How can you fit a Museum in a box?
Thomas Clarkson did it, and so can you... with Museum Box. I have been itching to use this ever since I found it, but wanted a REAL reason. Finally, I've found it, and Museum Box seems to be the best tool for the task. No need to cart home projects written on big sheets of cardboard - this one can have text, pictures, videos, audio files and links, and it sits on the web ready for viewing whenever.
This is an online tool for collating information in categories and sharing it with others. My students have the option of using it for presenting information about Indigenous People Groups from around Australia. Students are researching these groups with books from the local library and relevant websites we've found online. In small groups they will pull together the information they've found and create cubes in their museum boxes.
I'm going to give them the option again later in the term when students investigate individuals who had a significant impact on Australia's history prior to 1900. I'm looking forward to seeing how they play with this tool creatively to present the information that they find.
Have you tried Museum Box?
Tuesday, May 12, 2009
Saturday, May 9, 2009
Microsoft Innovative Schools Conference
I spent the best part of last week at the Microsoft Innovative Schools Conference on the Sunshine Coast. There was so much to absorb that I was feeling pretty exhausted by the end, but definitely had a lot to take away and apply.I was there with the principal from my school so we had plenty of opportunities to discuss how ICTs fit in with the future of our school. We were given tips for starting laptop programs and for redesigning learning spaces. We visited a local school that has innovative programs running from Prep through graduation.
I had my first try at backchanneling using Skype for general conversation and then Twitter for more poignant ideas we wanted to share with a wider audience (#misc09). I found that backchanneling required a level of concentration that I'm not yet accustomed to. I realized that it may take students a few tries before they feel comfortable with backchanneling and find it a successful way to learn.
All in all it was a great experience even though I only got short glimpses of the ocean!
Friday, May 8, 2009
5th Teaching K-6 Carnival
Welcome to the May edition of the Teaching K-6 Blog Carnival. This month we have a great group of posts and yet again, lots of lists to choose from. I encourage you to check them out and share your comments with the bloggers. Enjoy!
Gripes and Brags
Hall monitor starts this month with a gripe, saying "Is corporal punishment an effective form of discipline?" in his post Progress Report: WTF is up with hitting students?! at DetentionSlip.org.Historyiselementary brags about a new book The Gift at History Is Elementary. She says, "This post is part book review and part opinion piece regarding the value of personal history and how it fits in with the American story."
Brain Strain
Mark Marshall stops us in our tracks and poses the question Do Classroom Blogs belong in Elementary Schools? posted at Musings from an International Teacher. What is your opinion? Leave your comment to add to the discussion.
In the News
Alvaro Fernandez presents Arts and Smarts: Test Scores and Cognitive Development posted at SharpBrains, saying, "At a time when educators are preoccupied with standards, testing, and the bottom line, some researchers suggest the arts can boost students' test scores; others aren't convinced. Karin Evans asks, What are the arts good for?"Innovate - Beyond the Slate
Mathew Needleman shares his ideas on How to Get Started Making Class Movies posted at Open Court Resources.com Blog. His down to earth post will help you prepare students for the task of making and editing a movie.
At Child Care Only Fiona Lohrenz presents Tips For Storytime. She shares ideas for selecting texts and choosing an appropriate reading space. This month she also shares her ideas for creating exciting treasure hunts in A Late, Great Idea.
Meaghan Montrose presents Effective Learning Strategies and Study Skills Part 3 posted at Colleen Palat. She shares tips on how students can prepare for exams by creating and rehearsing questions.
Kelly Hines gives us a rundown of how can raise non-technology savvy students in her Unlucky Lists posted at Keeping Kids First. Definitely worth a read.
Look No Further
Wendy Piersall presents Zoo Animal Coloring Pages: Zoo Babies posted at Animal Jr.
Sarah Scrafford presents 100 Free Courses & Tutorials for Aspiring iPhone App Developers, 100 Lectures That Will Teach You to Be Rich, and 100 Awesome Cheat Sheets to Learn and Do Everything in Less Time.
Erika Collin presents 100 All-Time Best Productivity Tips for Working & Learning from Home
Nancy Miller presents 100 Resources to Help You Read Better and Faster posted at Online University Reviews.
Why not submit your post for the next carnival?
The Teaching K-6 Carnival is posted monthly on the 7th. I am collecting submissions throughout the month, looking in particular for posts that discuss and exemplify innovative teaching and the integration of technology in the K-6 classroom. I also invite a few "brain strains" to keep our minds alert and challenged. Please submit only articles of which you are the author and refrain from using this merely as a sales pitch. For full details, please read my call for submissions.
If you have a relevant post that you would like to submit to the next edition of teaching k-6 carnival use our carnival submission form. Past posts and future hosts can be found on our blog carnival index page.
Support this Carnival
If you enjoyed this edition of the carnival, you can support its continuation by sharing it with others. Link to us, add us to a tweet, stumble or digg us. Thanks!
Tuesday, May 5, 2009
Tech Tips Tuesday
This week's tip: Teaching during a pandemic
Over the weekend I listened to Edtech Brainstorm on the topic "What happens to education during a pandemic?" Mark Montagne asked whether our schools had plans in place for if our schools were closed for an extended period due to a pandemic. The discussion really got me thinking more about how I would continue to teach if my students were all in their homes and unable to attend school. I love the "What if?" questions!
This is what I think I would do:
I would create lessons using My Classes. I would put in resources for students to explore, then use the discussion area to create discussion around these resources. Students could also submit their responses to work in the e-learning folios. I would set Maths activities from other websites - probably Smart Kiddies so that I could monitor individual progress (or Mathletics once we have it). I would create forums in SuperClubs for students to further discuss class topics or work on literacy activities together. I would set spelling words and encourage students to practice these. I could video record myself doing a demonstration (science experiment or other) and post it in My Classes for students to use to complete for themselves.
For those with limited computer access, I could email or post activities. I could call these students (maybe in a conference call as there are not too many) to discuss the work and check on their understanding. I would also provide additional book resources for these students to be able to read for the information others are finding online.
Obviously, there would be gaps in this education, but for a couple of weeks at least it would keep the momentum going with learning. Ideally, students would need computer access and would need to be self-regulated in terms of focusing on the tasks. Problems would occur where there was more than one child in the family as computer time would need to be shared and teachers would need to schedule their forums/discussion times. This sort of program would also require parents to have an internet connections that allows for a substantial amount of downloading.
What would you do?
Over the weekend I listened to Edtech Brainstorm on the topic "What happens to education during a pandemic?" Mark Montagne asked whether our schools had plans in place for if our schools were closed for an extended period due to a pandemic. The discussion really got me thinking more about how I would continue to teach if my students were all in their homes and unable to attend school. I love the "What if?" questions!
This is what I think I would do:
I would create lessons using My Classes. I would put in resources for students to explore, then use the discussion area to create discussion around these resources. Students could also submit their responses to work in the e-learning folios. I would set Maths activities from other websites - probably Smart Kiddies so that I could monitor individual progress (or Mathletics once we have it). I would create forums in SuperClubs for students to further discuss class topics or work on literacy activities together. I would set spelling words and encourage students to practice these. I could video record myself doing a demonstration (science experiment or other) and post it in My Classes for students to use to complete for themselves.
For those with limited computer access, I could email or post activities. I could call these students (maybe in a conference call as there are not too many) to discuss the work and check on their understanding. I would also provide additional book resources for these students to be able to read for the information others are finding online.
Obviously, there would be gaps in this education, but for a couple of weeks at least it would keep the momentum going with learning. Ideally, students would need computer access and would need to be self-regulated in terms of focusing on the tasks. Problems would occur where there was more than one child in the family as computer time would need to be shared and teachers would need to schedule their forums/discussion times. This sort of program would also require parents to have an internet connections that allows for a substantial amount of downloading.
What would you do?
Saturday, May 2, 2009
Friday Fun - 1/5/09
It was great to be back at work this week with a fresh start to the term. As always at the start of the term, we had a couple of pretests to determine what students know and the direction we should take with their learning. The Maths test covered the topics we will be studying this term, so we can group students by ability to cater lessons to their needs. The Australian History test shows us what students already know about Australia's history prior to 1900 including Indigenous lifestyle, significant historical figures, and major events and phases. We were quite glad to see that they don't know much at all yet, because that means that we can continue with our program as planned! Now that the tests are out of the way, let's look at what we did for fun.
Fun This Week
Readers' Theatre
On Tuesday we watched the video of the Readers' Theatre Performance at the end of last term. Students used a self-evaluation sheet to record their thoughts about their own performance. They also jotted down notes about the performances of others and shared these with their peers. On Thursday we read a poem/folk song called The Wild Colonial Boy and students worked in groups to decide a way to perform the poem to the class. Here is a You Tube video performance of the song from raymondcrooke.
Bus Timetables
This week students learnt about calendars and timetables. I talked to my class about catching buses and suggested that while they don't use buses much at the moment, they will probably want to use them more when they go to high school so that they can meet up with their friends. I told them about the first time I tried to catch a bus and how I failed miserably! We looked at a few bus timetables that you can pick up at the bus interchange, and then I showed students the phone number they can call for information and also the website.
We went onto the website and looked at the local bus routes that would get us to the closest shopping centres. I handed out copies of the map and timetables and students could use these to create their own imaginary journeys. One boy worked out how to get to McDonalds for dinner and home again. Another went from home to a cafe for breakfast and then still arrived at school in time.
We finished up with a sharing circle where everyone shared their journey and then we did a quick review of the steps for reading the timetable. This was a lot of fun and I'd be keen to revisit it again later in the year.
Story Parts
Miss Eschauzier taught my Literacy group this week. She showed students how to create descriptive phrases for settings in pictures and then they worked on individual descriptions of a setting of their choice. They then did a Kagan strategy: "Stand up, Hand up, Pair up" to share their work with numerous partners.
On Thursday students thought about characterisation in a couple of texts and then created their own characters using a Character Profile sheet. They will be doing more work with these characters next week.
Science for Smarties
Miss Eschauzier also taught a science lesson on Friday afternoon. Students explored what happens to the colours when smarties dissolve in a bowl of water. They used this experiment from the Surfing Scientist. It was amazing to see the way that the colours remained separated when more than one smarty was involved. Why not try it for yourself?
Next week I will be out of the school at the Microsoft Innovative Schools Conference on the Sunshine Coast, so there may not be a post next Friday.
Fun This Week
Readers' Theatre
On Tuesday we watched the video of the Readers' Theatre Performance at the end of last term. Students used a self-evaluation sheet to record their thoughts about their own performance. They also jotted down notes about the performances of others and shared these with their peers. On Thursday we read a poem/folk song called The Wild Colonial Boy and students worked in groups to decide a way to perform the poem to the class. Here is a You Tube video performance of the song from raymondcrooke.
Bus Timetables
This week students learnt about calendars and timetables. I talked to my class about catching buses and suggested that while they don't use buses much at the moment, they will probably want to use them more when they go to high school so that they can meet up with their friends. I told them about the first time I tried to catch a bus and how I failed miserably! We looked at a few bus timetables that you can pick up at the bus interchange, and then I showed students the phone number they can call for information and also the website.
We went onto the website and looked at the local bus routes that would get us to the closest shopping centres. I handed out copies of the map and timetables and students could use these to create their own imaginary journeys. One boy worked out how to get to McDonalds for dinner and home again. Another went from home to a cafe for breakfast and then still arrived at school in time.
We finished up with a sharing circle where everyone shared their journey and then we did a quick review of the steps for reading the timetable. This was a lot of fun and I'd be keen to revisit it again later in the year.
Story Parts
Miss Eschauzier taught my Literacy group this week. She showed students how to create descriptive phrases for settings in pictures and then they worked on individual descriptions of a setting of their choice. They then did a Kagan strategy: "Stand up, Hand up, Pair up" to share their work with numerous partners.
On Thursday students thought about characterisation in a couple of texts and then created their own characters using a Character Profile sheet. They will be doing more work with these characters next week.
Science for Smarties
Miss Eschauzier also taught a science lesson on Friday afternoon. Students explored what happens to the colours when smarties dissolve in a bowl of water. They used this experiment from the Surfing Scientist. It was amazing to see the way that the colours remained separated when more than one smarty was involved. Why not try it for yourself?
Next week I will be out of the school at the Microsoft Innovative Schools Conference on the Sunshine Coast, so there may not be a post next Friday.
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