Views from the Art-Side

Assignment 6 - #edtechcca6

2012-03-06T21:18:00.002+00:00

This weeks challenge was to "Use Google Maps to create your own custom map that includes photographs of places."

I had already used google maps to create an map containing images that were taken by students on a trip to our college building whilst it was being built. I have now revisited this map to add photos of it now we are in the building.

View Stoke On Trent Sixth Form College in a larger map

I have also added links to Blurb photobooks of student images and youtube videos of college tours created by students in the form of roller coasters.

I was disappointed that even youtube videos could not be embedded and that I could not change the colour of the icons-so had to use envelops for more recent images (Though I could have added my own symbols).

I tried a similar task with bing maps but found myself disappointed with this as well. I found it more complex interface to use. Though I do like the fact you can take a tour through images in bing. Below is a tutorial I made a while ago on how to use bing maps to document a field trip.

Assignment 4- #edtechcca4

2012-03-01T16:18:00.000+00:00

Playing Tennis..."Make a video clip of yourself hitting your tennis ball as if you are playing in a tennis match. You may make more than one clip, however you must hit the ball with a different random object each time (the sillier, the better!). "

This task started by the other members of the department experimenting with filming at college. We planned our shots and used a small HD video camera to record them. This was edited in Final Cut (the small version) then we added the sound effects we recorded with an iPad.

After completing this I decide to try and edit it in iPad iMovie. I found this to be a very simple and intuitive process except the only transitions I could add were fades...I much prefer the use of jump cuts in the original.

72 Hour Film Challenge-2012

2012-02-14T17:46:00.003+00:00

At the weekend I took part in the 'Stoke Your Fires' '72 Hour Film Challenge' with 2 colleagues from work. A number of people have asked why give up a weekend?...so I am writing this post to explain and reflect on the experience.

I enjoy learning new things but prefer to use a real project to do so. I find if you have something 'real' to work on with deadlines I experience leaning in a way more similar to students and often accomplish something. We have had a Canon 550d SLR in college for a while (which shoots video as well as stills) and the A Level Photography course I teach on includes a range of lens based media, students have been experimenting more with moving image as well as stills. This project seemed to be the perfect opportunity to get to grips with this camera.

We met up on Saturday morning to plan ideas for shooting our film. We thought about how we could use old cinematic techniques alongside learning new skills:

One section to be a washed out 'real' view which would contrast against the saturated 'dream'.
A silent film using music to build tension and narrate the scenes.
To incorporate childish elements into the dream sequence almost like a child had scribbled on the film.

The filming itself was relatively straight forward; a number of in house shots were identified and we filmed what was going on around us before we wrapped up warm and headed to Longton Park. When filming in the park we wanted to try and capture a 2 year olds view of the world so everything was filmed from a low angle.

Once back in the warm we identified what we wanted to add to sections of our filming.

To achieve this painted look the frames of the video were imported into Photoshop as layers then these were individually painted in ways relevant to the scene.

The rest of the film editing was done on Final Cut and the music was composed using Garage Band on an ipad and a Mac over the next 48 hours.

This is the final film which we submitted to the competition

The idea behind the film was to try and comment on the world outside that people are missing by staying indoors on snow days and that a journey into a childs mind contrasts against the adult world.

The things I learned taking part in this project:

My team (Kim Finn and Nikki Simpkins) have a wide range of skills that I had no idea about.
Working with children and animals is really not that bad.
How to film with a 550d though when using photography lenses and tripods that the zooming and panning has a 'steam powered' look.
How to rotoscope video with CS5 (and how long of a process it is).
I really am quite scared of ducks especially when surrounded.

This also made me think about how we could use this style project within the college:

To deliver elements of the BTEC Creative Media Production course.
Could we set a 'Challenge' brief that allows students freedom to interpret ideas in a far more personal way.
As a liaison activity to involve local schools/teachers.
Team building activity to use with other groups of teachers-CPD.
Could it be used by other subject areas to produce revision materials or produce an assignment.

Assignment 5 - #edtechcca5

2012-02-09T21:27:00.000+00:00

Another project as part of #edtechcc...this involves lots of mini Photo Assignments

"A new photographic assignment will be posted here every two days until February 20th. Make as many of these photographs as you can and share them on our Facebook group"

8th - Make a photograph of a plastic object that you’ve used today.

Inspired by this article.

10th-Make a photograph where LIGHT is a main element in the image

Experimenting with Bokeh

12th-Make a photo of part of an everyday object and let everyone guess what it is.

So what is it?

14th-Make a photograph focussing on nature – animals, plants, landscapes, etc

Made using 360 Panorama app on my ipad. It allows you to view the panorama in different ways; flat, stereographic (above) and 360. Have a look at the different versions of the image above.

16th-Make of photograph of technology that you use often

Out of all my tech the thing that gets me through every day is winding down listening to audio books on my iPod :)

18th-What’s the weather like this weekend?

About 2°c and a little sprinkling of white stuff.

20th-Take a photograph from an unusual angle.

An image often seen but rarely photographed

Assignment 3 - #edtechcca3

2012-02-01T19:15:00.001+00:00

This weeks assignment is "Make a comic-strip style set of instructions for a practical task".
I started by thinking how I could link this to an area I teach and came up with a loads of ideas:
How to photocopy
How to scan
How to remove backgrounds-Photoshop
...and the list went on

For my first attempt at the assignment I chose 'How to develop ideas in photography?' It is something students often forget stages of.

I used my ipad and "Comic Book!" along with photos of my moggies. It was a very simple process and the app itself is very straight forward to use, but I am not completely happy with it as it is far too fussy.

I decided to look around the house for inspiration and came across this shaver booklet.

I really like the simplicity of communication so am going to use this as inspiration for my next 'How to".

This time I used comic life to create a guide to using the photocopier. I used 'Comic Life' to create it.

Assignment 2 –#edtechcca2

2012-01-29T20:31:00.000+00:00

During this weeks task I found myself really struggling as sound is not really my thing (unless you are talking about my eclectic music taste.)

I started thinking about how sound can represent visuals and images and how this could be used within Art and Design.
I selected a photograph recently taken by a student and used this as the inspiration for my first soundscape and used Beatwave on my ipad to create it. What do you think?

by Katy Hall

I then thought about how I could use this in one of my lessons. Students often struggle to describe images in words so perhaps they could describe a piece of Art with sound and this would then help describe it with words?
This is what I attempted, I thought about a specific piece of Art and thought what sounds could be used to describe it. What Art work could this soundscape represent?

Sound Scape 2.egg on Aviary.

ANSWER

For this second soundscape I used Aviary within the colleges google apps environment and found some sound effects on soundbible and soundfxnow. I used Monster Growl Sound, Crowd Boo and Heckles and Soldiers Marching. Hopefully these describe the image with sound.

Assignment 1- #edtechcca1

2012-01-18T22:15:00.002+00:00

The assignment is...'Make two signs or symbols using a graphics tool of your choice. The first sign should be for your own department or course, the second sign should be for another educational department or course. Use only pictures, no words. Use only simple abstracted shapes, no photographs.'

To start I identified the course I would begin making a logo for- Creative Media Production.

I then used Notes Plus on my ipad to jot down some thoughts and words. I chose this app as I use it most days make notes during meetings-it syncs with my dropbox/gdocs and allows me to type and handwrite. This time wanted to try and add some visuals to map initial thoughts.

In Art/Graphics we often get students to produce initial and abstract ideas using pictograms/glyphs either with the shapes themselves (we had a few sets cut with a laser cutter) or digitally in a vector editing program so I decided to follow this process digitally. I used a range of simple shapes and windings in Adobe Illustrator.

Glyphs used

First Symbols recreating images from initial ideas

I then started trying to make a symbol for each word "Creative Media Production" and put them together as groups of 3.

My favourite so far is the bottom design as I feel it has both aspects of the subject we offer...Interactive Media and Film/TV.

I followed this process with the 2nd subject - photography.

So far this is what I have come up with.

I plan to develop both of these designs further looking a how these symbols could communicate their intentions with more clarity...

To start this development I got my Btec Graphic design students to give me some feedback on my initial ideas. They were very honest and I have alot of development work to do especially on my Creative Media Production Symbol.

Based on feedback from my students I developed elements of the designs further making them clearer. I did experiment with adding more detail to the symbols but preferred the simplified versions with 3 colours.

More detailed experimentation

Final Designs

Introduction #edtechccp1

2012-01-08T14:40:00.003+00:00

This is my first post as part of the Educational Technology Creative Collective #edtechcc. My first task is to introduce myself and what I aim to get out of this project.

Who am I?
My name is Helen and I am Course Leader for Creative Media Production and Photography at the City of Stoke on Trent Sixth Form College. I took on this role before the summer though I originally trained as a Design Technology teacher. I now teach a wide range of Btec and Alevel subjects including Graphics, Photography and Art.

Why am I taking part in this project?
I spend my days trying to encourage creativity from my students and staff around me. I have found that now I have taken on a more managerial role my own creativity is not being encouraged to the extent it once was, (I am not finding enough time to play with tools/ideas and generally geeky things). I wanted to take part in this project to rectify this balance and set some time aside for my own learning and experimentation with technologies and ideas.
I have also tried over the last few years to reflect regularly and publicly on my own practice through this blog though this has not been terribly successful so I am hoping this project helps me form a habit of sharing and reflection.
The final reason is it is coming up to my second 'Twitterversary' and felt that recently I had stopped contributing as much to the community due to work pressure. I felt I needed to find a way to begin giving back again. Twitter has been very important to me over the last two years but I am very aware that you need to contribute and collaborate to keep learning.

Presentation for Workshop-Engaged Ideas > Connectivity in Art and Design

2011-06-14T22:40:00.000+01:00

Workshop Presentation for St Roberts Thinking School Conference 2011

Gapps-Using Collections to Organise and Share

2011-04-28T21:42:00.004+01:00

Recently I began using Google Apps in my classroom. I have been trying to exploit the collaboration Google Docs allows in my classroom by experimenting with the different sharing settings on documents. Google Docs allows the owner of the document to decide who can access or edit it.

I frequently encounter the issue that students forget to share a document with the right people or they share it with too many people (the World). I have been looking for a way to simplify this process of sharing.

This week I decided to restructure my ‘Collections’, these are the Google Docs version of folders. I found this organisation session helped solve my sharing issues. ‘Collections’ have sharing options and the documents in a ‘Collection’ take the sharing settings from the ‘Collection’ they are placed in, as long as the document owner places it in the ‘Collection’. This way you do not need to set the setting of individual documents just drag them in to the appropriate ‘Collection’.

What I have done is set up a Collection for each of the different subjects I teach.

Then I have added a Collection for each student in each of the courses.

You can then set sharing settings for each of these collections.

Also because these documents are in "Collections" not "Folders" they can appear more than once, adding it to a Collection is like adding a tag, and you can have multiple tags. So if you have multiple courses that need access to the same generic document just drag it into all of the Collections and all of these will be added to it.

If the student wants to share their work with you they only need to drag the work into the collection with their name this also means you can share feedback with them the same way.

As the sharing settings are taken from the ‘Collection’ rather than the individual document it can be better to set up a classwork ‘Collection’ shared with all students in the group then keep the Parent Course ‘Collection’ only shared with the teachers this way students can access the classwork but not each others documents.

I have found this to be a far more straight forward way of students sharing work with me and me sharing feedback with them (along with tidying up my own gdocs).

Students can also create their own collections this can be great for collaborative group work.

Jog the Web-Guided Research

2011-03-05T21:44:00.005+00:00

The first time I had used Jog the Web was with staff to try and guide them through a series of Moodle resources for a CPD session I was running. With staff it did not work as well as I had hoped as I they did not seem to 'get it'.

Jog the Web allows you to visit a number of sites in a structured order. It embeds the sites within a different page on which you can add titles and instruction. Staff members seemed to be confused by this, and the learning stumbled. Maybe due to my own explanation, lack of differentiation or the wrong choice of tool. I really just did not work.

However...In the last few weeks I gave it another go.

With my BTEC Graphics students I was struggling to find a way to structure a research task in a guided and supportive way. I decided the learning need suited trying this tool again.

The students are currently redesigning logos and the look of the colleges own Moodle site and they needed to become more aware of how to visually analyse design and what sort of questions to ask. Jog the web was ideally suited to this.

To create the jog:

I found a range of exemplar Moodles and opened them up on seperate browser tabs
Signed into Jog The Web (It is free to sign up though there is a premium option)
Clicked to create a new jog
Add title and details to categorise your jog

Then it is you simply add the pages to your jog

A more recent feature is that you can also add your own content to a range of templates. These could be used to punctuate your jog or possibly extension tasks.

Make sure you save each page at the bottom.

You can easily change the page order at any stage or edit any parts.

This tool definitely supported the learning of less-able students in the class but was not overly intrusive and allowed more-able students to work more independently. I it used to focus class discussion of Moodle sites as well as individually; where the questions along the top were used to help focus on what type of annotation might be appropriate for different sites.

Visual Identity

Students 'got this' and on the whole annotation has improved because of the individual support using this allows. One student said "When you look at something you make judgements in your head but I only realised this when what my head said matched the questions at the top".

What to do with left over drawing ink.

2011-02-28T21:08:00.004+00:00

Blank Colour Wheel

Colour Wheel Poster

I often use drawing ink in my classroom to demonstrate Tie-Dye and put colour theory in to practice. As drawing ink is not permenent/washable on fabric I use paper napkins as these are also a cheap alternative which means students can experiment with more folds and patterns. Though this method would also work with fabric dyes.

Equipment:

4 Plastic cups,

Red, Blue and Yellow Drawing ink

Paper Napkins

String

Latex Gloves

Aprons

Method

Fold the napkins in different ways to create patterns. All of the folding techniques I use are based on the basic accordion fold.

Fold Pattern 1

Fold Pattern 2

Fold Pattern 3

Once you have folded the napkin you tie it in one of 2 ways (the different ways will also create patterns). You can fold it into a cube and parcel tie it or fold it into a long rectangle and tie it length ways.

or

Now you are ready to start dying. Put the primary colours in 3 separate beakers (You can use Red, Yellow and Blue OR Magenta, Yellow and Cyan)

Dip the bound parcel into the different colours one after the other to different depths making sure your final dip completely coats the parcel. (Make sure you have gloves on) The squeeze the excess off into the 4th beaker then unwrap carefully. This part really has the WOW factor as the brown looking bundle turns into a rainbow.

Fold Pattern 1

Fold Pattern 2

Fold Pattern 3

As you will see the primary colours naturally mix to create the other colours.

What a difference a year makes-Twitterversary

2011-02-20T20:26:00.000+00:00

Yesterday was my 1st year Twitterversary and this has made me reflect on how using twitter has changed my life.

Now that sounds very dramatic but it has; especially when it comes to my professional life as a teacher.

In the past year using Twitter has:

Informed me of TeachMeets, events and conferences that I never knew existed-I even helped organise a TeachMeet (#TMX) and presented at the first TeachMeet I attended (#tmmoodle). I am now a regular at TeachMeets and really enjoy learning from other teachers and sharing my own classroom experiences.
Shared tools, learning opportunities and helped me develop teaching ideas for my classroom
Given me a platform to discuss and reflect upon my own classroom practice and teaching /education as a profession
Allowed me to take part in crowd-sourced projects that have given me reasons to develop my own Art and Illustration skills (for example #ukedchat and #pgcetips where I designed the illustrations for the book)
Helped me connect with hundreds of inspiring and engaging individuals.

Of course it is not Twitter that has actually enabled all these things to happen, it is the individuals that I follow and follow me back and the dialogue between us. Twitter is only the platform - it is the people that matter.

I feel that 1 year on I am a better teacher, not only because of the opportunities to reflect and learn from others that have arisen, also because of the confidence I have developed to experiment and question the learning in my classroom.

The most important thing that I will take away from my first year of Twitter is how much goodwill there is still in the world and how supportive communities of people are.

What does an art teacher do during the holidays?

2010-08-27T10:23:00.003+01:00

...Produce Artwork?

A few weeks ago #pgcetips caught my eye on twitter, I began to follow and contribute to it. Advice was flowing thick and fast on a number of different topics related to teacher training and classroom experience.
A tweet that particularly caught my eye was the call for illustrations to go alongside the tweets in the book so I offered to have a go.

One of the tasks I had set myself this summer was to get to grips with Adobe Illustrator, especially the 3D aspects, shading and rotation. This seemed like the perfect opportunity as I find it is always better to experiment with a real project goal. I just push myself harder this way.

Producing the series of images allowed me to experiment with the aspects of Illustrator I needed to enable me to teach these aspects in September, increased my knowledge of Photoshop at the same time and helped produce a crowd sourced book that will hopefully support future teachers.

I am glad I contributed to this project as my work has a purpose, it is frustrating that so much experimentation for my teaching either ends up languishing in a drawer or on a hard drive and it was good this time it has a life of its own and has given me project ideas for my students next year.

To find out more or to download/buy a copy visit http://www.pgceguide.com/

My first Jog

2010-06-07T23:13:00.002+01:00

After bookmarking http://www.jogtheweb.com months a go I have finally got round to giving it a go.

I found this extremely straight forward to use and to edit, you simply copy and paste web links then add some guidance or description.

My first jog is part of a staff development session tomorrow highlighting just some of the support from Moodle around the web...watch this space for how well it goes down.

I do think this is a tool I will definitely visit again in a classroom setting or for pre trip research as the guidance could actually set a task/question for the student i.e. find info on...

Online Learning

2010-05-12T21:20:00.001+01:00

This week I took part in Discover-e 2010. It was my first full online conference and it was definitely an experience I was glad I took part in. It was also the first time I had experienced Dimdim though I must admit it was a little glitchy in places.

The conference used Moodle as a platform which was interesting in itself, though the less "techie" delegates struggled at some points but it was a good structure to try to engage participation and place resources for access.

I liked the luchtime 'fun' activities as it showed lesser used elements of the learning platform. I also won a prize for this entry.

I can do it too...

2010-04-24T20:08:00.004+01:00

As a teacher I find you spend a lot of time showing students new techniques and other artists work and they rarely see what YOU can do. They often seem to forget that teachers have talents apart from the ability to 'Teach'.

I have brought work I have done in, in the past as examples for the students. I try to continue to be an Artist alongside being a teacher though this is not often possible.

Last weekend I spent some time producing some web graphics and vectors on Illustrator. When I went in on Monday I showed a couple of my students what I had created. They were really surprised at what I had achieved and it provoked analysis and debate on a level I had never experienced from these particular students. They were very inquisitive and questioned me for a long time about how I used the various tools achieve the overall effect.

This weekend I decided to dust off the paint brushes for the same reason. This weeks effort has turned into a very traditional style painting though I plan to develop this further over the next week, so it is very much a work in progress.

What the last week has very much reminded me is that students benefit form seeing the talents of their teachers it makes us more three dimensional to them and can often be used to stimulate inquiry, as they are tangible artifacts not just images in a book/website produced by a faceless artist.

Reflections...

2010-04-12T20:59:00.003+01:00


Tatton Park Gardens 10/04/10

Over the last few weeks I have watched a number of conferences, talks and live streams from around the world. They all seem to be getting very repetitive as similar ideas/enthusiasm seem to come up in all situations along with the same lack of understanding and vision. These are the same tech/learning related issues that are being debated in every educational institution across the country if not the world:
-How to engage learners
-Social networking
-Internet
-IT provision
-CPD (lifelong learning amongst teachers and lecturers)

Today I was watching the initial JISC Conference 2010, Pre conference debate "A perfect vision-Technology priorities for higher education" and comments William Dutton made reminded me of all those discussions at BectaX.

He talked about how we shift students to being able to create the internet, not just consume it? And that answers were unlikely to come from FE and HE.

He asked the question "Networked individuals will be the drivers of education in the future not institutions" -almost 80% of the audience agreed.

I personally agreed with alot of what he said as it was nothing really that had not already been said in all those other situations over the last few week. What was different was the back drop-HE and FE.

The thought that is going round and round in my head at the moment is why don't all educational institutions SHARE:
-Ideas
-Methods
-Practice
As all these different sectors have so much they could learn from each other. Stop focusing on the tech and the politics, focus on the teaching, learning and STUDENTS.

I know I learn from looking at different educators/sectors and thinking how could I apply that? Don't you?

Thought provoking times

2010-04-08T21:55:00.003+01:00

This has been a strange few months; my teaching senses seem to be heightened and I am becoming more aware of the world around me. This is due to a renewed passion for learning:

No longer reading blog posts in email and using a reader; Google Reader. Though this has also increased my reading from 8-12 blogs a day to 190+. (Perhaps excessive?)
Signing up to Twitter and following the teachers whos blogs I read and speakers I have come across at conferences. Obviously this grows as new tweeters catch my eye.
Blogging to vocalise/reflect/record thoughts (though at embryonic stage)

Having said all of this it is not just technology/social networking alone it is also a change in attitude. I was letting the system and 'politics' get to me and I made a conscious effort to stop getting frustrated and focus on what is best for my students and myself.

I can not change the whole education system over night and no one person can but what I can do is:

In the classroom:Be positive about students learning and my teaching. Continue to learn to be a better teacher and continue to reflect/assess/develop my practice. Prepare students as well as I can for the 21st century using what I can.
In my department: Support those around me who are less comfortable with technology. Find ways to build the community within the department both face 2 face and online. Celebrate our students.
In the college: Do what I can. Continue to push for CHANGE.

I feel there is something in the air at the moment; this was best highlighted in Tom Barretts recent post Whispering Change . I hope there is a revolution but for the moment I am focusing on what I can and chipping away.

Digital...art?

2010-03-28T17:09:00.004+01:00

Walking by Hannah Taylor
I am finding that as an Art teacher many assumptions are made about you and what goes on in the classroom; you either spend all you time teaching Photoshop on Mac's and that everything you do is digital or your teaching is described as "Arty Farty" through lack of understanding.
Teaching for an art teacher is really no different to any other subject. As a teacher you:

Share your enthusiasm to encourage students to be inquisitive, investigate and develop their skills.
Use examples from history and current culture to make learning relevant to their lives.
Employ everything in your arsenal of tools, materials and techniques to make teaching and learning possible.

Yes I do teach very traditional drawing and painting but I also teach Photoshop. I teach collage yet I also teach stop frame animation. I am struggling to put into words what a 21st century Art Teacher is, all I know is that we can no longer be pigeon holed the way we once were.

Presentation-e Curriculum Group

2010-03-21T22:14:00.004+00:00

www.wordle.net

Leaving staff development day part of me was really excited as it had brought out so much positivity and enthusiasm. I spent the weekend mulling over these my thoughts as I really wanted to find a way to encourage build upon and promote this positivity. This is what I have come up with:

The college could benefit from developing a pedagogy on how Moodle, the Internet and social media can be used within the new build to develop teaching and learning.

A good focus for this would be how to motivate, engage and enthuse students to ultimately facilitate them becoming more independent learners through the inclusion of Moodle, the Internet and social media.

How a potential pedagogy and exemplar materials can be developed:

The creation an "e Curriculum" group which meets to drive the development of Moodle. This allows us to harness some of the enthusiasm for this area and people to work in collaboration across curriculum areas rather than isolated departments.
Regular publishing of an "e newsletter" that showcases best practice and highlights articles of interest from around the web. This could also encourage the development of "PLN"s (Personal Learning Network) amongst staff.
A collaborative project which encourages all staff to contribute ideas. This could address an area of the curriculum all teachers teach i.e. year 1 tutorials. Teachers could be asked to contribute ideas for tutorial topics they think should be covered, and the scheme of work developed collaboratively online. "Crowd source a topic".

In the long run this path could reap a large variety of rewards:

Build on good practice from recent staff developments
Treat all staff as valued 'experts' with opportunities to contribute.
All staff would become 'collaborators'
Develop moodle into a learning environment not just a resource deposit.
Develop a core set of lesson plans for use in tutorials, specifically with a social media/interactive slant which teachers can use, regardless of their knowledge of these areas, eventually multi-skilling staff in e-technology which may raise their confidence to apply this to their own specialisms.

To fully embrace an "e Curriculum" the institution should address our approach to the internet, especially in light of recent research and this particular Ofsted report; 'The safe use of new technologies'

The OfSTED report shows, putting blocks on multiple websites is detrimental to students long-term Internet safety; students increasingly spend their lives with an unblocked Internet in their pockets. They embrace social media as a communication and collaboration tool. The college has recently began to leverage social media's promotional opportunities, yet we see this as an inappropriate medium for students to use within the college?

This makes students view the medium as forbidden, rather than something to be embraced as part of their daily life and to build upon this cultural change. If we embrace this change it gives the college the opportunity to show students how social media can be used safely and responsibly and how they can use these tools within their own development as a learner.

Facebook has a number of educational applications in the classroom, research, sharing course content (none of these mean 'friending' students). Not only this but it is:

No. 1 photo sharing application on the Web
More of our students have an account than do not
We can use it to show the true power of the web and develop student use for the positive rather than negative reasons.

Twitter has even more applications for teachers and can be used to improve sharing and motivation and even has a wide variety of classroom uses. Some of theses uses are:

Following news
Sharing information
Providing a back channel to a lesson
Broadcasting information
Sharing objectives
Live discussions
Following and taking part in backchannels to events.

In the world today it is not acceptable to block websites to manage classrooms, especially with the age group which we educate; we are trying to prepare students for university and work where no such barriers exist. We should not completely lift all barriers but we need to loosen our grip of the Internet to allow teachers and students to be more spontaneous in what they do and fully exploit some of the powers of social media, allowing us to educate students how to responsibly use social media and protect themselves.

We can not lift barriers without addressing our AUP (Acceptable usage policy) for staff and students that clearly outline:

Sanctions (possible use of white list)
Responsibilities '
What is 'Inappropriate

Becta in conjunction with many other agencies (including Ofsted) have guidance we could access to help us do this.

I feel if we can teach students to use technology to create, innovate, research, communicate, collaborate and learn we are preparing them for their 21st century future as none of us know what they will face.

Do I Tool-Belt it?

2010-03-17T21:22:00.004+00:00

http://www.flickr.com/photos/blue_diamond/ / CC BY-ND 2.0

I have been thinking about this all day, mainly due to a conversation on the way in to work...

Why do I choose to use specific pieces of software and not others? (In my planning, learning,teaching of lessons and 1 to 1 with students)

What are my criteria to decide value?

As teachers we all seem to have favorites; these are almost 'go to' pieces of software/online tools, yet we also try the new things that we find.

Today I have been trying to discover how I decide if it goes on to my "tool-belt" or it remains bookmarked for that rainy day.

To end up on my "tool-belt" it must meet the following criteria:

Be accessible to the students; easy to use, quick to pick up, add value to their lesson and be safe
Have a usable interface for me; save time (or use time effectively)
Be free to use

Examples of these tools I use daily if not weekly are:

delicious.com - http://delicious.com/sfcart
google reader (I really could not do without this. It allows me to learn)
wallwisher.com
wordle.net

Even though I have decided upon these criteria I must admit, occasionally for a bit of a sensory WOW now and then I resort to:

what do you think? what do you use on your "tool-belt"?

Continue to learn

2010-03-14T22:18:00.001+00:00

This week we had a staff training day on Friday. Volunteers were asked for to contribute ad share what they do in their classrooms that others might find useful, I had suggested earlier in the week we share our continuous learning which I must admit at the time provoked a puzzled look. I explained that I felt what we do well as a department is continue to learn; about our subject and other areas of interest we each hold, but we also share these things with each other. I chose this as I think it is the most important thing we have.

I believe that there are people out there who teach that do take their knowledge for granted and do not actively seek fresh new knowledge (if you feel I am wrong I apologize) and I think they do this for a number of reasons but mainly because something has made them loose enthusiasm.

Fridays presentations/sharing went well and seemed to encourage some people but most of all I will take away this thought...

"Keep your enthusiasm, hold on to it tight and don't let anyone take it away from you."

Do not take it for granted!

2010-02-28T22:48:00.002+00:00

This week I realised that I can not take online resources for granted. You have to have a backup plan...yesterday Wordle vanished. This is my favorite word cloud website as it is really straight forward to integrate in to lessons and the outcomes are very visual. There are other websites that produce similar word clouds but you get used to working with a particular tool, its like loosing your favourite pen; you can write with others but it is not the same.

Teaching and Learning-Sqworls

2010-02-21T14:19:00.002+00:00

These are the resources/programs and software that i have come across and are/might be useful.

New this week are tagul and visuwords.