Educamp chch

Had a brilliant morning sharing and learning with such a cool Christchurch crowd at St Margaret's College Library. 

What grabbed my attention?

MaKey MaKey - An Invention Kit for Everyone - YouTube

www.youtube.com/watch?v=rfQqh7iCcOU

The "Smackdown was awesome too. So many great tools that can be used for teaching. Well done #educamp

Google Docs - "Suggesting" feature

In the latest update in Google Drive, there is a feature that you can use when editing a Google Doc. When I am giving feedback to my students on work that they are developing online in their Google Drives I have in the past used the "Comment" option but students have found this hard to follow. Some times students have also not been able to see my comments. So to reduce stress and repeating all the wonderful feedback given,  I began simply editing by typing in the body of a students work in a different colour.

Now I have discovered a new feature (thanks to Aimie) called "Suggesting" in the editing options.

Love it!  It's doing what I want.  By this I mean, I am able to make comments and question student work in the body of their Google Doc so that they can follow the thread of thought and it shows in a different colour.   These comments can also be adopted by clicking on the tick such as when I have helped correct the grammar or some typo.  Nice work Google.

Christchurch Connected Educators: Knowledge Creation, Sharing and Creative Commons in Education

Christchurch Connected Educators: Knowledge Creation, Sharing and Creative Commons in Education



A great overview of Creative Commons from Rob Clarke

Have just participated in my first ever Webinar.  It wasn't without it's technical difficulties and as Ian Jukes has said in the past ... don't wait until you are and expert!
The session was about Leadership for Change - an interesting question that I need to ask myself more often is "Why be happy with the status quo . . . what is the risk of not changing?"

Cyber Safety

Some interesting reading and videos related to cyber safety
http://goo.gl/cmDnlr

Google Classroom

Google Classroom promo
This new development by Google for Education is looking promising.  At first glance it has some great features but is still in it's infancy!  If you do not have access to Hapara as a teacher dashboard platform for managing documents with your students in Google Drive, then look out for more progress being made with Google Classroom.

Meet the new Google Drive

A normal girl's abnormal Life due to her Basic Knowledge lack - Change G...

PENZ Conference 2014

Ready to Showcase the wonderful facilities at SMC.  PENZ conference about to start tomorrow on our home turf.

4D Anatomy

Attention Phys Edders, check out this app! Very cool
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uNC9TDJBFvA

Collaborative Revision using the iPads

In the lead up to completing an end of unit assessment, I wanted to run a revision session for my year 9 students. The session was designed to expose students to information that they need to know for the test.  I chose to use the “Socrative app” and I got students working in small groups with an iPad.  After creating a quiz I introduced the class to the “space race” competition.

The results are compiled in real time in a spread sheet.  Green answers show a correct response, and red for incorrect.  A column that is predominantly red, shows that there is a lack of understanding of this concept - an indication that I might have to re-teach this. The results also highlighted the areas that students needed to revise more thoroughly in preparation for the end of unit assessment. 

As I glanced around the room and gave a commentary of how the space race was progressing, I liked what I saw.  Two to three heads discussing possible answers and collectively comprehending the question.  The conversations clearly showed their thought process to arrive at a common answer.  There were squeals of delight when groups gave a correct answer added this added to the element of competition.  

Starting Out

Today I finally got motivated to start blogging.  I have to thank Aimie for the push!