Adventures in Teaching and Learning

Weird, weird, weird!!! I do not watch Teachers’ TV as often as I should, even though I’m an Associate, and when I do it is almost always online. But just now I thought I’d put it on in the background while I went to cook, and had some difficulty finding it (880 on Sky, so you don’t need to spend so long looking for it). Imagine my surprise when it starts up, and there is one of my own pupils talking, then I see another of my pupils, and then my voice – followed by me! Very strange experience when I was least expecting it! I had seen it before – in fact, I think I mentioned it on my blog at the time – but I didn’t expect to see it today! (I was talking about blogging. With far too much make up. I think I thought it would be like being on stage, where you might need to wear more make up to be seen. It’s not!)

Right. I was about to go and cook …

Additional Note: When I opened up the Teachers’ TV website, our programme, Online Social Networks – Friend or Foe?, was the highlighted programme.

Get a Voki now!

The new TTP group meet on Tuesday; I have the privilege of hosting a session on Web 2.0, involving pedagogy and practical application. So today I have been trying to think of uses for a variety of Web 2.0 applications, hence the large number of posts! I think it’s about time to pull some of those ideas together.

Voki
I enjoy adding vokis onto my blogs to liven them up a bit and add sound. It’s a humorous way of engaging the students as well, and for students who find reading a bit more difficult, then Voki instructions may be a bit easier to follow. If students have access to computers, then I think Vokis work well especially in MFL, where students can record short paragraphs in the target language: this could then be used for peer and self assessment purposes. The main difficulty I have with Voki is that they are not downloadable, so they can only be shown when hosted on a browser somewhere and cannot be inserted into powerpoint presentations. (If they can, and I’m missing something, please let me know!) Of course, CrazyTalk can be used to similar effect, but with a little more effort.

If you have used Voki successfully as a teaching and learning tool, please drop me a line to let me know!

VoiceThread
This seems like a good way to encourage students to listen to one another and to respond to one another. A VoiceThread can be used to gather a variety of opinions and ideas, which can be shared or kept private (In this case, you would need to make accounts for all students, and add them all as your friends on the VoiceThread that you wanted them to watch/listen/comment on. They can also be moderated.) I have seen some good examples, eg “This picture makes me think …”, Students reading out poems that they have written in response to a visual stimulus, students using the doodle tool to demonstrate what they think will happen next in an experiment (actually, I haven’t seen that, but I think it could be a good idea … if you moderate the comments, then keep them all hidden until you have received everyone’s comments) … I’m sure there are many more.

What ideas do you have for how you could use VoiceThread in your subject? If you have already used it, could you add a link in the comments box so we can see it and be inspired?

Slideshare
An easy way to share presentations. I have made a very basic one with the most basic key points for my GCSE students to support their last minute revision, and another one with pictures to illustrate Pentecost, which I will use in my lessons next week. The other side, of course, is that there are many interesting presentations out there, that can either inform us as educators, or can be used by us in the classroom.

Have you a favourite presentation that you found on SlideShare? Or have you uploaded a presentation made by your students that could inspire us?

YouTube, TeacherTube, GodTube, TED, GoogleVideo, Teachers’ TV
I am sure there are other video sharing websites out there, these are just some of the most common, or ones that I have found recently. Videos can be a great starter for lessons, and there are some great educational clips out there, as well as lots of funny clips that can begin discussion. Just be careful though – I showed a clip of Mel Brookes as Moses, dropping one of the tablets on which were written the Fifteen – well, now Ten – Commandments in order to start thinking about the Decalogue with my class, and quite a few of them assumed that there really were originally fifteen … ! I have also used the Honda Cogs clip to illustrate the concept of causation. Of course, the next stage is then making your own videos to upload and share with others. For a trial, I made a video using OneTrueMedia, and uploaded that to YouTube. It’s not great, but at least it shows it can be done! I am also a member of the RE Group on YouTube.

How have you used YouTube or another video site during a lesson? Why do you think showing short video clips can be such a good learning tool?

Well, there are hundreds of other sites, and it’s getting late and I have other things to do, so that will have to do for now. I do hope that some of you who read this will leave a comment suggesting ways in which these, and other Web 2.0 applications, can be used effectively in the classroom to enhance teaching and learning.

Another Teachers’ TV link. A number of Great Books relating to education were put on the Teachers’ TV website for people to comment on and vote for. Selena Scott presents a programme featuring the countdown to the top ten books. I’ve not had a chance to watch it yet – after all, I’ve just discovered it just before midnight! – but it seems that the ten books I’ve listed below are the top ten. I have to confess I have only read four of these books (1, 2, 4 & 6) but have also found resumees of Vygotsky helpful (particularly when writing literature reviews!).

1. Title: To Kill a Mockingbird
Author: Harper Lee

2. Title: The Curious Incident of the Dog In the Night-time
Author: Mark Haddon

3. Title: How Children Fail
Author: John Holt

4. Title: Getting the Buggers to Behave
Author: Sue Cowley

5. Title: Children’s Minds
Author: Margaret Donaldson

6. Title: Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone
Author: J K Rowling

7. Title: Hard Times
Author: Charles Dickens

8. Title: Thought & Language
Author: Lev Vygotsky

9. Title: Summerhill
Author: A S Neill

10. Title: Pedagogy of the Oppressed
Author: Paulo Freire

How many of these books have you read? Which other “educational” books have you found inspirational? Which ones have motivated you in your teaching?

One of my favourites is The Teacher’s Toolkit by Paul Ginnis. Loads of great ideas.

I am in two minds about posting this link here, but as a Teachers’ TV Associate, I have a responsibility to encourage other teachers to use the excellent resources that can be found on the Teachers’ TV website, and I was quite pleased with my students when they were recorded … so here goes. Follow the link to find out more about Online Social Networks.

Any budding scriptwriters out there? Teachers’ TV is looking for monologues based on life in school. Follow the link for more details, and to look at the four winners from 2007 – I particularly liked “What would the Buddha do?“, written by an RE teacher. The deadline is the 25 March.

Hopefully a little badge will appear above that advertises Blog Action Day.

I’m a bit concerned that the YouTube videos I have posted recently are not showing up.

I should add – we had Teachers’ TV in yesterday, and the pupils were fantastic. They were so well behaved and some were brave enough to answer the questions very clearly – I think they were better than me! And I was red “like a cherry”, according to one of my pupils! I could feel myself getting hotter and hotter in the cheeks as we were about to start filming! It was quite hot in the ICT suite, but I think I was just a bit embarrassed!

If I’m not on the internet, then I’m very often to be found curled up with a good book. Normally these are in the fiction genre, but since I’ve been writing my Literature Review over the past few months, they can sometimes be educational too. So I was very interested to see the Teachers’ TV vote on Great Books, which as far as I can see mainly come under the educational category, although not entirely – so far I’ve also noticed Fantastic Mr Fox and Hard Times. I need to now go back and read through the list in more detail. What are your favourite books, educational or entertaining?