Adventures in Teaching and Learning

This post will hopefully cover straightforward video sites as well as more interactive audiovisual sites. Once again, I have asked my PLN (Personal Learning Network) of other “educationalists” and “edtech” folk at Twitter to share their favourite sites, which I will hopefully share with you here. I’ll start with a few of my own:

YouTube – Probably one of the most well known Web 2.0 sites. There is a lot of inappropriate content, as there is anywhere, but don’t be put off – there is a vast amount of fantastic content as well. If you are an RE teacher, then from my skattp profile, you can find links to a group for RE teachers and to some other accounts that I find helpful. I am sure there are similar groups for other subjects.

TrueTube – There some excellent (British based) videos on here that would make great debate starters. TrueTube hopes that young people will make more equally provoking videos and share them on the site. I have written about TrueTube before, here.

Teachers’ TV – An excellent resource for CPD; the site also contains videos that can be used in class. There are also groups and forums that you can take part in.

TeacherTube – Videos by and for teachers.

Animoto – Upload photos, choose from a selection of Creative Commons music, and Animoto will produce an audiovisual presentation for you.

Xtranormal – If you can type, you can make movies. An easy way for a teacher to make a starter video, or for a student to produce an ICT-based piece of homework.

VoiceThread – You could add this as a way to introduce a topic, by uploading a picture or video, then recording a commentary while using pens to highlight key points. Or, you could upload students’ work, and other students can then comment on each others’ work, as a form of peer assessment.

GoAnimate – A fairly easy way to produce short animations. These can then be hosted on a video site, such as YouTube or TeacherTube.

Voki – This is an easy way for you, or a student, to animate a message without having to record your face as well as your voice. You normally need a blog to host it on.

Audacity – An excellent tool that can be downloaded for free. Easy to use to record and to transform voices as well. The voice can then be added to vokis or other videos.

There are some good primary examples on this Demo Primary School site, based in Falkirk. Thanks to @mvass for producing it, and to @johnmclear for drawing it to my attention!

I will add more later, as I receive more suggestions!

I can hardly believe it has been over a month since I last blogged! It has certainly been a very busy time, both at work and at home.

However, over the past week I have come across two websites that I think will be useful for my students, so I thought I would share them here as well.

The first is a faith-based website, YFaith, aimed at young Catholic Christians aged 10-13, although open and useful to anyone. As an RE teacher in a Catholic school, this is a site that I will be directing my Key Stage 3 students to. This is a new site, based in the UK, and they have attempted to make the site interactive and safe. Therefore there are many opportunities for young people to vote on different issues, and they can upload their own questions and comments, which are moderated first before uploading. There is no need for students to use their email addresses or to reveal any information about themselves.

The second is the GCSEPod website. This site has a number of revision podcasts that can be downloaded and listened to on mp3 players. There is a small charge per unit, and the hope for the creators is that parents and grandparents might want to buy podcasts for their (grand)children to help them with their revision. So far there are podcasts for English Language, Geography, History and Religious Studies, with more to follow. GCSEPod are looking for more writers for this series, so perhaps you would like to be involved.

Finally, I have just seen a clip of David Cameron talking in Parliament, shouting about Haringey’s Children and Young People’s Services: “They have done nothing to help failing schools in Haringey.” I would first of all like to point out that the views expressed in my blog are 100% my own, and do not necessarily reflect the views of my employer (although I would hope that they are normally not that dissimilar!). I am proud to work in a school that has been recognised as being “Good” by Ofsted. And I am aware that is partly because of the support we, and other schools, have received from Sharon Shoesmith and her department. As Alex Atherton has been quoted as saying, there “are no schools in special measures in Haringey.” Whatever has happened with the social services side of the CYPS, I feel angry that David Cameron has chosen to make the statement I have quoted above. This seems to be a soundbite rather than evidence of any investigation he has done into our local school situation. The CPD for teachers in Haringey has been second to none.

Was pleasantly surprised to be greeted by an intro to the internet when I logged on to the BBC homepage this morning. Will need to go and investigate further now!

I’m taking part in our school inset again tomorrow. This time we’ll be looking at – or listening to? – podcasts, so I’m doing a bit of research. I’ve found this website which lists some subject specific podcasts. There are also examples of podcasts from a variety of schools. I’m listening to a podcast episode of “The Christian and the Atheist“, two friends discussing the Da Vinci Code. Interesting.

Today I am sharing with you my podbean account. I have recorded a few episodes that my GCSE auditory learners can download and listen to, rather than reading the Revision Guide. I’ve linked the podbean site to my GCSE blog, so the episodes do not use up lots of room on my blog.

It will be interesting to see how many of my students decide to take advantage of these audible revision aids. I might include one as a voki on my site to encourage them to see what’s available as well … If anyone else is teaching Edexcel Catholic Christianity, feel free to use them too.

NOTE: I’ve since discovered Amy’s GeographyRocks podbean account, which has some great student interviews about migration! An excellent example of how podcasting can be used with students to share ideas.

Get a Voki now!

But can you see her?

Try viewing her on my other website … again, if anyone can suggest how I can make her visible on this WordPress blog, please let me know! I have chosen WordPress as the destination, I’ve copied and pasted the embedding code straight into the blog post, and also into the SWF button.

Get a Voki now!

I bought a copy of the TES today, noticing that the magazine featured a special ICT feature. Have just realised that it is actually a copy of last week’s TES, but at least the articles are still relevant!

One feature was about using digital images and Flickr. I found this interesting, as our school routinely blocks Flickr, since students can access so many images, some of which may be inappropriate. I have, however, arranged to have it unblocked for a lesson on Monday, when I am going to get my Year 7s to use its search facility to find an appropiate image to illustrate baptism. Do other schools block Flickr? Are there other teachers out there who use Flickr in their teaching? I would love to know how it is used in other schools.

Another aspect of using ICT in the classroom that I have explored earlier on this blog is the use of podcasts (it’s great to hear about Janet’s new podcasting adventure with her French department – follow the link on her previous comment to listen to her podcasts!). Another article in the TES magazine was about turning revision notes into podcasts. Some schools in the Barnsley area have even given out MP3 players in order to encourage students to listen to the podcasts and therefore revise and learn at any time. Bacause a number of schools are involved, there are already a substantial number of podcasts covering a wide range of subjects to choose from. Interestingly, at our Year 9 Curriculum Evening last week, one of the tutor groups came up with the idea of students producing podcasts, presumably at home, to help them revise their notes, as one of the ways parents could help support Year 9 independent learning at home.

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

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 …