Adventures in Teaching and Learning

Strange, the YouTube “post to blog” option doesn’t seem to be working, so here is my “More Clouds” video! This time, I took photos at (fairly random) intervals throughout the day, using (of course!) my tripod, then put them altogether using iMovie (8, I think), with some freeplaymusic that I quite like.

I’ve uploaded it to Google Video … hope it all works okay!

Not just for those in Haringey of course! But I think over the next few weeks we’ll be seeing some interesting work being shared on some of the following sites. (Some were begun a year ago and have not been updated recently – hopefully that will change, and it would be great if you add your comments!)

National Year of Reading 2008 – A blog where pupils will be able to send their book reviews.

Education ideas for using CrazyTalk – A blog where you can share your good ideas about using CrazyTalk in teaching. There are already links to examples here, and links to sites where you can create interesting characters, eg make your own Mr Potato Head.

AppleMacs in Education

Assessment for Learning and Blogging

DigiMemo Blog

Judy, if I am missing any, it would be great if you could let me know so I can add them here!

So my main concerns are:

1) I’m running out of space on my Mac
2) I’m still waiting to get spresent embedded properly in my blog
3) My podbean.com account is almost full
4) Some of my individual files are too big to save onto a disk and I can’t really afford to buy an external harddrive at the moment (hadn’t planned on needing to do that when I started the course!)
5) I still can’t access the internet at home
6) This means I can’t upload some of my documents to the internet since the laptop I use for the internet is a bit older and won’t accept all the files
7) Still not resolved the headphones and microphones issue at school
The microphone on my headphones doesn’t work … must remember to mail Judy about that!

9) It’s late, and I’ve been exhausted recently, and I can’t believe I’m still up. Goodnight!

10) The number 8 has turned into a smiley …

I’m now back home, so hopefully I’ll find it a bit easier to reflect on all of today’s activities.

First of all, I’ve enjoyed chatting to quite a few people today – it’s good to be able to put faces to the names of people whose blogs I’ve looked at or whose names I’ve seen on the list. We’re obviously quite a mix of people from a wide variety of subject backgrounds and with a range of experiences in teaching and in ICT, which is great. It’s been nice to be able to help some people out with things, and I’ve appreciated help from people with some of the things that have been bothering me, or that I couldn’t do.

I found it very frustrating not to simply be able to go on to my blog, or to Fronter, and quickly upload all the stuff I have on my computer that I’ve produced and would like to be able to share. It’s understandable when you have loads of people logging on to the wireless connection at once that things are going to be slow, but I was surprised at just how frustrating I was finding it! Probably didn’t help that I am still feeling guilty at not having managed to complete my reports yet. Must be emailed to a colleague tonight, so that’s what I’ll be doing after this!

Flickr. I wasn’t in the session that covered Flickr, but I hope that now more people know how to access it I’ll have more friends on there! If you haven’t become my Friend yet, please invite me … you can access my profile from one of my photos on my blog, then send an invite from that page. You will also have access to the profiles of my friends, whom I think at the moment consist of Judy, Tessa, Claire and John. At least, I think that’s how it works!

One of the things I am really interested in will (I hope) be on the agenda for tomorrow – using blogs with pupils. Which leads me onto another reflection – I hope that now there has been some more input on blogging, more of you on the programme will be posting more … I look forward to visiting other blogs and seeing what other people are getting up to, so I can be inspired by your great ideas! Personally, the communication aspect of this course, the whole idea of Web 2.0 and Personalised Learning using forums, blogs etc, is one of the parts of the course that interests me the most. You might have realised that I love talking, whether in “real life” or on the web … I love reading and gaining fresh insights from others too! Communication, communication, communication.

I have picked up a few new ideas from the audio and OpenMind sessions. Some of it was frustrating, because I’ve already experimented quite a bit, but there’s always something new to learn, for example, how to add pictures to a podcast episode (or whatever I should call them!), and how to add extra information to an OpenMind document.

However, OpenMind did raise one of the most frustrating features for me … the fact it’s so annoyingly difficult (not hard, inconvenient more than anything) to move from Mac to PC. All those lovely ComicLife documents, Keynote presentations, GarageBand podcasts, elusively hiding on Mac, when I want to upload them onto OpenMind! It’s such a faff to be restarting the computer, memory stick in hand, saving, restarting etc.

Still loads of possibilities, though, and I’m really looking forward to the pedagogical side of the learning tomorrow.

I had practiced setting up the computer last night, so that I could show my Year 7s the Disciples iMovie … but this time, when my barely settled class were there, and I attached the computer to the projector (I had been teaching the previous lesson and hadn’t wanted my computer out) the projector flickered really badly then went off! I had to phone for the technician to help me out, and eventually we got it working again, but it was one of those nightmare experiences that puts people off using computers!

On the more positive side, I’ve given a copy of my ComicLife parables worksheet to the other members of my department, and I think it should be quite useful. Will upload it when I can access the internet from my own MacBook (Friday, maybe?)

At the end of the day, I sat down with my technician for a bit to work out how I can best use my MacBook at school. I think I’ll just live with the display changing a bit … I was still able to view my Keynote presentations and my iMovie, which is the most important thing! I could get sound and vision. The next thing I’ll need to work out is to see if the screen can be interactive again … I don’t know if that comes naturally, or if I need to switch my IWB back “on”.

Tried to show my disciples video, but unfortunately the internet was down at that point during the lesson. I was able to show it at the end of the day, so I’ll try again tomorrow in class.

I’ve planned a ComicLife piece of cover work for when I’m at the DigiMemos training. My husband thinks it looks good, and straightforward, so hopefully the Year 9s will think the same.

I have three new classes, one period a week … I’m going to try and find out if I can book a computer room on a regular basis to carry out an ICT project. A few issues, though, and it could be hard to book one … Watch this space!

Am I going to be the first person to have to buy new batteries? My camera is beginning to flash with a red battery warning sign … it’s not yet stopped, but it may do soon!

I’ve not worked on my MacBook today, but yesterday I discovered the joys of ActiVote and ActivWizard … I have planned three short games and a vote based on GCSE key words that need to be learnt. However, since I don’t have an IWB at home, I’ll need to wait until I get back to school to see if it works properly – it doesn’t look quite right so far.

Hope everyone has had a Happy Easter today – we’ve had some lovely sunshine!

Last night, I was kept awake until an obscene time in the morning, playing around on OpenMind on the PC side of the MacBook. I’ve made mindmaps for almost every topic my AS group has to cover … and I’ve also started a mindmap to plan my Literature Review, a mindmap to help out cover teachers who have to take my classes when I’m away on training, a mindmap of my husband’s book … there is such a variety already there, and it’s so easy to start from scratch, and to make timelines of important people and events, and to plan essays etc … This is a program that I think my students would find really useful. In order to complete each mindmap, I was scurrying around in the books, looking for info to add, which was excellent revision (and, in some cases, preparation) for me, so I’m sure it would be for my students too. If you’ve not found it yet, go and have a look! Hours of fun! (And I’ve not even started adding pictures, videos and other files to it yet!) One of the things I did that I thought might be helpful, before I finally decided that I ought to go to bed, was adding a list of key words, with the definitions in a separate text box. You have to click on the word to see the definition, so that would be good for revision. Must find out if this program is available on the school computers … would it be very expensive for the school to install if not?

I’ve spent the day in the British Library, researching Assessment for Learning as part of my Masters dissertation. It was great having my Mac with me. Not only was it really easy typing up my notes then and there using Pages, but every so often I could use a different part of my brain. I produced a ComicLife work on Holy Week, and then used Pages to produce a Revision Guide for my GCSE class. Well, I began it, anyway. In fact, that revision guide was inspired by something I read in my research, about using a traffic-lights system to colour code how well the pupils know their topics. Then pupils will look through old exam questions, and pick out questions that will test them on the areas that they have coloured red or amber. In small groups, they will then use their GCSE books to research and answer those questions. Finally, they can peer- and/or self-assess using the mark scheme (which they already have stuck in their books). It’s a shame I’m not on my MacBook at the moment, or I could easily copy and paste the reference. Must remember to do that later.

Anyway, a couple of issues came up. At one point, my Pages literature review grid suddenly closed unexpectedly. A notice came up: “Your Pages document has closed unexpectedly.” Yes, I realised that. “Click here to reopen”. Fortunately it all opened up okay, nothing was lots (I had been saving regularly just in case), but it was still a bit of a shock.

Then, later, I was working on a Keynotes presentation to help the AS class revise. I pressed Play to see how the presentation looked … but instead of the smooth presentation I am now getting used to, the screen went black except for the top left hand corner of the presentation, which went through the presentation, only showing part of it, before I clicked on escape and it went back to the main screen. Haven’t tried it since I came home … but a bit strange and worrying.

Finally, on a more positive note, I clicked on the Smart Board tools to see what happened – and I am pleased with what I saw! I especially like the “torch” option, to reveal bits of a picture, so pupils can try and guess what they are seeing! I could have fun with that!

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.