Linoit

Used Linoit for the first time with yr10 students and this was the response from a 5 min starter!

Very happy with it and as it is embedded on the VLE it is easy to access and refer back to continually throughout the unit of work. Next step is for the students to post their progress...

Trying to use Linoit with my classes. I have been using Wallwisher, mainly for A4L purposes, but it has been a little problematic. I hope that they resolve the problema and I can cotinue to incorporate it.

Well, Linoit looks just as interesting. There are features to add stickies, attach documents, video and images. Stickies can be tagged which is good. I am using it as a support for a multimedia product unit. If students have a problem they post and tag a red stickie, blue for possible solutions, green for definite solutions and yellow for ideas or resources to share with the whole class. It sounds simple enough so I hope that it develops further.

Twitter for Education

Just unleashed Twitter with my students last week.

I say "unleashed" because as a teacher I am finding it to be a fantastic tool for developing ideas and exploring new tools. I have a separate twitter account that I use to follow inspiring teachers and educators around the world, such as @infernaldepart, @deputymitchell and @derekrobertson. These teachers are across all key stages and subject areas which makes it more exciting to see how they are developing teaching and learning within their own specialism. I have been using my iPad to access Twitter and I have it installed on my Blackberry. At times I can't put it down, even when the football is on.

There are so many useful discussions taking place such as #ukedchat and #ictcurric.

I am currently developing the use of Twitter with my Sixth Form ICT class. I have set an separate account and list to keep our tweets private. The whole idea is that they can share resources, links or ideas and also seek help or support when needed from their peers. I have only began to scratch the surface of how it can be used and can't wait to see how much more the students can do with it!

QR Codes in the Classroom.....kind of!

Just tried to use a QR Code with my sixth form class for no other reason than to judge their reaction.

Surprisingly none of them new what it was! Therefore the homework was two fold, 1) figure out what I had just given them and 2) Complete the "hidden" homework.

If you have any ideas of how to use QR Codes more constructively in a lesson I would be grateful to hear from you. I can see potetntial in it but my brain has gone to sleep.....ZZZZZZZZ.

David McCandless: The beauty of data visualization | Video on TED.com

David McCandless: The beauty of data visualization Video on TED.com

Very interesting ideas on the use of data and data sets! 100% worth watching and implementing in the classroom.

Learning Without Frontiers- Update 2

Should be a good day ahead...games based learning is the focus.

Some excellent ideas from from Derek Robertson-Consolarium, (blog). My next focus is definitely going to be games based learning and raising it's profile in school. I'm sure students will take no convincing of it's benefits so need to work with colleagues to convince them!

Also, I want to drive forward the "power up" of the school. Bring your mobile to school day?? Bring your hand held games device to school day? Use your social networking to connect school and students....and break down barriers....and remove myths surrounding their use in education?

So many ideas and initiatives form the LWF 11, that it's difficult to choose the best one to focus on. Need to prioritize some of these and look for the idea that will make the biggest impact. How do I measure that? My teaching? Whole school issues? Whole community issues???

Some more excellent speakers in the afternoon that helped to pose important questions. I think that one of the main topics that I will take from the whole event is about rainsing the profile of students to become content creators and not just consumers.

LWF 11-update

It's been a great day so far...the highlight has definitely been Evan Roth. He has such a creative mind and it's making me jealous.

Workshop on creating an app is fun and I will use it in the future with my students. Hope to develop some useful apps too with a small group and would love to collaborate with other schools in doing so.

Just starting to really use Twitter too, why have I not used it before now? @gmcICT

My next step is to get this live in the classroom as a back channel to support learning!

Some good stuff from Tony Vincent too!

Excellent presentation from Tim Rylands. Can't wait to look into all of his work and the recommended apps.

Drop Box

Just started using Drop Box for the first. I had heard of it a few years ago, but like most things never got time to play around with it. I installed the app on my iPad and uploaded some of my work using my laptop. Very suprised to find out that the iPad allows you to read Microsoft Word and PowerPoint. Obviously this is a good place to store files and folders and to share work with colleagues and students. I look forward to using it in the classroom!