Wednesday, January 26, 2011

Who wants to be a millionaire?

At the moment we have a trial account to try out Millionaire for Schools. I've tried it in class and it is very easy to use and the kids absolutely loved it. That said, I tested their retention the next class and it was not equally amazing...

This video is hard-sell, but it does show clearly how to use the tool.




Alternatively we can use one of the free versions available on the web. Both are quick and easy to set up.
Choose between:

Tuesday, January 25, 2011

Workshops: chat and community

incl. Facebook

to be completed...

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Workshops: 3D technology

Workshops: mobile technologies

to be completed...

Workshops: Games Based Learning

to be completed...

Make your IWB interactive

To make IWBs interactive, students need to be able to communicate with the board from their computers or mobile devices (as well as with board pens).

In the future, they should be able to send graphics, videos, voice and text to the 'shared' central board. But for the time-being, just being able to 'post' their responses to a question would be a positive first step.

To do this, you can use Google Docs. If you use 'Forms' you can send a question to a student, or visualise it on a website and then 'collect' student responses in real time in an Excel document. You can then create a graph to visualise the responses.

Alternatively you can use J2Vote from the company just2easy.com which is simple, effective, colourful and at 99 GBP, with a 20% discount until 13th February, possibly affordable too!

IWB Games

Alternative 1: Create your own

There are a lot of free tools for creating 'games', but they can be difficult to configure, slow to set-up and practical, but not 'professional' in appearance.

One I use is hotpotatoes which can  be inserted into Moodle (and so can be evaluated)














There's also puzzlemaker.com for worksheet crosswords, wordsearches, etc.


Alternative 2: games 'pack'

Taskmagic.co.uk have taken about 50 of these simple flash games and brought them together in one package, allowing:
  • a different game each time you want to revise vocabulary, definitions, key terms and concepts (with text, graphics and sound)
  • a professional, colourful interface
  • immediate transfer of items from one game format to another
  • full IWB compatibility
  • games ranging from space invaders and football to old-fashioned card-matching
Alternative 3: teachers sharing their games

There are various sites on the web where you can find one, a couple or a collection of games made by teachers. An example is www.superteachertools.com.  Xtec has a list of around 120 sites.

Economics


Mr Aznar's annual stock market challenge to his students is difficult to improve upon. However, it may be made easier by some software which creates a virtual stock market with multiple companies and a whole universe of news events that affect the markets: www.stockmarketchallenge.co.uk

The plus points:
  • Each day's trading takes 25 minutes: leaving time to analyse, discuss and plan... or to teach other topics. 
  • The software is available in Spanish, English and French (but the games have to be played in one language or the other: you cannot keep switching between the two). 
  • Schools already use the software as a cross-curricular tool, with English departments using the input as GCSE Speaking and Listening assessment.
  • There is a thriving community against which to compare, compete or with whom to share.

History / Geography/ Socials

Digital Historical Atlas

One stand had a straightforward and practical Digital Historical Atlas with 50 maps and related images, animations, film-clips and text. It is not GoogleEarth-style 3D-rendered, but it would help in class if the information fits the syllabus and/or the interests of the students.


A sample map in pdf format is here.

Google street view as a teaching tool

Google street view is fantastic... but it doesn't always get:
  • into a pedestrian area, 
  • into a castle's grounds or 
  • onto a prehistoric site. 

This provider, eye-to-eyesoft.co.uk, does just that, with sites organised into categories, with brief text descriptions and with the option for placing on the Learning Platform for use as an image and text bank. 





Before purchasing, it is probably a good idea to look at free alternatives, including www.worldmapper.org, which distorts world maps depending on the variable being studied: population, production, resources, etc.

Platforms

The team sent to BETT did not look specifically at platforms, becuase the school has already chosen one. That said, a couple of clean user-friendly layouts did catch our eye. In particular eschools, for which we have access to a demo, if anyone is interested.