Transformation Teachers Programme

I’ve been playing with my blog some more, and have the following questions for anyone that knows how to answer them:

1. I’ve belatedly added categories, but can’t find a way to attach previous posts to them, short of going to each one, clicking edit, waiting 3 million years for it to load up, then attaching it.  Is there an easier way?

2. I want to add links, for example to other people’s blogs, but also to flickr and podbean etc.  I went into ‘widgets’ and added links to the di

I haven’t blogged for a while, so I’m seizing the opportunity while I’m fresh from today’s training… Today we covered:

 ActivVote:

Now I assumed I couldn’t use this on a Smartboard, as it’s Promethean software, but was pleased to find I could.  I liked the voting ‘pods’ – they were user-friendly and fitted snugly in your hand.  Stuart mentioned that another type of voting system he’s been using (whose name i forget) has the potential for instant feedback on the handset, so students can see which they’ve got wrong or right immediately, which appealed – but overall I liked it and could see its use for mini-plenaries throughout the lesson, to test understanding – or as starters to stimulate debate.  What I liked the most about that is that you had to stand by a view you’d made and then be able to justify it.  I usually do that through ‘floor debates’ but you get the problem that students move to the same side of the room as their friends – this was more independent I think.

iDVD:

I’m not sure really where I’d use this in teaching, but it was nice to play with – produces really professional-looking DVD menu screens, so could be used if you’d compiled students work into a single DVD, or were making a DVD of a school trip where you wanted separate menus etc.  Was also useful to discover that the slot at the side of the Mac was in fact a CD/DVD drive and not just a random hole with some foam in it!

Visualisers:

I was ready to be underwhelmed by these I have to admit – but was pleasantly surprised, especially by some of the smaller, lighter models.  As an English teacher, the prime use I can see would be in displaying students’ work instantly on screen and I have to say that, after having a few difficulties with the digimemo, I’d much rather use this – it’s more instant and doesn’t involve faffing about with cables.  For displaying work, it seemed the smaller models were more than adequate and I wouldn’t need one of the mega view-stuff-the-other-side-of-the-school jobs for 3 times the price. 

The other use I can imagine would be if I had something like a charity leaflet where I wanted us to look at presentational features – for example I quite often dish leaflets out and get students to comment on features – but if a group’s feeding back on a leaflet that the others don’t have, then no one can see what they’re discussing, unless you’ve gone to the trouble of scanning every leaflet in first.  This would provide instant viewing for the whole class as students fed back, and has much more flexibility and speed than taking a digital camera picture and loading it up.  Again, the more basic models would be more than adequate for this.

Blogs:

We looked at some blogs in groups – I was a bit frustrated at having to look at other subject areas, as I wanted to get into my own area – but had some time afterwards to investigate English blogs and particularly liked this one:

http://fernhillbookworm.blogspot.com/

It’s such a simple idea – it looks like different staff in the dpartment have all posted a review of a book they’ve enjoyed and that they hope students might enjoy.  This would be a great thing to launch at Book Week – and it could be a homework that students have to read the reviews and pick one to try reading.  Or you could set up a learner blog where students had to review a book for homework, and then you could give students some time to pick one of the reviews and read the book – then another homework 2 months later could be to make at least one comment on another book review, saying what you thought of the book.  This could be a great way for students to collaborate and share reading ideas – and book reviews are such a tired old staple of the English teacher’s stock-in-trade, that this would really freshen things up and, vitally, give students a real audience for their writing.  We’re always telling students to think about purpose and audience, but the audience in reality is always the teacher or the examiner.  Here the audience is real and tangible – and interactive, if it’s all set up right!

I might use this idea as a way to focus year 12 students going into year 13 on their wider reading over the summer – get them all to read a text and review it on a blog. 

Even better if…

Looking at all the above, I’ve yet again learnt a huge amount today, which is fantastic.  One thing I think would really help though, is if some more stuff was written down for us.  The first task, while difficult to complete in the time available, was good becuase it was very clear – all the tasks required were written out on a single sheet, with a clear deadline on, and some relevant instructions were attached.  This I liked!  I feel a bit baffled by all the different things being thrown at us simultaneously, with a general sense that we’re meant to be producing something with it all but no clear deadlines for it.  It’s like the ’shout down the corridor’ homework at the end of the lesson that half the kids forget - I need it written in my planner with a clear ddeadline, or I don’t always remember to do it!  I think I’d really have responded to a clear and definite task or tasks at the end of each training block – a deadline for creating such-and-such a resource, using this or that programme, and uploaded somewhere (with instructions how to do that if needed – eg the first time we were asked to upload onto Fronter).  And all the above written clearly on a piece of paper (I know, paper’s so last season; call me old-fashioned, but it does help!)

After a horrendous week in which we had Ofsted at school (good report but even with the new light touch it’s an awful lot of stress), I’ve finally managed to find some time to play with my DigiMemo this weekend.  I’ve been a bit disappointed, as I can’t get it to pick up my writing properly.  It might be the battery in the pen, though I’m a bit loath to go out and buy one of those little expensive batteries if i find later it’s not that and it’s just the way i write!  My first page lost so many lines that you couldn’t really read it at all when it transferred digitally.  The second i wrote on the table, in case writing on my lap wasn’t helping the pressure.  That was slightly better but barely!  Then i tried the online writing tool, which helped, as it enabled me to kind of ’self-correct’ as i wrote, seeing what was and wasn’t being picked up.  But it still missed bits, notably the crosses on my Ts.  I’m feeling a bit like if I have to fundamentally alter the way i write for it to work, it’s not going to be ideal for me – i guess i should get some kids to try it and see if it’s just the strength (or lack!) of my writing.

Needless to say that with all those problems, the text recognition didn’t work on my writing at all!

 Anyone had similar problems?