Tuesday 31 January 2012

Like / Dislike Poll Widget

Poll's are fantastic tools in the classroom, although there are many types of varying complexities to choose from. In a recent Mashable blog I read about Quipol, what caught my attention was the simplicity and similarity to FaceBook - Like / Dislike. It is easy to embed in websites, like this blog, you can close voting and see a pie graph of results but voters do not seem to be able to see the results. It looks like you can only vote once from each device, however images cannot be loaded from an iPad (Flash issue I presume), but you can add video from YouTube. I would like to be able to adjust the poll box size, but can imagine many useful ways I could use this for learning and assessment.


Please test out my poll and leave a comment if you have any ideas for using it for education.

Sunday 29 January 2012

5 Things I Want My Teacher to Know About Me



If I was a student... Claire has passed on Allanah's challenge to reflect on five things I would want my teacher should know about me.


Just this week I was planning activities for my students to get to know each other and me. My co-teachers and I were planning something along the lines of a personal mihi as a starting point. However in taking part in this meme it seems the way I learn is just as important to me and is a question I obviously need to ask my students as well.


5 Things I want my teacher to know about me:
1. To know to real me, not just the mask I show the world but the emotional me below the surface.
2. To know about the things that I care about and show they they care too.
3. To understand my learning styles and provide opportunities to engage me.
4. To know my passions and help me explore them.
5. To challenge my thinking but give me the space and freedom to discover my own answers.

In keeping with the meme I invite: @sharpjacqui, @Moodlegirl, @Komos72, @siavogel, @judykmck
to join the meme and reflect on your five things. (Please link back to Allanah's blog)

Friday 27 January 2012

365 iPad

In 2009 I discovered the 365 Photo Challenge, which was run by a group of educators who aimed to take a photo every day of the year. A a visual person I found it an excellent alternative to a daily dairy, a way to capture a moment of my day, express a moment of my day. Looking back I can recall the day of almost photo, the people and the events. My photography skills grew and I began to see the perfect shot in every day life. In 2011 I took a break from the 365 challenge and at the end of last year I got an iPad and decided to take up the challenge again using only my iPad camera. The quality is not quite as good as my digital camera and the iPad shape add to the challenge, but the idea of capturing memories and moments in time has not changed, and the excitement of the perfect photo still remains.


If you have never given the 365 challenge a go, I challenge you to try it out, see how you grow in the process. You can just create your own collection using an online photo album like Picasa or Flickr, or join a 365 group to share photos and comments on sites like Flickr or Tumblr. Happy photography.


2012 - 365 iPad Photo Challenge



2011
I took a break from the challenge.


2010 - 365 Photo Challenge



2009 - 365 Photo Challenge