Adventures in Teaching and Learning

Very excited and interested to read about Tessa’s A Level Blogs on her blog. Since not much is going on at school at the moment, I thought I’d share someone else’s great work with you!

I was just browsing, catching up on the latest on Ewan McIntosh’s blog, when I came across this link to the Wolverhampton LA Mobile Learning project.

On the TTP literature we got, EDAs/PDAs were mentioned … I didn’t really know what they were, but having read through this summary, I want one! Or, rather, I want all my pupils to have one! (I think …)

It’s okay, I know I have loads of things to try out already – and I was using my DigiMemo to useful effect again today in my A Level revision classes – but it is so exciting to read about all the exciting new technologies that there are, that we may be able to use at some point in the future in our schools.

Which reminds me, I had a good chat with some friends about the educational use of technology. They are using new technologies in order to educate people about global justice issues, and are finding that lots of people don’t really understand the pedagogy behind the technologies. That’s definitely something that we need to consider, perhaps more explicitly as we continue on our journey with new technologies – I think I’m still a bit at the “look at all the exciting things I can do with my computer!” stage, still on the way to “this is my learning aim … can any of the new technologies I have access to help me achieve this aim more effectively than what I do at present?” stage.

That’s annoying. I was almost finished this post when the computer crashed. Nevermind. Here are today’s “episodes”: an mp3 and a .m4a enhanced podcast about Virtue Ethics, for my AS class. Hope you can access the enhanced version okay … I spent ages doing some of the screenshots. Then realised they were too big so you can’t read them all.
virtue_ethics.m4a

virtue_ethics.mp3

Two of my lessons today featured ComicLife worksheets. It’s a different way of using sentence starters and writing frames, and it ensures that you include pictures! (Which obviously support all pupils, especially EAL and SEN pupils.) The files will go on the internet as soon as I can!

I also based my AS lesson on an OpenMind mindmap that I had printed off in colour.

First podcast …
Right. I’ve uploaded my first podcast to skambalu.podbean.com … I’m going to see if I can get it uploaded here too. (Other than that, I’m getting a headache because I’m so frustrated at not being able to get the microphone on my headphones to work. Arrrgh. I can hear through the headphones, but the sound is not being detected on either the Mac side or the PC side. So I have my separate microphone plugged in too. Not ideal. Any suggestions?!)

The podcast works! Hurrah!

I had a revision session today, so I decided to try a few things out back at school. Unfortunately Flickr is still not allowed, neither are other blog sites, including my school blog, although edublogs are allowed. My classroom computer is presently not attached to the internet, for some annoying reason.

I took some photos and videos of me teaching, pupils working, and them giving me evaluative feedback. It’s all confidential, for my Masters research, so no one will be able to see it, but I am planning on transcribing some of the comments so it’s been really useful having the video on the camera.

When my AS students arrived, they were suitably impressed by my iMovie, and all wanted a copy. So I learnt how to bluetooth from my computer, with help from my students! Unfortunately they couldn’t watch it straight away, because “it’s saved for iTunes”, but they were non-plussed by that and said they’d bluetooth it to their computers and upload it (or something!) onto iTunes in order to watch it. I hope it works! We also then had an interesting Utilitarianism-based discussion on the usefulness of bringing mobile phones into schools … which option would bring the greatest amount of pleasure to the greatest number of people? Allowing mobiles or not allowing them? My pupils felt that there might be an abuse, with more pupils using their phones in class, but I still feel that if pupils were “trained” in how to use their mobiles sensibly and politely, then it shouldn’t cause too many more difficulties than they do now.

The mature students that my AS class are, felt that perhaps CrazyTalk would be too “fun” for my Year 7s … I don’t think they were too convinced that fun could be educational, too! However, they were interested in the idea of the DigiMemos, although they wanted to know if everyone would get one.

One final point … when I attached my MacBook to the IWB, the image (screen size? resolution?) changed … when I tried changing it to make it look more “normal”, the image disappeared from the IWB. Can anyone tell me what resolution/screen size I should choose on the Display option? Thanks.

Hmm. I am wanting to embed a swf file … I have had fun experimenting with CrazyTalk this evening. I now have three talking philosophers. However, I want to include them in a Keynote presentation, and therein lies the problem (or two). The CrazyTalk video seems to be far too big (it’s in GB rather than MB …) to move easily from computer to computer attached to internet, and I feel that downloading something this big could prove problematic. Secondly, I am trying to add a GarageBand audio that I’ve recorded, and even though I am following the instructions (ie drag the file into the slide that you want it to play over), nothing is happening. I don’t think the slide is recognising the file, even though I have saved it as an iLife project, and it has a little guitar logo. Can anybody help?! Thanks.

I’ve particularly enjoyed using Comic Life and Photo Booth this evening … but am concerned that I can’t get any sound on crazy talk. All my plans for a talking Jeremy Bentham are going astray!

It’s been fun getting the Mac and getting to fiddle around with a variety of applications. I suppose soon I’ll need to sit down and work out exactly what I want to do as my research. I have three groups in particular that I’m thinking of. For my AS class, I think I will try to create some iMovies for revision purposes. Could be embarrassing though! Ethics is not my strongest area of subject knowledge. Secondly, my Year 7 class has major issues with behaviour … anything that might help to grab their attention away from each other and onto the subject would be great. Finally, my Year 10s … I want to support their exam technique, perhaps using the Digiboards. (Is that what they’re called?)

My other issue is that I can’t connnect to the internet at the moment! I hope I can fix that sooner rather than later … very frustrating to have to swap between two computers all the time eg when using Flickr. Hope I’m not frustrated for too long.

Last night, I had a great idea. My husband is an artist, and started talking about a film he wanted to make. It would consist of talking heads answering questions. I had been thinking about my AS podcasting plan. Suddenly realised that we could put videos into powerpoint … so we decided to try it out. We took a few short videos of me answering questions, then had a slide with the question, then on the next slide inputted me talking … set up the slide transition to move on automatically within a few seconds, and result! A loop presentation which has the question, then me answering it, another question, me answering again, and so on! The possibilities are endless!

I could use images of me explaining things to the class so that they might hear and listen more carefully … probably I could add subtitles … I could even team teach with myself! I could support pupils in the classroom as I go through the instructions on the screen!

Just being given the camera has already opened up so many avenues, and even without the training I am trying things out for myself. Can’t wait until I can do more!

What an exciting day today! Last night, I got my camera and information about the first task that I need to complete, which is to take some pictures and figure out how I can use them in a lesson. I also need to set up my school Flickr account, and this blog. So here I am … I’ve taken some photos of my empty classroom, a short video of the pupil play during their assembly, and a couple of photos and a video of my sixth formers doing a VAK task …

Had an idea that my Sixth Formers liked … I could video myself teaching a short revision session (with no pupils), using a powerpoint, and they could download it as a podcast or something. Perhaps this will be something I’ll be able to learn to do?! Can’t wait!