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!

I have managed to get OpenMind installed on my classroom computer, so I decided to try using it with one of my classes. We were trying to convert a couple of pages of text into a mindmap, involving some discussion as we proceeded. However, it didn’t really work too well … I was sitting sort of sideways on to the class most of the time, trying to watch what I was inputting into the computer, behaviour was an issue already, and when I had the text at a readable size, some of the pupils were a bit behind and kept asking me to move the mindmap around to different sections, much to the chagrin of others. Others kept asking why didn’t I just print it out for them in the first place, obviously not quite grasping what I was trying to get them to do (!!!) …

So, for my other year 10 class, I’m going to give them the mindmap, and ask them to use it to answer the exam question “Explain how the Sermon on the Mount influences the way Christians live”, or something similar. So converting the other way round. Will let you know how it goes.

A mixed lesson today … too many pupils were off task, playing games – even the “good” pupils at times. Wish I could have those blocked, instead of useful sites, like hotmail, Flickr and YouTube. (Although I shouldn’t be too harsh … I think YouTube has been unblocked, although maybe that was just at the end of the day, and I haven’t tried Flickr again recently.) However, one of the positives of being in the computer room was that my four Polish students could look up Polish websites about Gustavo Gutierrez, so at least they may have learnt something for about the first time this year … One of my students is still flying ahead of the others, and I hope to get him onto spresent next time. My memory stick didn’t work … I hope I have managed to save at least one piece of work by a pupil to upload here.

My Year 7s used OpenMind today to plan a presentation about Gustavo Guterriez, a liberation theologian from Lima, Peru. The MFL PGCE student, Janet, had asked to come and observe the lesson, since she teaches that class as well. It so happens that it was the lesson I was taking them to the ICT room. It’s always good to have another adult in the room, particularly when pupils are on computers, using a program that’s quite new for them.

It’s great seeing the way the pupils interact with the work. Some instinctively know what to do, and get on with it, working things out for themselves, flying ahead. It seemed to often be the quiet ones who were doing the best, at last having an opportunity to show what they were capable of, which they often don’t have. A number of pupils found the games available on the web too tempting – oh for something that stops them accessing the internet when it’s not necessary! – and there was one pupil who got very angry when he was told to come off the web. He was very grumpy, and said that he thought they were there to have fun. I told them that learning could be fun, and I thought that OpenMind was fun, and that he ought to try it first … As I showed him the instructions, and tried to get him to think about Guterriez: “How might he have been a disciple of Jesus?” – and he suddenly lit up, “Oh, is this about God?! That’s okay then!” or something similar – I think he was under the impression that I was trying to inflict an ICT lesson on him, but when he realised we were still “doing RE”, he was quite happy and got on with it! Bizarre!

So, some pupils have really impressed, and others have frustrated, but overall I think things will be a bit better next week when they know what to expect from the beginning, and I’m glad I’m doing it.

And it was great to have Janet there. Afterwards – it was the last lesson of the day – we sat down and discussed transformation technology. I really enjoyed getting to demonstrate some of the great equipment that we have, and she has shared some good blogs with me, which I will try to find and add to my BlogLog (or whatever it’s called). Also, there may be the opportunity to lead a workshop at her uni … watch this space.

So the Net is spreading! And soon I’ll try and embed my spresent presentation again!

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.

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?