Resilience

Here is an excerpt from an excellent TED talk by game designer Jane Mcgonigal. In it she discusses four types of resilience that we can strengthen to enable us to deal with life’s challenges more effectively, to live a life with fewer regrets and to live a scientifically proven 10 years longer.

Click this link for the excerpt: http://www.tubechop.com/watch/438406 (8:45)

Or watch the full version below:

 

ICT next goal poll

Use this poll to respond:

 

ICT in Maths

ICT use in Maths can serve a range of purposes, but here are the primary reasons why you might choose to use ICT:

• To engage students;
• To communicate ideas;
• To simulate results; and
• To model mathematical thinking.

Usually, any use of ICT in the classroom will be attempting to do many or all of these things, so there is obviously some overlap.

To engage students:

One of the buzzwords for engagement in marketing that is beginning to take hold in education is ‘gamification‘. Even though this sounds ridiculous, it is based on some compelling research, which looks at what motivates people to act (or in our context, what motivates students to learn).

Games based learning studies have suggested that learners feel more intrinsically motivated to succeed in games than they often do in education (that is not to say students cannot be extrinsically motivated).

The Khan Academy has received a lot of positive press recently for its attempts to bring some elements of gamification to its teaching of mathematics. It allows students to work through various lessons at their own pace, while providing some basic ‘game flavoured’ rewards. (Don’t underestimate this, though…it’s the reason I persist with Project Euler!)

Gamification can also be done very badly, particularly if it is not pedagogically authentic or not fun.

To communicate ideas:

We can communicate our ideas to students using various ICT tools, whether that is a platform like Moodle that allows us to host resources, or tools that allow us to provide our content in other ways, such as videos and podcasts.

Before we make our own instructive videos, though, it is worth knowing that the Khan Academy has also produced a maths tutorial on almost any subject you can think of. See their videos section for the comprehensive list.

The tools for making these ourselves are straightforward, too. You can borrow the simple FlipHD cameras from the library to record your own class lectures, or use screen capture software (like CamStudio or the screen recorder built into Smart Notebook).

There is also an iPad app, called ShowMe, that lets you sketch on the iPad and narrate as you do so. This could be used for your own videos or you could get the students to use it to show what they can share what they have learnt in their own way.

Hans Rosling’s talk about Gapminder and his attempts to enliven data for his students also shows another ICT solution for effectively communicating ideas:

Here is the chopped version.

Gapminder is free to use and is available to use online or as a software download.

To simulate results:

There are hundreds of math simulations available on the internet, and the only real problem is sifting through the sheer number of them to find the quality ones.

To my untrained eye the sims from PhET look good, such as this plinko probability simulation.

There are also sims available as flash objects in the Smart Notebook gallery for Maths, (but these need to be downloaded first).

Check out the link to various maths resources below for more sims and other maths related content.

To model mathematical thinking:

Using ICT to effectively teach mathematical thinking is the thing that most ICT proficient schools are currently struggling with.

Dan Meyer’s talk about improving Math Reasoning skills suggests that a FlipHD camera and a slight reworking of the text-book material can be a good way to start this process:

Here is the chopped version.

Dan Meyer also writes a blog in which he explores some of these ideas further and shares his favourite, re-worked math problems.

Resources

Simon Crooks Maths bookmarks – spend some time reviewing these and feedback to the group if you find something useful.

Twitter users can also follow the #mathchat hastag.

 

Using ICT in English

Whetting Our Appetites

Today we will look at some of the tools that are available for students to use when studying English.

The first tool we will look at is great for collaborative writing and note-taking. To demonstrate it’s effectiveness we will be keeping this afternoon’s minutes.

Please visit the following link to access the minutes: http://typewith.me/uU0WmlAg1b

Firstly, I’d like you to answer some quick questions (Click on the questions to answer them):

Do you sometimes struggle to get all of the kids to offer a response in class?

Have you ever wanted to survey the class to assess how many feel confident, anonymously, so as to get genuine responses?  (e.g. honestly, have you read the book…)

What is your favorite novel?

Who do you think Jackson’s favorite poet is?

Now take a moment to think about this polling website and discuss possible applications for one of your classes.

Once you have discussed potential uses in the classroom, please add your suggestions to this noticeboard: http://www.stixy.com/guest/127600

Gavin will type the suggestions in to the minutes to summarise our discussion thus far.

Now, how might we use http://stixy.com in class?

Belinda can record our discussion in the minutes…

Here is another tool I used to do a similar thing (it’s clickable…) :

What is the point of all this so far?

Shannon may take over the minutes…

You can download the following document: ICT in English. This is a detailed breakdown of the ACARA standard skills for ICT use in English. (I wrote it, not ACARA…hopefully that means it’s less dense).

I’ve then examined some of the tools that can help students use ICT for each of these skills, some of which we have already played with.

What next?

I think the biggest potential that ICT has for English is in the communicative products that the kids create (i.e. the stuff the kids write, make and say).

1. Please take a moment to look at the curriculum grid for term 3 for one of the year levels you are involved in;
2. Look at the tasks that kids are currently working on in term three;
3. Ask yourself do ‘any of these tasks encourage kids to use ICT’?
4. If not, pick a task that might lend itself to using ICT. Consider what the goals of that task are, and if they would not be hindered by the use of ICT, suggest a way the task might be ‘updated’.
5. If there are plenty of tasks that encourage the use of ICT, ask yourself how well they offer kids the opportunity to develop skills in the way they ‘investigate, create and communicate.’ How could one of the tasks be improved?

For example, if students are asked to present an oral presentation, what is the key thing being assessed? Is it the quality of their research? Does it matter if it is presented at the front of the class? If not, consider allowing kids to video their presentaion as a news bulletin or documentary, or record it as a podcast or radio show. This way they will still be able to be assessed for the initial criteria, the quality of their research and the clarity of their presentation, but they will also create a richer variety of communicative products. It also allows them a greater sense of choice in how they present their information…how PoLTy….

Bonus Points

Using the list of programs and websites from the ICT in English document, or by relying on a well aimed Google search, identify one tool that you might use for this updated task.

Plenary

Creating our own communicative product. Using the Flip cameras (available from the library) please record a brief summary of:

1. One thing you have found useful; and
2. One thing you would like to explore further and why.

(We will give these to our beloved team leader as a little gift!)

If you have any questions about today’s session, please leave a comment in reply to this post.

 

 

 

TPACK: Technology, Pedagogy, and Content Knowledge

Inspired by this post at the Concrete Classroom, I thought it would be wise to consider which pedagogies are available to teachers, depending on their desired content and the available technology.

I came across this list of pedagogies, which is pretty comprehensive, but does have some holes in it: http://serc.carleton.edu/sp/library/pedagogies.html

The Look2Learn prompts suggested by Tom March also provide some pedagogically useful thinking routines that complement rich content and technology use too.