Fashion – I mean photo – revolution

This week I’m following the #fashionrevolution and #whomademyclothes hash tags on Instagram. I think this initiative (being driven by @fash_rev_ausnz) is an excellent publicity campaigns targeted at young-ish people and is making an impact in the community around me. I love the idea that real, ordinary, everyday people are taking charge of making our future more sustainable.

This lead me on to thinking about my role as an educator… how the same principles apply and  more specifically the habit that students have of copying images from a google search whenever they want a picture for a school assignment.

I think Instagram has really helped promote the idea of taking your own photos rather than just copy and those of others, but this has not yet trickled down to their use in school work or assignments.

Does anyone have any good ideas for promoting the idea of making your own images to students?

Online E-Learning tutorials

A teacher recently asked me if I recommend any online tutorial sites. These come and go all the time – some of my favourites from years gone by are still going strong – BBC Bitesize and GCF Learnfree are both free, easy to follow and comprehensive.

My students often teach themselves things just by searching youtube but that is more suited to older students with good self-management skills.

Relative newcomer Khan Academy  is excellent, as is Lynda.com, although a bit pricey.

What sites do you recommend for use in the classroom?

 

Scratch games by my class

Today I spent hours playing computer games. Usually marking student work during the holidays is a bit of a nuisance but today I had to mark the games that my students made using Scratch – fun!

The brief was to make a game teaching other students either:

1. Cyber addiction prevention or
2. Maori words

Here are a few of the stand-outs:

//scratch.mit.edu/projects/embed/217292042/?autostart=false

//scratch.mit.edu/projects/embed/217292412/?autostart=false

//scratch.mit.edu/projects/embed/217289645/?autostart=false

//scratch.mit.edu/projects/embed/217290664/?autostart=false

//scratch.mit.edu/projects/embed/217290958/?autostart=false

So Many Coding Tools!

Oh wow! I just discovered this little collection of coding tools on TKI – there is no excuse for not being able to teach/learn coding, nowadays!

This collection will take a while to work through, but it looks like there is a something for everyone – Eg Tinkercad for 3D design, Code.org for self-guided one-hour tutorials,  Scratch for classroom coding lessons, digital citizenship resources such as Common Sense Education, Piskel for digital game-art, and lots more.

It’s collated into age ranges – lots to explore – Enjoy!

http://technology.tki.org.nz/Useful-websites/Links-for-digital-technologies

 

 

End-of-term reflections…

I’m rostered on to share something inspiring with other staff on the last day of term…I wish I had the skill and energy to create something as interesting as the garments made by my workmate, showcased earlier this week – garments reflecting the early history of Christianity.

Am a wee bit worn out and lacking in creativity right now…time to call in the big guns…trashy memes! I’ve shamelessly poached these images from other websites – hoping no-one will mind my sharing their work – it will hopefully brighten someone’s day 🙂

Teacher tired…

P.L.D. for NZ teachers

I keep on discovering new ways to learn – it’s kind of addictive, this lifelong learner business!

Here is a little summary of some E-Learning Professional Learning recommendations for NZ teachers that I’ve used recently.

1. The Digital Passport  – this new online course is about the new Digital Technology curriculum, its content and our obligations. It possibly isn’t immediately relevant to most classrooms but is good background knowledge. It takes about 4 hours to work through – it’s mostly videos with the odd question. Free, online, self-paced. NZ schools can get a voucher allowing them to use this course for free for 50 teachers. (Only registered teachers are able to use the voucher code)
2. The Mindlab Postgrad Cert in Applied Practice – I highly recommend it – it’s face-to-face(16 sessions, after school one night per week) and online, takes about 8 months, has ideas relevant to every classroom, lots of up-to-date info about teaching techniques and tools. Costs about $3000 but $2000 of that is covered by a scholarship from The Next Foundation that you can apply for and are very likely to be awarded. Most practical and relevant course I’ve done in a long time. Quite challenging but that is good for us! 
3. Google certified educator – free, online, self-paced. Also highly recommend – practical real-world classroom ideas, examples and tutorials. The exam costs $10USD but the online training is free – you don’t have to do the exam if you just want the learning. I did the level 1 training and exam in a day during the holidays – it will take longer if you are less confident (or more thorough).
4. Microsoft certified educator – exam costs $127USD, but the training is free and very useful. Self-paced, easy to follow. Plus you get badges and things :-).