Thursday 22 September 2011

School Start Page and EduBlogs


This past year I have been giving lots of PD both at whole school meeting and for individual staff members and it has been gratifying to see staff using Google Apps, wikis and other e-tools with more confidence and regularity. However I noticed that the majority wasted too much time, trying to find the correct website, email or wiki. I decided to create a Start Page for our school staff to make their lives a bit easier.
I firstly considered iGoogle which I use, and also tried Netvibes for a few weeks, in the end after testing, I came to realise they provided their own challenges with all the widgets and was not centrally controlled. So as a good Google App man, I created a Google Sites page with a shared school calendar, an announcement box, links to all school websites and wikis, plus links to some of the more common websites teachers use daily like eTap, e-asTTle, ARBS, TKI etc. So far this has been well received by all staff who are finding the challenge of navigation slightly easier and quicker. What do you do at your school?.

My students have also started the EduBlogs student challenge this week, it provides an exciting a real context for students to learn and practice their blogging and commenting skills, as well as connecting to classes and students around the world. 

Interestingly, a small group asked to move from KidBlogs to their own Blogger for the challenge because it allows them more control over the blog and to able to add widgets.

The blog challenge provides opportunities to teach digital citizenship, literacy and key competencies, all while the students are engaged and excited about 'real' blogging with a 'real' audience. 

Friday 2 September 2011

A Grey Tale in Storybird

I have had Storybird bookmarked for ages, yet somehow I never got around to trying it out myself. On Friday afternoons I run an e-elective, and today we all got to play and learn with Storybird, we were all engaged. It looks so professional yet it is so simple to make, it is easy to embed in both wikis and blogs, and it can also be downloaded as a PDF. The huge range of artwork really inspires the writer inside to respond, it is a great literacy tool. 


Next time I would teach the process of using the images to tell the story first, something like Flickr 5 Photo storytelling. I hope you enjoy my story.

Moody Weather
by MrWoodnz on Storybird

Thursday 1 September 2011

Scibblemaps Maths Scavenger Hunt

When considering how to use e-learning in your classroom, one method is to look at your planning and consider what ICT tools you could use to add to this learning experience. 

We have been learning about reading scales and maps, and we also had an introduction to orienteering last week, so I decided to find and use an e-tool to entend their learning. 


Using a free online tool called Scribblemaps I created the scavenger hunt above and embedded it into our class wiki. In pairs or triads they accessed the maps on laptops, working together to plot the placemarkers on their paper maps. When they were ready they came to me for their starting time. And they were gone. . .


My students have practiced and used the maths concepts in an authentic context using Scribblemaps as my e-tool. They had fitness (including those who usually find any excuse not to move), calculated time, and read maps. They were working participating cooperatively but still competitively, they used critical thinking to help choose the best route and method of completing the course in the fatest time with all the correct answers. 


As the rate of return to the classroom was spread out, I got my top group, to whom I'd taught Scribblemaps on Monday, to teach everyone else as they came into the room, it worked a charm. I watched mixed ability peer tutoring to now eager learners, other student discussions were either comparing answers, routes and times, it was real maths talk.


Our next step is for the students to create their own maps for the rest of the class to follow; plus some students have already asked to create ones based on our other learning topics. We also need to create a scale ruler, last week showed most students were getting more proficient, but still need some practice interpreting and using different scale types.