8/9/2013 New Computer Science BlogAs this is my first year teaching GCSE Computer Science, I have decided to blog about my experiences in the hope that I will be able to help others who too are new to teaching GCSE Computer Science. Each week I will also suggest alternatives for some of the activities in each lesson. You can read my first blog post here: Teaching Computer Science: Day 1: The day I took my screwdrivers to work.
2/9/2013 Resources for teaching eSafetyWith the dangers of being online hitting the headlines over the summer, here is a selection of resources to help you teach your students how to stay safe online:
Staying Safe Online - These videos provide a great starting point for for discussing the issues related to staying safe online. Cyberbullying - These resources provide a great starting point for discussing the issues related to cyberbullying. Social Media (a good thing or a bad thing?) - These resources provide a great starting point for discussing the merits of Social Media. With the start of the new school year just around the corner, here is my list of top web 2.0 tools to assist you with your teaching.
Top 10 web 2.0 tools: With a wealth of free resources available online which can be used in the classroom, here is a selection of my favourites. (click here) Classroom response tools: There is an abundance of student response systems available to teachers to use in their classroom however, these can often be expensive or difficult to manage. Thankfully there are now a handful of free online tools that allow you to turn any web enabled device into a voting / response system. Here are just a few of my favourites: (click here) Classroom management tools: With a wealth of free resources available online to assist you with the day-to-day management of your classroom, here are just a few of my favourites. (click here) Quiz tools: Quizzes can be fun tools for engaging learners as well as assessing students learning. Thanks to an abundance of online tools, creating interactive quizzes has never been easier and now anyone can create an interactive quiz which can be used with an Interactive Whiteboard, laptop or computer. Here are just a few of my favourites. (click here) With the new term fast approaching, here is a list of handpicked apps to get you and your students back in the swing of things.
Apps for teachers: A list of my favourite apps to aid you in your teaching (click here) Classroom management apps: With a wealth of apps available to help you with the day-to-day management of your classroom, here are just a few of my favourites to get you started. (click here) Apps for students: My top 10 apps for students. (click here) Top tips for teachers: As more and more teachers use iPads in the classroom, here are some tips for protecting all that sensitive / important data stored on your device. (click here) Ideas for using iPads in the classroom: Here are some ways in which iPads can be used successfully in the classroom to enhance teaching and learning. If you can think of any more please let me know! (click here) I would like to share a project I have recently delivered involving one of our partner feeder Schools. The project used a set of iPads with an app called Second Sight. What Is Second Sight? Second Sight is a revolutionary augmented reality application, designed to enhance printed material such as: Books, Magazines, Programmes and guides or even displays at museums and heritage locations. With Second Sight and Second Sight Content Creation Suite, you can trigger content on your iOS device such as video, audio and internet content using a set of printable AR codes (Supplied). Aside from any Internet links, all the content is pre-stored on your iOS device in the Experience Packs you download from the Content Creation Suite! This means you only download the content you want! And you can get enhanced multimedia experiences while reading content outdoors, in the car, on the train, just about anywhere! Once the Experience Pack is downloaded, you can use Second Sight in any location. The project. The project involved students from two schools, the brief being to create a multimedia component (video, podcast, crazy talk, morfo etc.) all about their school. Students where given the choice of what software to use (Morfo/Crazy Talk, iMovie/Movie Maker, Explain Everything, Puppet Pals, iPhoto/Photo Story, GarageBand/Audacity etc.) and once finished, instructed to upload their finished components to the School’s shared area. The components were then compiled and uploaded on to a set of iPads via the Second Sight Content Creation Suite and iTunes. The bar codes generated by the Content Suite were then placed around the School for the students to find and view each other’s work. From my observations, the students appeared engaged throughout the project and thoroughly enjoyed viewing each other’s work.
Other possible uses for Second Sight in the Classroom: General: Create an interactive wall display with ready made content or student created work. Science: Create an Augmented Reality Solar System - Download images, video, animation etc. about the Solar System and link them to one of the supplied AR codes. Scatter each of the codes around the room and ask pupils to put them in order. Possible extension task: Print out more codes with information about each of the planets moons then ask pupils to group each moon with its corresponding planet. Geography/History: Create an interactive visitors centre. Students can use software such as Crazy Talk, iClone, ComicLife, iCan Animate, Movie Maker or Audacity (iMovie and Garageband if you are using a mac) to create interactive content which can be used to inform visitors about a local place of historical interest. Art: Create an Interactive Tour Guide - Contact your local Art Gallery and get your students to create an interactive tour to provide visitors with additional information about the gallery's works. What you will need for creating your own AR experience using Second Sight 1. Any iOS device that has a built in camera
Instructions: 1. Create your multimedia component. (Read my article on using multimedia to support teaching and learning) 2. Create your AR experience using the Second Sight Content Creation Suite. See a demonstration: http://www.mysecondsight.com/corporate/faq/usingccspsp.html#!prettyPhoto[flash]/0/ 3. Transfer your experience from the content creation suite to your iOS device via iTunes. 4. Print out the supplied AR codes.
5. Have fun! Please let me know what experiences you create using Second Sight! We all remember our first visit to the dentist, some more traumatic than others. However, you may also remember how one little sticker made everything seem much better! Well its good to see that, despite living in a high-tech world, stickers can still be used to incentivise both students and adults alike! What’s changed? The impact of using stickers in the classroom is well documented however, thanks to improvements in technology, the way in which we award and manage rewards in the classroom is now a lot better! ClassDojo ClassDojo - classdojo.com - helps teachers improve behavior in their classrooms quickly and easily. It also captures and generates data on behavior that teachers can share with parents and administrators. Teachers can use ClassDojo to award badges for behaviour and give students real-time feedback while in class. ClassDojo provides instant notifications for your students (‘Well done Josh! +1 for teamwork!’). All fully customizable for your classroom. Students can track their behavior from home and Parents / Carers can also view their child's progress via the ClassDojo app via a special invitation code. Edmodo Edmodo - edmodo.com - is a FREE 'Social Networking' environment for students, parents and teachers. It provides a safe and easy way for your class to connect and collaborate, share content, and access homework, grades and school notices. In fact, many schools are ditching their VLE's in preference to edmodo. Teachers and students can post messages, discuss topics, assign and grade work. Edmodo also allows you to share digital content such as links, pictures, videos, documents etc. A feature of edmodo is the ability to award badges for positive behavior. This feature allows you to incentivize your students and provide recognition for their achievements. Edmodo also allows you to create your own badges by uploading a 114 x 114 pixel image and, if you need a little inspiration before you start creating your own badges, you can easily view and add other teacher’s badges to your collection. And, just in case you feel left out, as a teacher you too can earn badges! The Edmodo Training Badge - a way of recognizing teachers’ efforts to enhance their knowledge of Edmodo Classroom Carrots Classroom Carrots - http://www.classroomcarrots.com - Thanks to @TeacherToolkit for sharing this. (See his original post here) Classroom Carrots is a free tool to help teachers manage student behavior and improve engagement. Classroom Carrots is different in that it combines physical stickers, which can be purchased from its parent site (schoolstickers.co.uk), and matches them to virtual stickers which can be recorded online using a free app. Each student is assigned their very own avatar, a computer-generated virtual identity, and when rewards are given out teachers simply drag and drop the virtual sticker onto the relevant avatar. Immediately the pupil's name and reward flash up on the classroom whiteboard or computer. Pupils are then given the matching physical sticker, and if requested, an email can automatically be sent to parents to keep them informed. Classroom Carrots allows the teacher to reward individual pupils in real-time and keep track of their behaviour online. Teachers can also engage with parents by using the Reward Book module as well as evaluate performance using the reporting tool. How it works 22/5/2013 Free music for education useThe Internet is full of websites that provide music and sound effects, but quite often using them in your own work would infringe copyright law. Thankfully, there are many sites that now provide audio files under a Creative Commons licence. You can use these freely (within the terms of the licence), as long as you credit the original source. Below is a sample of some of my favourite online resources: dig.ccmixter is devoted to helping you find that great music, all of which is liberally licensed under a Creative Commons license so you already have permission to use this music in your video, podcast, school project, personal music player, or where ever… ccmixter claims to have over 1,000 tracks that already have permission to use in commercial projects for free. Website: dig.ccmixter.org The Freeplay Music Library, is a comprehensive collection of High End Broadcast production music spanning several popular musical genres. Music can be searched for by style, feel or even using a keyword search. Although the content on freeplaymusic is not licensed under Creative Commons, according to the sites terms and conditions, freeplaymusic.com allows "free" use of its music for student educational use for in-classroom projects (on school grounds only). If however, the projects are then broadcast or distributed e.g. in a podcast, youtube video etc., a paid license is required. Website: www.freeplaymusic.com freesound.org is an online database of Creative Commons Licensed sounds. As with any free, online archive, the quality of sounds and recordings can vary however, you will find a large collection of high quality sounds which you can use in your projects. You will need to register to download clips from freesound however, registration is free. Website: www.freesound.org SoundBible.com offers thousands of free sound effects and sound clips. These sounds can be used in a variety of sound projects including Video Sound Scores, Movie Scoring, Game Design, Powerpoint Presentations, Sound Boards etc. Note: The Royalty Free Sounds can be used for commercial uses. The free sounds can only if they are under the Creative Commons Attribution, or Public Domain License, so please check the license before use. Website: www.soundbible.com 21/5/2013 Top 10 Web 2.0 ToolsWith a wealth of free education resources available online, you may find it difficult to know where to start. Here is a list of my 10 favourite Web 2.0 tools to get you started:
Click Here to find out more. Quizzes can be fun tools for engaging learners as well as assessing students learning. Thanks to an abundance of online tools, creating interactive quizzes has never been easier and now anyone can create an interactive quiz which can be used with an Interactive Whiteboard, laptop or computer. Flash based quiz creation tools
HTML quiz generators
Online Quiz Creation Tools
Apps for creating quizzes
Click here to find out more. Having used wikis in education for a few years now and having been a huge advocate for their use in the classroom, I was both excited and intrigued when wikispaces announced an upgrade to their, already popular, online wiki creation tool for educators - “Wikispaces Classroom” What is a wiki? A wiki allows groups of people to collaboratively develop websites with no prior knowledge or experience of website design. How can wikis be used in the classroom? Wikis are great places for students to collaborate on projects and are particularly suited to Project Based Learning (PBL). Examples of classroom use include:
What is the Educational value of Wikis? Wikis encourage group social interaction and collaboration and support learning beyond the limits of the classroom and classroom activities. How is Wikispaces Classroom different? Wikispaces Classroom builds on the collaborative editing features of a wiki but includes some additional functionality to support classroom use, features such as social interaction and formative assessment. One of the most welcome additions to wikispaces is the ability to set up projects and assign teams (great for PBL). Students can be assigned to teams by either dragging and dropping them to a pre-defined team or by uploading them via a .csv file. Students can also be assigned to a team using the built in random tool. Once assigned to a team, each student will have their own space to work in. Wikispaces Classroom allows you to create projects, define teams, assign students and manage them all through successful completion of their projects. Another noteworthy addition is the ability to monitor students’ contributions using the built in formative assessment tool. Teachers can use the tool to monitor how often a student has read, edited or saved a page. At present, statistics are only limited to the last 30 minutes (update pending) however, over the space of a lesson, the tool can provide the teacher with an instant overview of each student’s contribution. Wikispaces Classroom allows you to monitor student engagement in real-time The final significant addition is the news feed option. With news feeds, wikispaces classroom provides a safe social networking environment for your classroom. News feeds are great for starting discussions and socratic debates or just for introducing a new topic. How to get started
Creating a classroom wiki is really easy however, before you start, you will first need to create a free education account. Visit http://www.wikispaces.com to get started. |
AuthorSimon Johnson Microsoft Innovative Educator Expert / MIE Trainer
Minecraft Cert. Educator / Global Mentor
CAS Master Teacher
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April 2017
CategoriesAll App Creation Apps Computing Esafety Ipad Multimedia QR Social Media Web 2.0 Web 2.0 |