Activity 6 - Creating online learning

French Plait

My online tutorial was 'how to create a French plait'.

Using the iPad, I recorded myself doing a French plait on a colleague. I have worked with the iPads before with my students and they find it a very useful and fun way to record activities.

My tutorial would have been greatly improved if I had included step by step instructions either verbally or using text.

 

 

Activity 5 - Lights, Camera, Action

Videos

YouTube is now used by millions of people worldwide and is an invaluable way of sharing information as well as using it as a resource.

The video I posted was about tying a bow tie and is a beautiful example of how we could use stop motion animation to create really fantastic videos.

The new Stem centre at Stevenage has a fantastic stop motion animation programme that we could utilise to get the students to develop their own animations to support their work. Ideas could include the role of the practitioner / health and social work / virtual nursery etc.

Activity 4 -Social Networking

Social networking

1.)

Can Instagram be useful?

http://www.emergingedtech.com/2013/03/picture-this-5-ways-teachers-can-use-instagram-in-the-classroom/

This article has some interesting ideas how teachers can use Instagram in the classroom. This has given me some great ideas in what we could do in relation to possible fundraising ideas, documenting projects, showing students progress and showcasing in-class activities.

I'll definitely be using some of these in my sessions.

2.)

Is social networking linked to poor grades?

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/education/educationnews/8142721/Social-networking-teachers-blame-Facebook-and-Twitter-for-pupils-poor-grades.html

This articles looked at the negative effects that social networking can have. Children should be having real life experiences and interaction with others instead of spending all their time on Facebook and the like.
Teachers are worried that this obsession with social networking is shaping their attitudes and is having a direct impact on concentration, homework and communication as well as important skills like grammar and spelling due to text speak and social networking chat.

What do you think?

Activity 3 - online collaboration

Scoot and Doodle

Scoot and Doodle allows you to come together to solve problems, come up with ideas or create something new with others.

It is a live, face-to-face collaboration space where friends/colleagues or students can get together and be creative.

You can ask a question and get the students to add their ideas to the post. Similar to Padlet, but using drawings instead, it's a fun and creative way of getting the students to work collaboratively.

Ohne drawback though is that it has to be done live, therefore you can't create something that the students add to at a later date.

Good fun though!

 
Quick Topic

Quick Topic is an online discussion forum that allows you to quickly post a question and either invite friends to participate or send them a link to the board. This would be great to send to students to post their thoughts on a recent news story or to answer a question related to their assignments etc.

The subject I posted was on Staff development inviting people to share their thoughts on what they think of this years e-learning staff development.

You can view the forum here:
http://www.quicktopic.com/50/H/MEssqKjUMPy

Activity 2 - blogging

Activity 2

So to define my digital self, I created a blog so that I can reflect on the activities that we are undertaking for staff development.

Having used blogs before, I feel fairly competent at using them, therefore I would feel confident in developing blogs and using them as a tool with my students.

Blogging is used by everyone now (even my 9 and 7 year old daughters have their own blogs!), so it could be a useful way in which our students submit work or use it as a reflection tool. I also think it would be beneficial to the students when they go into the work place as more and more schools and nurseries are creating their own blogs to share information with parents.

Check out Nortburn primary schools blog below

http://northburnprimaryschool.primaryblogger.co.uk/

Learning log - Activity 1

For the first activity I decided to do a collage of images that i feel defined me. I used a website called Fotor Photo Collage.

This was an easy website to use as i could upload images from my computer and then play around with how I wanted the images laid out.

I would have liked to have been able to access my instagram pictures, as being an avid user, this is where most of my pictures are. however, it does give you the option to upload from phone.

I feel this could be beneficial to the students when working on their learning logs. They could get various images of things they have been working on i.e. presentations / creative lessons / exhibitions / trips etc and then upload it onto their PDP.

Skills for the future

Why hello there!

This is the first post on the Anna C NHC blog! Feel free to comment on any of my posts.

What skills do you think we need for the future?

Working within a fast changing teaching environment comes, for me, a great sense of fear and trepidation, but also excitement and motivation. It seems we need to constantly build on our skills and knowledge to be forward thinking in our approach to teaching and this can be a challenging task. However, I for one, am looking forward to hearing about some of the innovative ideas that hopefully this staff development will bring and that I can take forward and implement into my own teaching.