Friday, 15 February 2008
Priorities, priorities!
In this activity from www.classtools.net you can ask students to prioritise a list of factors. In this example I am using it to get students to look at tenses, and there is only one correct sequence (it isn't self-correcting, so I'm not redundant yet) but it may be in your subject the order can be negotiable (more fun really). This particular recipe took 5 minutes to cook, and will feed 20 odd students for up to 20 minutes. Good value in my book.
Tuesday, 12 February 2008
Dustbin Game
At www.classtools.net you will find 15 flash games or templates you can use to create great activities in class, from essay planning and timelines to prioritising activities and arcade games. You can then embed the activity on an IWB flipchart page or in your blog by copying the code they provide. This is my first attempt (took a grand total of 10 minutes to make) - so if you can still remember your O Level (GCSE?) French, have a go...
Thursday, 7 February 2008
Comments
Some ideas I've used so far for getting students to comment:
rate your mates: this is an idea from Ewan McIntosh (he has a fantastic blog on all aspects of blogging, podcasting and new technologies). once some student work has been uploaded (PowerPoint for example) ask students to post two stars and a wish/two rocks and one sucks for a bit of peer assessment
planning: ask students to post ideas on how to revise, or how they are going to tackle work over the holidays.
ask a discussion or even exam question and get them to share ideas
never-ending story: ask students to write a paragraph of a story and then supply three words for next students to use in their continuation paragraph
So talking of comments, please add your with ideas of how we could use this feature of blogs to get interactive with the students.
rate your mates: this is an idea from Ewan McIntosh (he has a fantastic blog on all aspects of blogging, podcasting and new technologies). once some student work has been uploaded (PowerPoint for example) ask students to post two stars and a wish/two rocks and one sucks for a bit of peer assessment
planning: ask students to post ideas on how to revise, or how they are going to tackle work over the holidays.
ask a discussion or even exam question and get them to share ideas
never-ending story: ask students to write a paragraph of a story and then supply three words for next students to use in their continuation paragraph
So talking of comments, please add your with ideas of how we could use this feature of blogs to get interactive with the students.
Wednesday, 6 February 2008
Blog club task two
It was great that we now have several blogs going, including Ian's Economics blog with lesson content and specification details, the English department's Shakespeare quiz, Biology's bird-identifying competition and Jacqueline's library blog with plans to share book reviews.
If you haven't yet started a blog, follow the instructions under "Step One". Once done, go to your "dashboard" (you'll need to log in by clicking on the "Meta" "log in" or "admin" link) and post a few entries - anything will do, you're just practising! Remember posts are displayed most recent at the top. Remember to fill in the "tag" and/or "categories" boxes with as many key words as you wish - it will make your blog much easier to manage and use. If you are using edublogs, go to "Manage pages" and create a few new pages - remembering these exist outside of the usual hierarchy of blog posts. You might assign different pages to different key stages classes, topics, Units or skills. Tabs for your new pages will appear at the top of your main page.
Last task: either do this yourself or ask someone to do it for you. Access the blog without logging in and fill in a comments box (follow in-screen instructions). This is the only way other users will be able to post on the blog, unless you give them authoring rights. In edublogs you will then receive an e-mail, inviting you to moderate that comment. Once you have moderated, it will be posted automatically. Have a think about how you might encourage girls to participate actively in your blog by commenting (some ideas from me next post).
Next bloggers' club will be after half-term. Have a good week off.
If you haven't yet started a blog, follow the instructions under "Step One". Once done, go to your "dashboard" (you'll need to log in by clicking on the "Meta" "log in" or "admin" link) and post a few entries - anything will do, you're just practising! Remember posts are displayed most recent at the top. Remember to fill in the "tag" and/or "categories" boxes with as many key words as you wish - it will make your blog much easier to manage and use. If you are using edublogs, go to "Manage pages" and create a few new pages - remembering these exist outside of the usual hierarchy of blog posts. You might assign different pages to different key stages classes, topics, Units or skills. Tabs for your new pages will appear at the top of your main page.
Last task: either do this yourself or ask someone to do it for you. Access the blog without logging in and fill in a comments box (follow in-screen instructions). This is the only way other users will be able to post on the blog, unless you give them authoring rights. In edublogs you will then receive an e-mail, inviting you to moderate that comment. Once you have moderated, it will be posted automatically. Have a think about how you might encourage girls to participate actively in your blog by commenting (some ideas from me next post).
Next bloggers' club will be after half-term. Have a good week off.
Tuesday, 29 January 2008
New blog
Julian has set up in Blogger, so another one added to our blogroll below.
http://julian-murphy.blogspot.com/
http://julian-murphy.blogspot.com/
Thursday, 24 January 2008
Tuesday, 22 January 2008
Blog club: Step One
This is the first in a series of posts helping you to master blogging. 20 minutes a week for four or five weeks should be enough to set up a fantastic site which you can then use easily in your department.
First decide which blog host you will use. Choose from www.blogger.com (this one is an example) or www.edublogs.org (look at my French blog at www.haythorneg@edublogs.org).
Edublogs allows you to use a number of pages, as well as reverse-chronological posting on any particular page, and functions such as getting students to subscribe by e-mail, tag-clouds (an eye-catching way of enabling people to search the site) and uploading of audio files, PowerPoints and pictures are easy. Blogger has more options for blogging on the go (maybe for you, PE?) including posting from any e-mail address and posting from mobile phones, plus it has impressive features such as slideshows of photos and using newsreels. Don't agonise too much however: they seem to expand their features all the time. Have a word with me if you need more advice.
Go to the relevant website, create an account, and follow the instructions to set up a blog (a couple of clicks will do it).
When choosing a theme (template or appearance) in edublogs, make sure you choose a three column one, as it offers you more functions ("widgets"). Please now send me a link and I'll post them here so we can share what we do as we go along.
Next week we will add pages (in edublogs) and start posting (edublogs and blogger) - if you can wait until then. Remember help is available next Friday, 1st February, at lunchtime (venue tba). Happy blogging!
First decide which blog host you will use. Choose from www.blogger.com (this one is an example) or www.edublogs.org (look at my French blog at www.haythorneg@edublogs.org).
Edublogs allows you to use a number of pages, as well as reverse-chronological posting on any particular page, and functions such as getting students to subscribe by e-mail, tag-clouds (an eye-catching way of enabling people to search the site) and uploading of audio files, PowerPoints and pictures are easy. Blogger has more options for blogging on the go (maybe for you, PE?) including posting from any e-mail address and posting from mobile phones, plus it has impressive features such as slideshows of photos and using newsreels. Don't agonise too much however: they seem to expand their features all the time. Have a word with me if you need more advice.
Go to the relevant website, create an account, and follow the instructions to set up a blog (a couple of clicks will do it).
When choosing a theme (template or appearance) in edublogs, make sure you choose a three column one, as it offers you more functions ("widgets"). Please now send me a link and I'll post them here so we can share what we do as we go along.
Next week we will add pages (in edublogs) and start posting (edublogs and blogger) - if you can wait until then. Remember help is available next Friday, 1st February, at lunchtime (venue tba). Happy blogging!
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