Education Matters

As part of a Global Marketing Project, Eastbourne C of E Academy from Darlington in the North East of England teamed up with Promethean to film some key sequences for a video that will be seen worldwide.

Eastbourne Academy were chosen for this task because Alan Dick, the Assistant Principal, is an avid promoter of the Promethean solution, and is using Inspire software, Activexpression, Activslates and Activ sound as part of the daily teaching regime. The school is also going to be equipped with the full Promethean solution when they move to their new BSF build in September 2009.

Alan and a dozen students visited Beamish Museum to film key sequences for the video in the 19^th century school building. Accompanied by representatives from Promethean and a crew from thinktank video, they changed into period costume and experienced school life as our grandparents knew it.

In the afternoon, they returned to school and repeated the experience in the ActivClassroom environment to compare and contrast the way education had evolved over the last century.

As a thank you for their hard work and patience, the Promethean Teaching and Learning Consultant for the North of England presented the group with some gifts as the school’s PR department created a piece for local media. Keep an eye out for the finished video on prometheanplanet.

Making the Activboard More Interactive

When I first received my Activboard, I used it mainly as a large display tool, projecting my PowerPoint presentations and other documents.  I shared the Activpen with my students, but I was the one creating and sharing most of the knowledge.  The appeal of adding in video and images that our visually demanding students could analyze during a lesson was powerful and began to shape my daily lessons.  Soon I realized that my student-centered classroom was shifting back to a teacher-led structure, where I was the one spending hours on learning and creating, but my students were passively receiving the information instead of engaging with it.  However, with a simple shift in lesson design that placed my students in control of both the Activboard and their learning, my students began constructing their own knowledge instead of simply consuming information.  My new focus for lesson design became creating ways for my students to physically manipulate ideas and information through their tapping and dragging with the Activpen.

This new way to build knowledge could easily be seen by their use of containers with Activstudio 3 and the Activboard.  One Friday, I asked students to prepare to learn about simple grammar concepts; they groaned and shifted around in their desks.  I reassured them that it would be fun, and they looked at me as if I were crazy.  Then, I showed them an Activstudio flipchart I had created in about 15 minutes that had three containers on it, one for active verbs, one for linking verbs, and one for helping verbs.  Ten sentences hung above the containers, waiting to have their verbs identified and placed in the correct box.

I asked for a volunteer who could correctly identify the verb in one of the sentences and use the Activpen to drag the verb to the correct container.  Rachel volunteered, and she correctly dragged the verb ran into the action verb container.  Once the verb was correctly placed, she heard canned applause coming from the Activboard.  She smirked, proud of herself, and held up the pen to see who else wanted to give it a try.  The students who were dreading a grammar lesson at the beginning of the hour now were waving their hands in the air, trying to be the next in line for the Activpen.  John grabbed the Activpen and dragged the verb is into the linking verb container.  This time the Activboard cheered for him, and he took a bow.   Then John asked what happened when the verb was placed in the wrong box.  Someone else grabbed the pen and gave it a shot, dragging the verb could into the action verb container instead of the helping verb container.  As soon as the verb was dragged into the container, it flew back to its original place.  It would not let a student put it in the wrong place.  My students cheered, realizing that the software would give them as many chances as they needed to figure out the correct answer.

At the end of the container “game,” my students wrote definitions for each kind of verb, using the knowledge they created from the activity.  Because the students viewed the game as fun and challenging, they worked diligently to build their understanding.  Seeing their joy in learning more about grammar gave me even more reason to love Activstudio, and it caused a shift in my lesson planning.  No longer would I simply use Activstudio to create visually appealing lessons that I could present.  Now, I would focus on how to give my students time to construct knowledge through Activ play.

If it is and you live in Australia, can I make a suggestion? RUN!

For those of us who live with the safe knowledge that the most harmful thing we could encounter is a calorie loaded pizza, I feel secure in viewing at a distance (on screen only of course) the Carpet Python from Australia, knowing that me and it, are separated by 9,000 miles of land and sea.

But the great advantage of our digital age and online communities such as Promethean Planet, is that information is closer than you think, opening up a world that many of us will never see or experience. For example, I never knew that a species of Python would ever be named after a carpet, but it was only when viewing the recent Australian Snakes resource pack I discovered it.

I then explored some of the other resources, Australian Birds, Mammals and Spiders to see what other creepy creatures would be awaiting me down under, and here are my Darwinesque discoveries…

The Carpet Python Morelia Spilota

Mainly found in Indonesia, Australia and New Guinea, they are one of the largest snake predators alive and can grow between two and four metres. Pythons are also constrictors, meaning they squeeze their prey to death, rather than relying on venom.

• Download Australian Snakes Resource Pack

The Australian Bilby Macroft Lagotis

A desert dwelling marsupial, this little creature’s name originates from the Yuwaalaraay Aboriginal language of New South Wales. Interestingly, they don’t drink water, but instead, obtain all the fluid they need from their meal!

• Download Australian Mammals Resource Pack

The Christmas Spider Sarcalogos Nemus Arachnia

Known as the jewel or spiny spider, this spider carries an armour plated shell with six spines. They received their name from appearing in the summer months leading up to Christmas. Not a present I’d like to see under my tree this Christmas!

• Download Australian Spiders Resource Pack

Sulphur Crested Cockatoo Cacatua Galerita

Believe it or not, this bird can live up to 70 years and can be considered a pest in Australia, though it is protected under Australian Commonwealth Law.

• Download Australian Birds Resource Pack

It was only by downloading these resources that I could find out the names of these creatures, quickly link to Wikipedia for information on them and their habitat, and then breathe a sigh of relief.  After all, I don’t think a Carpet Python would like the wood floor in my flat.

As you know, manga is growing in popularity with our students.  This is due to the visual style with which the content is being delivered.  One example of how to effectively use manga or graphic novels in your English class is teaching Maus along with the Diary of Anne Frank.

Another way to integrate manga into your classroom is to use the Manga Resource Packs created on Promethean Planet.  But what if you want to use your own pictures in the lesson?  How can you transform those pictures into “Manga Style”?  One resource that I recently found can help you, it is a website called Be Funky.  It allows you to upload your own pictures, then use a number of effects to transform them!  Here is an example of a picture of me.  (This is what happens when you know the people who take the school pictures, you are able to play around a bit!)

Now after using some of the photo effects on Be Funky, here are some of the ways that I was able to transform my picture.

Using the Desktop Tools and Camera Tools in Inspire, I was easily able to take these images off the website and drop them into Inspire.  Imagine the possibilities!  You could transform pictures of your students and put them in their own manga story!  You could transform pictures that you and/or your students took to create a manga backdrop!

Enjoy!

As a teacher, there is always something new that is being asked of you. Along with your everyday classroom responsibilities of teaching, lesson planning, classroom management and grading; you are asked to sit on committees, attend workshops, participate in faculty meetings, plan parent-teacher meetings, learn everything new in the world of education and still maintain some life outside of the classroom. A complaint that I frequently get when working with teachers is “Who has the time?”. I understand this complaint and can sympathize with classroom teachers who feel this way…to an extent.

During a recent user conference, this common complaint resurfaced and sparked a discussion among the TLC’s working the conference. We all agreed that we were getting a little tired of hearing the complaint about time because if teachers would just take a small amount of time and dedicate it to learning something new each day, they would really improve their skills and enhance their instruction.

Activ software (Studio, Primary, Inspire) all come with a wealth of resources built into the software in the form of the Resource Library or Resources Browser. These FREE lesson building resources are well worth the time it takes to explore them. During the aforementioned conference, I conducted a break-out session that discussed many resources available to teachers. The resources built into the software programs are often overlooked. These resources are content and grade-level specific and valuable tools to help teachers create more exciting, interactive flipchart lessons. Both new and seasoned users of the software applications should take some time out to review these resource folders and see if they can find useful tools to create lessons for their classrooms.

Free resources, right at your fingertips….as a teacher, I think exploring these is worth the time!