicated! Choose the following standard events:
Move into -> set cursor (timer)
Move out -> Set cursor(arrow)
Mouse click -> If

Then we go to programming to choose the “If” …

IF (Condition) – type the following in the box:
UPPER(input.text)=”Y”
THEN
Timeline
ELSE
Go to page -> Homepage

In the Timeline:
Show (hidden text such as “Goodbye! Come again soon!”)
3 seconds later: Exit.

Right. I hope that helps!

It’s been a while, but it’s good to be back, and up and running again. I look forward to sharing some more of my thoughts and my journey, and also some pupil work. I also plan on writing a piece about my experience of Mediator, in response to a comment made to my post below. But in the meantime I’m trying to update my Year 7 and Year 8 blogs! I have also started up a TTP group on Facebook, so if any of you have joined Facebook, then you can ask me to be your friend, then I can invite you onto the private group. Although hopefully we can carry on our conversations over here in the open again!

This is not showing up in the widget bar – thought I’d try it here too – does anyone else have that problem? I can’t get a Flickr badge, a variety of stats counters haven’t worked completely, I couldn’t put a clock on, and there have been other widgetty things too, that don’t work. Any ideas why?

My TA and I have worked on a short presentation on the prophet Muhammad (pbuh) for our Year 8 class tomorrow. It’s a bit rushed (I’ve finished it having just arrived home after seeing George Michael at Wembley …) but I’m keen to see if the SWF embedding button works.

Could be interesting … if anything shows up, then I wonder what size it will be, because I’ve got no idea and I’ve had to make up some dimensions!

I’m very tired, so this may be a bit hazy, but I wanted to blog today.

Took my Year 8 group into the computer room today (different group from the ones using spresent, and incidentally I’ve not seen any completed presentations yet …). Wanted to show them a couple of videos that they have produced, and which I made this morning into a Mediator presentation, but unfortunately what had worked earlier on a different computer did not work on the necessary computer in my particular room. Hmph. Anyway, I had set up four tasks for the pupils on the Year 8 Blog, and only one required them to actually watch the videos. So I asked them to log on and to try and complete the other tasks, in any order.

Unfortunately, because I was also trying to fix the video programme, I wasn’t able to explain as well as I would have liked. However, most pupils at one point or another visited the link to the internet safety website. Most pupils at one point were on the comments task as well.

However, at the end of the day, when I went to moderate all the comments, there were only six entered! (And one was empty …) So there’s still some work to be done there … most didn’t seem to have any prior knowledge of blogs, so I’ll need to bear that in mind when I’m planning my research project. I do think that there’s potential, though, so I’m going to stick with it. Next Friday is Sports’ Day, so the Friday after that, I hope to get them blogging again. Let’s hope they actually submit it this time though!

Janet was there to see what we were doing and to help out. It definitely helps having more than one person in the room, especially since the pupils ask for a lot of help to begin with. It’s great to have someone to bounce ideas off!

Apparently I’ve visited 4% of the world.

create your own visited country map

Will this embed map thing work?

Wow! I had my Mediator training last night, and to be honest, I didn’t sign up for it the first time, but I’m glad I did, because it’s great! I was up until after midnight last night trying to produce some nifty pictures that when you hover over them other images and text appear. Was looking forward to showing my class this morning as the starter and plenary.

Unfortunately, the disk I made last night did not automatically run when I put it in the DVD drive! What did I do wrong? Judy, any pointers? And should it also work on a Mac? Because it didn’t work on my husband’s last night …

Looking forward to getting these glitches ironed out, because I can see lots of potential for Mediator!

Hello! This is just a reminder to anyone who was thinking about coming along to our Open Studio: the opening is tonight, from 6-9pm, and we will also be “open” from 1-6pm on Saturday and Sunday. For more information, you can look up Arts Unwrapped – there are quite a lot of open studios this weekend in London. We are at the Fire Station – it’s very easy to get to. Hope to see some of you there … Lloyd, your video will be playing throughout the night!