Each week I post a photograph of something that I have seen, like or has just made me laugh.
Like many Scottish teachers I hope that the Donaldson Review of Teacher Education in Scotland improves the quality of amount of ICT input in Scotland’s Teacher Training Institutes.
I spotted this machine in the corridors of Moray House this week… I was going to see if it still worked but it only took an ‘old style’ 50 pence!
I promised I would post the notes and slides from the talk here. But as they are very similar to a number of other talks that I have recently given.
Just have a look at these posts instead as they deal with all of the points that I mentioned today:
If you were at the talk I would welcome any feedback either by email (my contact details are top right) or please just leave a comment below. As I said today, feel free to challenge anything that I said.
I’ve had the opportunity to speak to the Secondary PGDE Students at Edinburgh University for a few years now. But this week I was given the chance to speak to the BEd Primary Students on ICT in Education.
I’ve been trying to up-date my handout and slideshow for my ‘new tools’ talk for some time now - I’m still not quite happy with it but its getting there and I used it on Tuesday.
If you were at the presentation I hope you enjoyed it and as promised here are the slides and links that I referred to. Please feel free to get in touch and leave a comment if you have any questions.
Main content and links:
1. The use of ICT
Generators
Use generators to liven up your lessons and to set learning / home learning objectives in a more creative way. Some good examples include:
Fodey – Includes the famous wizard text and the newspaper generator
Wordle – Turn paragraphs of text into beautiful work clouds (try it with your exam syllabus departmental development plan or anything else you can think of!)
Smoke Signal Generator - Make smoke signals come out of your location. Imagine if you were learning about Japan and your lesson objective floated out of Japan on a Google Map.
2. 21st Century Students
21st century students expect a new level of engagement and they have very high expectations. Many young people now exist in a high tech, multimedia rich and highly glamorized world. We need to be prepared to deal with and capitalize on this in our classrooms.
Tips:
3. The Basic Tools
Search
Tips and good search engines:
Use the Advanced Google Search – remember you can use this to get specific file type returns such as just PowerPoint or shockwave flash (animation) files.
Quintura - provides a really good visual search – excellent to use with children on project work.
Google News - searches the most up to date news web sites.
Images
Don't forget Advanced Google Image Search
Flickr can provide really good and powerful images that can be used in education. Many of these images are are licensed under creative commons. Which means if properly attributed they can be used in education for non-commercial purposes.
Flickr Slideshow - this will be the quickest and most powerful lesson starter you ever make. More details here.
3. The audience tools
Tools such as blogs, podcasts and wikis allow you to quickly
publish information to the Internet. Most importantly they can be used
as an alternative to traditional assessment and give the children a
real sense of audience. Use these tools to make your own World Wide Wall Display.
Audacity is a free audio editing piece of software that will also w you to edit voice and audio recordings. It is also available as a Portable App – which means you can run it off a memory stick.
Think about getting your students to write Wikipedia articles. Also make sure your students know how to use Wikipedia. I've written in length about his here.
CANVAS (Children’s Art in the Virtual Arena of Scotland) – Is a new LTS project that will allow children to display artwork in an on-line world. More information here.
4. The Creative Tools
5. Computer Games Based Learning
Good case studies of games based learning available on the LTS Consolarium website.
Here are some examples of web
based games that can be used for home learning:
Remember the use of off the shelf games and games consoles can make a massive contribution to education. For more information in the use of computer games to improve literacy have a look at this recent workshop that we ran in the Highlands.
6. Don't stop learning
Develop your personal learning network by finding out more about:
Teachers TV – good classroom and professional development resources
Slideshare – A place to up-load and view PowerPoint and other presentations
Microsoft Innovative Teachers Network – join and collaborate with teachers globally
Follow some other teachers blogs and find out about their classroom practice. For starters try:
Tom Barrett - Primary School Teacher, technology advocate and all round good guy form England
Jen Deyenberg - Primary School Teacher, Technology advocate and GPS Jedi from Canada
7. Finally
If you were at the presentation. Please leave any comments and feedback from the presentation below or get in touch via email (see top right for details).
The Times online reports that:
"The Scottish government has announced a full-scale review of teacher training ahead of next year’s launch of the Curriculum for Excellence.
Conducted by Graham Donaldson, the senior chief inspector at HM Inspectorate of Education, the review will not only evaluate training at the student stage, but also assess how teachers develop skills throughout their careers.
It is scheduled to begin in January and will report in August".
I have to say I'm pleased about this and that I think that initial teacher education (ITE) does need a review.
I worry that some institutes could prepare students better for a career in Education. I also worry that the quality of teacher training varies considerably for institute to institute.
What do you think that students teachers need to know more about in their Post Graduate Diploma (PGDE) Year? Leave your comments below…
I met with an enthusiastic bunch of PGDE Students at Edinburgh University today where we talked about ICT in Education.
Today I was asked to present to the PGDE students at the University of Strathclyde on ICT in Geography. I’ve done these presentations at Edinburgh and Strathclyde for the past few years and really enjoy doing them. It’s a great opportunity to get back and think about the subject that I trained in as a teacher.
1. The use of ICT
Generators
Use generators to liven up your lessons and to set learning / home learning objectives in a more creative way. Some good examples include:
Fodey – Includes the famous wizard text and the newspaper generator
Wordle – Turn paragraphs of text into beautiful work clouds (try it with your exam syllabus departmental development plan or anything else you can think of!)
Smoke Signal Generator - Make smoke signals come out of your location.
2. 21st Century Students
21st century students are a new bread of student. They exist in a high tech, multimedia and glamorized world. We need to be prepared for this in our classrooms.
Tips:
3. The Basic Tools
Search
Tips and good search engines:
Use the Advanced Google Search – remember you can use this to get specific file type returns such as just PowerPoint or shockwave flash (animation) files.
Quintura provides a really good visual search – excellent to use with children on project work.
Images
Don't forget Advanced Google Image Search
Flickr Vision – a great Flickr / Yahoo Maps Mashup that gives s sense of place to images around the world.
PowerPoint or PowerPointless
Seek advice from the children on the design of your slides.
Highlight key words
Think about hyper linking keywords to on-line dictionaries (often on-line dictionaries also allow children the opportunity to ‘play’ the word to them)
Put in catch up slides and consider using PowerPoint as a simple form of differentiation.
3. The audience tools
Web
2.0 tools such as blogs, podcasts and wikis allow you to quickly
publish information to the Internet. Most importantly they can be used
as an alternative to traditional assessment and give the children a
real sense of audience. Use these tools to make your own World Wide Wall Display.
Some Good Blogging Tools include wordpress, blogger and typepad.
Audacity is a free audio editing piece of software that will also allow you to edit voice and audio recordings. It is also available as a Portable App – which means you can run it off a memory stick.
My Higher Geography MP4 and MP3 revision files are available here.
Think about getting your students to write Wikipedia articles.
5. The Creative Tools
Comic Brush – On-line comic book creator (a bit like Comic Life – but free!) Pixton – Sophisticated on-line comic book creator
Go Animate – Robust on-line combined on-line / animation software
Movie Maker - Free video editing software for the PC
6. Cross Curricular Tools
Google Earth – Watch my 15 minute mini-note from Teachmeet NorthEast on how to use Google Earth in the Classroom here.
7. EDUtainment (learning through play)
Develop your personal learning network by finding out more about:
Teachers TV – good classroom and professional development resources
Slideshare – A place to up-load and view PowerPoint and other presentations
Microsoft Innovative Teachers Network – join and collaborate with teachers globally
9. Finally
Please leave any comments and feedback from the presentation below.
Really enjoyed my presentation yesterdaymorning to the Edinburgh PGDE (Secondary) group – such an enthusiastic group of new teachers. Then I had to jump on a plane to London and then on to Vienna for the Microsoft European Innovative Teachers Network meeting – we will be showcasing our Guitar Hero project.
Anyway, I’ve just finished the virtual handout from this morning’s presentation. Feel free to leave feedback below and thank you to the very positive comments that have come via twitter. The slides that I used during the presentation this morning are embedded below: I also referred to the following links: Generators Use generators to liven up your lessons and to set learning / homework objectives in a more creative way. Foley – Includes the famous wizard text and the newspaper generator Lingo to Word – Translate English into ‘text’ speak Wordle – Turn paragraphs of text into beautiful work clouds (try it with your exam syllabus departmental development plan or anything else you can think of!) Search Use the Advanced Google Search – remember you can use this to get specific file type returns such as just PowerPoint or shockwave flash (animation) files. Quintura provides a really good visual search – excellent to use with children on project work. Google News – searches the most up-to-date news web sites Google Scholar – searches just academic papers (might be useful for your professional project?) Finding Images Remember there is also an Advanced Google Image Search Flickr can often provide really good and powerful images that can be used in education without breach of copyright. Flickr Vision – a great Flickr / Yahoo Maps Mashup that gives s sense of place to images around the world. You can also use flickr to create quick slideshows BigHugeLabs lets you do all sorts of things with images such as make motivational posters. Microsoft DeepZoom allows you to layer photographs. Below is the fair-trade example that I used during the talk. PowerPoint or PowerPointless Seek advice from the children on the design of your slides. Use lots of images and be sparing with the text Highlight key words. Think about hyper linking keywords to on-line dictionaries (often on-line dictionaries also allow children the opportunity to ‘play’ the word to them) Put in catch up slides Consider using PowerPoint as a simple form of differentiation. Use of Web 2.0 Tools Web 2.0 tools such as blogs, podcasts and wikis allow you to quickly publish information to the Internet. Most importantly they can be used as an alternative to traditional assessment and give the children a real sense of audience. Use these tools to make your own World Wide Wall Display. Some Good Blogging Tools include wordpress, blogger and typepad. Audacity is a free audio editing piece of software that will also w you to edit voice and audio recordings. It is also available as a Portable App – which means you can run it off a memory stick. Think about getting your students to write Wikipedia articles. Other great sources of Information to help you network, share and stay up-to-date Learning and Teaching Scotland Website – The online service has lots of great content specifically for Scottish teachers GLOW Scotland – Scotland’s National Intranet Teachers TV – good classroom and professional development resources Slideshare – A place to up-load and view PowerPoint and other presentations Microsoft Innovative Teachers Network – join and collaborate with teachers globally Twitter – A micro blogging service. You can follow me here. Internet Safety Digital literacy is the responsibility of all teachers. Be very careful what you put on-lineICT in Education 2009 PGDE (Teacher Training) Presentation at Edinburgh University
View more presentations from olliebray.
Over the last few week I have had the privaledge to be able to speak to a number of PGDE Geography Students about the future and the use of ICT in Geography and I have finally got around to up-loading the on-line handout.
Below are some of the slides that I used during the presentation:
I also referred to the following
links during my presentation:
1. Generators:
The Generator Blog – 100’s of generators to make learning tasks fun!
Wordle - Turn Text into words
Lingo to Word - Turn normal sentences into 'text speak'
2. Search Engines:
Google – The biggest search database on the planet. Always
use the Advanced
Search function and remember that a Google
Advanced Search can return searches for specific file types (including
PowerPoint and flash animation).
Google News – Searches the latest and historical news on
the web.
Google Scholar –
Searches academic journals and papers.
Searchmash – A Google Side Project that shows normal search
results but also image results, blog results, video results and Wikipedia
entries all on one page.
Qunitura – A visual search – great for project work.
Clusty – specialises in searching the deep web.
3. Using Images:
Everything
that you need top know about images including some flickr tutorials can be
found here
and as a video
tutorial here.
4. Presentation Tools
For every thing that you need to
know about PowerPoint and other presentation tools (including Captivate) visit SWict.com.
Death by PowerPoint is not an uncommon phrase in schools and conferences these days. PowerPoint is a powerful presentation tool but you need to be careful how you use it as a teaching resource.
Some tips to improve your presentations.....
Remember to involve pupils in the
design and aesthetics of slides. What might look great to you might look awful to a 14 year
old. After you have shown a presentation to a class gather some feedback on it
(see idea 15 or idea 2). Ask pupils what they though of the presentation, not
the topic. Was there to much text, what did they think of the pictures, what
were the animations like etc...
In the past I have given students
PowerPoint presentations to take home and edit for me.
Use flash animation in your
presentation.
As long as your computer is connected to the internet you can get flash to play
directly from a web site to your PowerPoint presentation. Click
here for tutorial telling you how you can do this. Now all you have to do
if find some animations on the web, below is a summary of some good places to
start looking.
You can search for Shockwave
Flash Files on the web by useing the Google Advanced Search.
There are also a number of
commercial resources available which include flash files. Check out Boardworks and order a
free sample CD.
Include catch up slides (if getting
students to copy things down from the board) and think about using PowerPoint for
differentiation.
Link difficult words and terminology
to sites like wikitionary.
This can also provide useful tangents and discussion points.
BBC Picture of the Day is a useful
resource, ‘The
Day in Pictures’
5. Web 2.0
Web 2.0 is a fairly new term that describes some of the recent changes
to the World Wide Web. Traditionally the web was a place where people could get
information it was ‘read only’. However in the last 5 years the web has
developed. Now as well as being able to read information it is also possible to
write to the web. Its two way, read and write. Wikipedia has a good article on
web 2.0 and you can find that here. I would also
recommend the ‘Coming of Age’ a free
on-line book which talks about the new World Wide Web. Some people including Will
Richardson prefer the name the read / write web.
Some of the Web 2.0 tools that we have available to us as teachers are
Blogs, Wikis and Podcasts.
1) A blog is an on-line journal at can allow people
to comment. They can be personal or public.
2) A podcast is an on-line radio programme that
anyone can download. You can subscribe to podcasts through sites like itunes,
which mean that new episodes instantly get delivered to you when they are
produced.
3) A wiki is a web page that anyone can edit and
up-date. Wikipedia is the classic example of this. Why
not get your students to create, edit and maintain a page?
6. Mobile Phones
Most students have
mobile phones these days. To find out different uses for mobile phones in the
classroom have a look at this
article that I wrote as part of the 50 ideas presentation.
7. Internet safety
Think You Know – Useful
information on Internet safety.
I’ve been
doing a lot of work on Internet Safety recently and I think it should be the
responsibility of all teachers and school staff. If your interested you can
find more information here.
8. Some Useful Geography Games
Classic Sim City – Useful for the Settlement Unit of Standard Grade.
Ordnance Survey Map Games – Good for homework.
Fantasy Famer – Manage a farm for a year
Stop Disasters Simulator – Can you protect the world against floods, volcanoes, earthquakes and other nasty stuff?
Sim Sweat Shop – What is it really like working in a sweat shop in a less economically developed country?
9. Google Earth
Here are some simple ideas for
using Google Earth in the classroom.
10. Other related posts:
Good Luck with your first placement!
I was
really privileged to get an opportunity to speak to the Edinburgh University
PGCE Students today about ICT. Although I still have concerns that the only
compulsory 1 hour ICT lecture is left until over two thirds of the way through
the course!
Anyway, feedback
has been really positive and I hope that some of the audience might follow this
up with emails or comments here.
I referred to the following
links during my presentation:
1. Generators:
The Generator Blog – 100’s of generators to make learning tasks fun!
2. Search Engines:
Google – The biggest search database on the planet. Always
use the Advanced
Search function and remember that a Google
Advanced Search can return searches for specific file types (including
PowerPoint and flash animation).
Google News – Searches the latest and historical news on
the web.
Google Scholar –
Searches academic journals and papers.
Searchmash – A Google Side Project that shows normal search
results but also image results, blog results, video results and Wikipedia
entries all on one page.
Qunitura – A visual search – great for project work.
Clusty – specialises in searching the deep web.
3. Using Images:
Everything
that you need top know about images including some flickr tutorials can be
found here
and as a video
tutorial here.
4. Presentation Tools
For every thing that you need to
know about PowerPoint and other presentation tools (including Captivate) visit SWict.com.
Death by PowerPoint is not an uncommon
phrase in schools and conferences these days. PowerPoint is a powerful
presentation tool but you need to be careful how you use it as a teaching
resource.
Remember to involve pupils in the
design and aesthetics of slides. What might look great to you might look awful to a 14 year
old. After you have shown a presentation to a class gather some feedback on it
(see idea 15 or idea 2). Ask pupils what they though of the presentation, not
the topic. Was there to much text, what did they think of the pictures, what
were the animations like etc...
In the past I have given students
PowerPoint presentations to take home and edit for me.
Use flash animation in your
presentation.
As long as your computer is connected to the internet you can get flash to play
directly from a web site to your PowerPoint presentation. Click
here for tutorial telling you how you can do this. Now all you have to do
if find some animations on the web, below is a summary of some good places to
start looking.
You can search on for Shockwave
Flash Files on the web by putting the subject you are looking for into the
search box followed by a space then filetype:swf. For example try typing
Hurricane Katrina filetype:swf into Google.
There are also a number of
commercial resources available which include flash files. Check out Boardworks and order a
free sample CD.
Include catch up slides (if getting
students to copy things down from the board) and think about using PowerPoint for
differentiation.
Link difficult words and terminology
to sites like wikitionary.
This can also provide useful tangents and discussion points.
BBC Picture of the Day is a useful
resource, ‘The
Day in Pictures’
5. Web 2.0
Web 2.0 is a fairly new term that describes some of the recent changes
to the World Wide Web. Traditionally the web was a place where people could get
information it was ‘read only’. However in the last 5 years the web has
developed. Now as well as being able to read information it is also possible to
write to the web. Its two way, read and write. Wikipedia has a good article on
web 2.0 and you can find that here. I would also
recommend the ‘Coming of Age’ a free
on-line book which talks about the new World Wide Web. Some people including Will
Richardson prefer the name the read / write web.
Some of the Web 2.0 tools that we have available to us as teachers are
Blogs, Wikis and Podcasts.
1) A blog is an on-line journal at can allow people
to comment. They can be personal or public.
2) A podcast is an on-line radio programme that
anyone can download. You can subscribe to podcasts through sites like itunes,
which mean that new episodes instantly get delivered to you when they are
produced. Ewan Macintosh once described this to me as
the difference between going to collect your paper and having it delivered to
your house.
3) A wiki is a web page that anyone can edit and
up-date. Wikipedia is the classic example of this. Why
not get your students to create, edit and maintain a page?
6. Mobile Phones
Most students have
mobile phones these days. To find out different uses for mobile phones in the
classroom have a look at this
article that I wrote as part of the 50 ideas presentation.
7. Internet safety
Think You Know – Useful
information on Internet safety.
I’ve been
doing a lot of work on Internet Safety recently and I think it should be the
responsibility of all teachers and school staff. If your interested you can
find more information here.
8. Other related posts:
Good Luck with your last placement!
I was at Edinburgh University for a meeting
today (more about this later) and was also asked to speak to some of this years
PGDE Geography Students. We had a good opportunity to discuss the basics of
using ICT in the Geography classroom and we also talked about the possibility
of using some new web 2.0 tools for teachers.
If you were at the talk today, you can access all of the material that I used here:
1. Introduction to ICT in Geography
· where am I coming from?
· where is geography going?
2. ICT: Getting the Basics Right
· using the internet
· using video
· using images
· using presentation tools
3. ICT: New Tools for Teachers
· web 2.0
· blogs
· podcasts
· wiki’s
· mobile phones
· games in education
You might also find my presentation from last years SAGT Conference Interesting, ’50 Ideas in 50 Minutes’ (although it does take a little longer than 50 minutes).
Good luck with your first placement!
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