Learning Gems: iPad

Posted on October 29, 2011 by bookjewel

My latest discovery…

I’m very excited about this one because many similar tools don’t work on the iPad.

Wordsift is a tool that allows you to visualise the words in a piece of writing.

Simply paste your writing into word sift:

An added bonus is the availability of other visualisation tools, including a visual thesaurus and image search. The thesaurus is clickable. Students can also highlight categories such as Science and Maths within the Wordsift

Wordsift and Visual Thesaurus

Wikisift: Some Teaching & Learning IDEAS:
Use when writing persuasive pieces to determine the most commonly used words. This could help students think about the power of particular words when writing persuasively. It might also help them evaluate the effectiveness of their argument based on language choices.

Use for a quick snapshot of the main ideas in any piece of writing. This might even help students summarise key ideas or determine the tone of the piece.

Use for etexts to help analyse and evaluate the writer’s technique and style.

Use the Visual Thesaurus function to explore vocabulary options.

The fact that the above activities can be completed on a mobile device is, of course, an added bonus for teachers and students alike.

Hello World! (again)

Posted on April 3, 2010 by bookjewel

Alas, the real world has interfered with my blogging …I have not posted in some time and now find myself blogging out of sheer guilt.

The one positive from my lack of real time is that I will have to share my ‘Learning Gems’ in record time and with minimal waffle.

Behold, some of the things that have kept me busy since August ’09 —

Cyber Safety Resources for Educators:

http://cybersafetyresources.wikispaces.com/

I designed this wiki after one of my students asked me how she could stop some facebook bullying. The lack of any obvious avenue of assistance made me look at ways to educate others, including teachers, to draw attention to this growing area of concern

Buying an iphone is probably the most important development since my last blog post. I have used it to photograph much of my life and tried to maintain a photograph a day on this blog:

http://bookjewel.posterous.com/

My work commitments are such that a photograph a day is impossible…unless a photograph of my desk every day is sufficient…However, I have taken some interesting shots during vacation times. I also used my iphone to create an Animoto presentation to show ‘environmental problems’ at my school. I wanted to make the point that world environmental problems were reflected in the local environment. The students quickly gained some insight into the environmental issues facing the world today

By the way, Animoto remains the MOST useful tool I have discovered since I started exploring web 2.0

Maintaining a passion for words…

Posted on July 6, 2009 by bookjewel

Why is it that so many students seem to have lost the desire to play with words and language? I used to love English lessons based around word games and language puzzles. It was fun for me. Unfortunately, it seems to be a different story today…often such activities are viewed as tedious, boring or ‘too hard’.

In an attempt to ignite my students’ passion for words I explored the internet to find a few ‘learning gems’…

Wordsense: one of the best around in my humble opinion.

Anagramania: Guess the anagram before the time runs out!

Crickler Crossword: A new type of word puzzle!

Frank’s Panic Puzzle:

$Frank\'s panic puzzle$

Word puzzles available from Addicting Games:

Vocab Sushi: Building a better vocabulary

Messing with ideas and words: Plinky prompts

It also occurred to me that students might find it fun to create their own word games using classtools:

I still love Animoto!

Posted on May 30, 2009 by bookjewel

At my current school we have a regular assembly for the senior school once a fortnight. Fortunately, I had a few Web 2.0 tools to help my home group complete the half hour presentation. Thank you Animoto and Google maps for making this job a little easier. We used the idea of Harmony Day as the impetus for a Google map showing the class’s ancestral links. Animoto provided not one but three presentations! The Harmony Day clip: ‘Living in Harmony‘ is below:

Plurk Works!!!

Posted on November 20, 2008 by bookjewel

I am a definite fan of microblogging. It has something to do with the quick, sharp repartee that is so like a real school staffroom it is kind of weird. Teachers rarely get a chance to have long meaningful chats with their professional colleagues during school hours. There is never enough time! Instead we have the corridor ‘catch up’, often while walking in opposite directions, or quick conversation snippets shared in between meetings, phone calls, classes, conferences etc. When we need to talk to someone we almost always have to do it quickly and, consequently, by getting straight to the point. Is it any wonder microblogging just seems like natural communication to me?

Plurk

Plurk has become one of the first places I check when I turn on my computer. It feels like I’m catching up with colleagues. The fact that many of them live in another hemisphere is not important. We are all educators and we are all concerned for our students and eager to learn anything that might improve the way we teach and learn. We share Important and irrelevant details, wish each other goodnight and good morning (sometimes), moan about day-to-day ‘teacher-type’ problems and learn together about things that are new and/or useful.

Plurkers

I look forward to hearing about the weather in Brattleboro VT USA, not because I care about weather particularly but because it means Skip Z is out and about and his morning ‘shout out’ is a Plurkadian tradition. He’s also a professional colleague whose opinion I value and many of the links he has shared on Plurk have become an important part of my teaching and learning. Mindelei is another plurker guaranteed to challenge my thinking. Her passion and enthusiasm are a plurk feature and she loves to ask questions to make ‘seasoned’ educators think. GingerTPLC is another plurker of note. Her teaching day is a constant reminder of what we are all trying to achieve in our classrooms. Kevinh has energy in abundance and is clearly a well respected educator. I don’t really have a spatial understanding of North America but Kevinh seems to be presenting in most of it!

I could go on…

If I listed all the Plurkers I value it would take far too long and I simply don’t have the time. Could I just leave you all with this one piece of advice: If you’re an educator sign up for Plurk. The Plurk ‘eduverse’ is a wonderful place and you’re guaranteed a welcome!

Earth 2.0: A webquest with a difference!

Posted on October 26, 2008 by bookjewel

Just a quick post to share my webquest project with you all…

Earth 2.0: Is it possible to create a completely sustainable planet?

The best bits about my work on this project:

1. Pageflakes: Using pageflakes as the Webquest Headquarters was a stroke of genius (If I do say so myself!!!) Pageflakes is a great tool for educators: it is flexible, easy to use, vibrant in appearance and the range of widgets available is outstanding!

2. Teamwork: I worked with a colleague to produce this webquest and had far too much fun as a result, mainly because we were able to laugh at ourselves during several ‘manic’ Earth 2.0 moments. We could have kept going but we had to stop to meet the competition deadline! (Mark is already talking about our next project.)

An interesting note: Neither of us had time to take on this project…if you’re an educator there is never enough time! How did it happen then? We became passionate about the learning, the project and the notion of Earth 2.0. Discussions led to action; engagement in the task led to refinement and development of ideas and activities. In short, the project became fun for us. We reacted the way we want our students to react to a new learning task. There’s a lesson in that for everyone.

3. Local and Global Feedback: We gained valuable insights into the project by asking our students to review it for us. They thought it would be improved by games so we added games! I used Classtools, one of my favourites, to put together some simple games based on the sustainability theme and also added the Planet Green Game. I then asked my PLN via Plurk and Twitter for objective advice. My Plurk buddies provided me with some excellent feedback that I acted on straight away. The Plurk eduverse is really something else…I highly recommend you become part of it!

4. Web 2.0: The possibilities are endless! 2.0 tools help make learning fun and provide teachers with ways to actively engage and challenge students. In addition to the suite of tools available on Pageflakes we also found wetpaint wiki simple to use and loved our voki characters. I used Big Huge Labs to create the Earth 2.0 trading cards and EduPic, graphical resources for educators, for the images.

In a Flap about my Frappr!

Posted on October 4, 2008 by bookjewel

I do get excited when I discover tools that are so nifty I just want to use them straight away! I discovered this one via Jane’s E-Learning Pick of the Day. Visitors are invited to add themselves to a map and include a message and photo if they choose. They can also provide an email address. What a great way to build a community! My guest map is below. Please join it and say Hi:

Get Your Frappr GuestMap!
Powered by Platial

My TOP 3 Learning Gems…

Posted on September 26, 2008 by bookjewel

My exploration of blogging and other Web 2.0 tools began in earnest during April this year. At that point my enthusiasm saw me spending most of my spare time signing up for and experimenting with tool after tool, following lists compiled by Web 2.0 pioneers and reading every educational blog I could find. What a journey! Now that I have recovered from the ‘dizzy heights’ of discovery I finally feel ready to share a few of my Top 3 Learning Gems:

· The Google Tools: I’m talking Gmail, igoogle, Google Reader, Google Docs and Google Apps (for Education). I use each every day and believe they’ve helped me more than any other tools. An essential starting point for all educators. To learn more try this excellent blog post from College@Home: ‘57Useful Google Tools You’ve Never Heard of’

· Edublogs: The blogging world is a vibrant place embedded with passion and enthusiasm that tends to be contagious. Starting a blog (or 5 in my case) is a great way to become immersed in the thinking and challenges of Web 2.0. Edublogs worked perfectly for me because it had simple, easy to follow, films I could watch and also The Edublogger, a fantastic resource for all bloggers.

· Microblogging Tools: At first it was Twitter and then Plurk. I love the sharing and camaraderie these tools allow. Plurk is ‘time-zone friendly’ because the timeline allows me to easily follow and contribute to discussions that happen while I’m asleep. Twitter is not quite as useful in this respect although it is still one of the best and I have made some of my best discoveries via tweets. Both are valuable tools for educators. I’m hoping Edmodo, microblogging for education, will work just as well with my students.

TOP 3 Blogs: The ones I read first are:

· Jane’s E-learning Pick of the Day

· Free Technology for Teachers

· Larry Ferlazzo’s Websites of the Day

All fantastic blogs to follow! Great resources for educators.

TOP 3 Diigo Groups:

Educational discoveries abound:

· Web 2.0 tools for teachers

· Classroom 2.0

· OZ/NZ Educators

Top 5 Wow-factor tools: (Tools that impress with very little effort!)

· ClassTools: Impress students and teachers with your specially designed games

· Glogster: So many possibilities…higher-order thinking opportunities in abudnance.

· Pageflakes: a great tool for educators; the ‘anything flake’ opens up all sorts of possibilities. Great as the ‘front page’ for our Earth 2.0 webquest.

· Animoto: Very cool presentations. Impress the ‘too cool for school’ group with this nifty little tool

· Flickr: More than you think! Creative Commons makes this the best starting point for educators looking for great images. Lots of tools worth exploring too!

However, it’s not really about the tools…

It’s about quality teaching and learning; it’s about being an agent of change and it’s about equipping students and teachers and being an agent of change so that, eventually, all teachers and students are equipped with the skills they need to function fully in the 21^st Century.

‘PLN Reflections’: sharing ideas and building relationships

Posted on September 17, 2008 by bookjewel

Inspired by the amazing ideas and thinking generated at the recent ELH conference I decided to ‘experiment’ with my PLN and begin a collaborative slideshow. (They’re a lively bunch ready for any challenge!)

I wanted to build something for my work colleagues to illustrate the power of the group and show the potential for us all to save time and energy when we work together. At the same time I wanted to encourage reflective thought and build something members of my PLN could also share with colleagues as appropriate.

PLN Power:

The ‘PLN Reflections’ slideshow below is the result of my experiment. It’s powerful stuff; creative and inspirational. Achieved in a matter of days, across several time zones and without any drama, it is a small taste of what can be done. However, the best part is not the slideshow itself but the interactions and enthusiasm that occurred behind the scenes, particular in plurk. I’m already hatching plans for a ‘We are the Children’ equivalent…watch this space!

Are conferences Learning Gems?

Posted on September 1, 2008 by bookjewel

Having fun, wish all educators were here…

I am currently attending the ELH 08 ‘Expanding Learning Horizons’ conference in Lorne and find myself wondering about the benefits of such gatherings. (I am having fun so from that point of view it’s great!) However, I suspect that a group of like-minded people already dedicated to bringing about change in education is not necessarily the best audience for the messages here. We do not need to hear the message again and again…we need to act on it!

Several issues and questions seem to persist:

How do we change the way people do things in education?

How do we change school culture?

How do we ‘transform’ the resistors?

How can we move forward without moving backwards too?

These are not small issues. These are issues that require vision, perspective and planning.

I would love to hear from people who have changed school culture and transformed teaching and learning in a school anywhere…

How long did it take?

Was a ‘softly, softly’ or ‘bulldozer’ approach used?

Were many or any people lost along the way?

If you picked one decision or moment that seemed to be a ‘turning point’ what was it?

What main piece of advice would you give others committed to change?

Learning Gems

Sharing online discoveries…

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