Transformation Teachers Programme

I haven’t blogged for a while, as I’ve had a bit of a stressful time flathunting and helping my younger brother do up a pub he’s just bought in Oxford!  So my laptop’s been confined to its bag, but I’m feeling a bit more energised today and checking out other people’s blogs to see what I’ve been missing!  It seems like the communication element of this course is one of the most useful elements, yet one that is taking a lot of my time – probably because I’m an English teacher so communication comes more naturally to me than experimenting with ICT and by the time I’ve chitchatted away, there’s no time left!  But it would be a very lonely experience without the ability to learn from each other in this way, which is a strength we should definitely be utilising for our students as they sit at home, struggling with whatever task we’ve set them!

 A couple of questions I’m hoping someone can answer:

1. Internet.  I’m still not connected to the internet on the laptop, which is partly because I’ve been lazy, knowing I can just put stuff on the USB and transfer it.  But it’s starting to annoy me now.   I don’t really want to crawl under the computer desk at home and unplug the ethernet cable every time i want to put the laptop on the internet – is that my only option?  Can I buy a second cable and attach it to the modem using a splitter of some sort?  Should I buy a wireless router and connect it to my modem so my partner and I can both be on the internet at the same time on different machines?  How much is one of these?  Lastly, is it safe to just use an unsecured wireless network?  There always seems to be one available when I log on but I suspect it’s risky… The others that come up always require access keys which I don’t have!

 2. Video.  I haven’t really done any yet – well, I’ve taken some bits, just to see how it works, but nothing teaching-related.  How are people using video?  What ideas do people have for using it in the classroom?  And where should I be putting it when I’ve made something useful?  Is googlevideo the best place?  Someone mentioned making a podcast using it… Ideas please!

Hope everyone had a good Easter weekend…

comic life drawn effect

Originally uploaded by T Ware.

This looks more similar to the original but still more like a comic…

comic life grayscale effect

Originally uploaded by T Ware.

This is my first attempt at blogging from Flickr. Hopefully the picture will come up – as Judy suggested, I found the filters section on Comic Life and played around with making this look more like a comic. Another one on the way if this one works!

Have been playing with Comic Life and had great fun!  But now I need to figure out the best way to link to it so people can see.  I’ve put the result on Flickr and it’s public so other people can then see it, but I don’t know how they find it!  It would be good if we all had each other’s Flickr addresses and knew how to look at each other’s pictures.  I’m going to try to attach it here but it might not work – and I know you can link to a blog from Flickr but that seems a bit complicated…  Anyway, if you’re reading this – go and find it!  This link might work…

http://www.flickr.com/photos/7600707@N08/440826011/

Today we were given our Apple Mac laptops (mmmm….) and given a lightning tour of a bewildering array of software.  I feel like I need a sabbatical to get to grips with it, not an easter holiday!  But it’s also really exciting – I’m really pleased to have the opportunity to try out all these fantastic things and already have a few ideas in mind.  I really like the idea of Crazy Talk, especially in English – for hotseating characters, thinking in role etc.  I was also thinking that a shy student who doesn’t like standing in front of the class might do much better in GCSE speaking and listening assignments if they were allowed to do it using a microphone and ‘hiding behind’ a picture using this software.  Though it’s possible that they might miss out on the highest marks, which i think involve using a range of dramatic techniques to engage the audience.  Voice only is a bit restrictive there.

I also really like Comic Life and intend to play around with that as an interesting narrative tool.  I’m excited to have a Mac though a bit scared at not knowing my way around!  But I love the split Mac/Windows function as it allows bursts of experimentation followed by a return to the Windows fold when I get tired!  I’m hoping that my forays into the world of Apple will become longer as I go on…

I just spent about an hour playing around with different ‘themes’ for this blog.  I think there must be more important things I should strictly be doing with my time on the last day of term.  Like being in the pub perhaps…

I’ve never done this before so I’m not really sure how this will look when it’s posted.  Ah – red, it would appear.  I’m trying to get the hang of the colour function, which seems a little resistant to my advances.  Think I might have figured it out now.  Right – enough of all that nonsense.  It is, after all, nearly 9.30pm and I’m meant to be doing something sensible on this…

 So I can’t say I’ve really made the most of this task yet, as I’ve spent a lot of time trying to figure out if it’s OK to video and photograph students in class without explicit prior permission (ie a signature) from parents.  The current answer seems to be ‘probably not, if that footage is going anywhere outside of school’.  So I haven’t actually done any videoing yet and intend to do that tomorrow – might get a student to video me.  Decided to photograph students’ work instead – so 6th formers were doing sugar paper brainstorms of various chapters in ‘Frankenstein’ and I decided to photograph their brainstorms so we could look at them later and so they could access them electronically at a later date.  This seems to be potentially a useful tool for independent learning, and without a camera, you couldn’t make that sort of thing accessible.  So that’s good.  Quality looks good but then they’re big, which potentially makes it a bit impractical at the same time, as far as downloading goes.  But presumably students could be given the address of this page and be able to see pictures i’ve made public?  It’s certainly an excellent way to bypass the limitations of a creaky old school network with limited capacity.

 Flickr seems nice and user-friendly and i’ve just uploaded them and there they all are.  The only problem is some loaded up facing the wrong way cos i didn’t want to rotate, then save them to my PC, then upload them the right way round and I couldn’t figure out how to upload them roatated without doing that.  Anyone know how?  Is anyone even reading this or is it just for me?  I don’t know…

Time to go.  There’s a link to the right that says ‘Post slug’.  What an unpleasant concept.  Does anyone know what that means?

Hmmm… have saved and it is appearing as a draft.  Think I have to click the ‘publish’ button.  Somehow that seems rather scary – as if a certain level of literary merit is required.  Spot the English teacher… Here goes….