Adventures in Teaching and Learning

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.

We had the first of four Feast Days at school today, and it was my form’s. I was therefore very priveleged to be able to hear Mark Prince talk about the killing of his son, Kiyan. I was only there for the second part of the talk, when Mark was answering questions, but the answers were very moving. The students were also obviously moved and challenged by his talk about how he lost his son when he was stabbed outside school. I hope that all the pupils, and many others throughout London, will be able to hear first hand how knives can affect families.

For my GCSE classes. Keynotes presentation, exported to quicktime, using pictures drawn on DigiMemo and coloured using PhotShop Elements.Parable presentation (parable_sheep_goats.mov)

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.