I’m a big fan of scissors. I have always loved them, even as a small child. They are my favourite item of stationery equipment, and to my mind cutting paper with a new pair of scissors is akin to the spoon-in-the-instant-coffee-seal pleasure. Read the rest of this entry »
Amazon warehouse logic in your classroom
Friday, Dec 11th, 2009 by admin | 1 Comments
A simple experiment in my classroom confirmed what I believed for a while – the eyeline is the buyline in the classroom as well as the supermarket. A box of tissues normally lasts about a week, but moved away from the front of the classroom, one box lasted three weeks. Whether there were more sniffs or not was not recorded! Read the rest of this entry »
Aspiration in the classroom – what is normality?
Saturday, Nov 21st, 2009 by admin | 0 Comments
I have a sofa in the corner of my classroom. It looks very comfortable but every so slightly out of place. It is used to hear children read, and also to read to children from. I have a colleague who can’t stand it, but it is one thing in my classroom I won’t concede. In my mind, I am using this sofa to aspire to normality. This is part of my Mont Blanc Defence (The Artist Hugh MacLeod once said that Hemmingway didn’t use a writing lodge and a Mont Blanc pen to write, so neither do you!).
Filed under: New Social Tools, Opinion
Innovation versus Risk
Sunday, Oct 25th, 2009 by admin | 0 Comments
Image: Tooley CC)
There have been many articles in the UK press covering the postal strike from the postie’s point of view, and one thing aspect they re protesting against is excessive innovation by the management – something that is conversely quite rare in the education sector.
The difficulty with innovation is that has an element of ‘cost’ (not only financial) that can be perceived as risk; risk to reputation, quality of learning or of the general status quo within a school. The difficulty with a lack of innovation in any organisation is that there is a lack or progress. It’s rather like using the same road to go to the same destination without exploring other possible routes. Some might be longer, some might have diversions you won’t expecting, but with the right planning, destinaions can always be reached – it just takes a leader to swallow their pride and say ‘we went the wrong route, how can we find our way back?’ Read the rest of this entry »
Filed under: Opinion
Slate – a new way of using the I in IWB!
Friday, Oct 23rd, 2009 by admin | 0 Comments
teachusalesson.com
I have applied for a grant to build Slate – a webapp that will (hopefully) be free to educators, and will allow them to share writing and adding things to the classroom whiteboard – from a laptop or PDA!
Please take a look at the proposal, add a comment, rate it or even send me your opinions on what you would like to do with it! All suggestions gratefully met!
Filed under: Uncategorized | Tags: classroom, Interactive, pda, personalised, teaching, teachusalesson
Class Jingles – wake those braincells!
Thursday, Oct 15th, 2009 by admin | 0 Comments
A sound idea (image:penmachine CC)
A previous post has already coverer a passion for using music in the classroom, via the use of themes. Research has shown that using music has a genuine effect on mood, and where better to utilise this power than in the classroom?
I only recently discovered a brilliant piece of freeware from Michas Kaesper called Jingle-Player. This tiny program allows you to preload up to 30 tracks (in a range of formats), and play them either with a button press or or a mouse click.
Speaking as someone who loves adding musical accompaniment to lessons, I would highly recommend this freeware. It has made a visible difference to the
‘perkiness’ of my class, with the incentive of a samba band playing when they spot a plural both enlivening and focussing them!
A Spotify alternative
For those perhaps reluctant to download another program for the computer, but with a Spotify account, I’ve attached the links to a playlist of possible songs you could use in class to tidy up, relax or motivate. Use as you will, and feel free to add any other favourites! HTTP URI
Filed under: New Social Tools, Tips & Tricks
Feeding Back on Student Feedback
Tuesday, Oct 13th, 2009 by admin | 0 Comments
Any feedback? (Image:Wwworks CC)
I am about to carry out a school-wide feedback experiment, but first a little background reflecting!
It is perhaps as common in Teaching as it is in other professions, but we tend to let negativity cancel out a disproportionate amount of praise. A successful parent’s evening can be brought down by one comment, and have us brooding for days.
The problem here though is that much of the feedback tends to be (a) from parents, and (b) delivered in extremes – only when a problem is too large to cope do we sometimes hear about it. Read the rest of this entry »
Filed under: Educational Research, Experiment | Tags: Experiment, feedback, google form, response, students
Do your students keep their eggs in one basket?
Tuesday, Sep 29th, 2009 by admin | 0 Comments
Over the past week or so, my four chickens appeared to have stopped laying eggs. I was concerned, and checked them for any signs of illness, scrubbed their coop, relaid their bedding daily, and topped up their water and food constantly.
Today my wife found a pile of around 20 eggs behind a gardening box. They had been secretly stockpiling their eggs, and we simply hadn’t noticed what they were up to.
Some of the most creative work our children can produce happens away from school, when they apply the skills they have learnt on something completely new and individual to them. How do we celebrate independent work at home in the school community? Do we distance ourselves from it, thinking that because it was created outside of school, we’ve had no input? Or do we celebrate it in the whole community, sharing it with pupils, teachers and parents?
The growth of the digital Native has produced students who are able to use skills and applications laterally in ways that we can’t imagine, or wouldn’t have expected in the classroom. Much of this creativity outside the classroom is fed by inspiration from within the classroom – and this is something that deserves celebrating.
Powered by FireStats