Subject selection time

It has come to that time of year again when students are selecting their subjects. It is a time a love and dislike.

Sometimes I feel like we are in the business of selling a subject instead of supporting students through their learning and into guiding them into pathway that is for them.

As a teacher of Geography, I really have to fight to convince students and parents of the relevance of this subject. There are so many new subjects with popular names that conjure the image of glamour and money.... media....tourism.....business..... And yet today when we went on a university open day, the old academic subjects are still the subjects that the universities want to see the students succeeding in.

However, after the open day there were many students that finally believed me!!!! and they didn't just think I was being precious :)

I know I sound precious, and I probably am, but I am just passionate about Geography and its relevance to the sustainablity of our future.

Saving YouTube Videos

http://www.saveyoutube.com/ is a site that enables you to save youtube videos to your hard drive. It has a funny quirk though.

You first need a free download though: Riva flv Encoder

http://www.download.com/Riva-FLV-Encoder/3000-2140-10320097.html

I would tell you more accept I need my administrator to allow me to download this thing!!!!!!!!

Will let you know more in due time..........

The New BEBO

My year 10 students are using classblogmeister for classwork and anything they feel like reflecting on. Not all of them use as frequently as I would like - however here is an interesting comment from one of my students....

"classblogmeister is the new BEBO!"

She is not on BEBO for what ever reason - but really enjoys classblogmeister because people can not find her so easily.

This is a really interesting comment from a teenager of today - and just goes to show us that not everyone wants to share their life with the entire planet!

Leading a horse to water...

One of my frustrations at the moment, is actually getting ALL of my classes engaged using the web sites and tools I have set up for them!!!!

My Year 10s to be fair are coming along really well. Every couple of weeks I am raising my expectations of the tools that they should be using and how they should by using. I am fortunate that I am located next to a computer room and so we spend tutor time on the computers. Just having 15 mins for the kids to look up what we are doing, homework or do a quick blog has meant that they feel confident users at home. More and more of the students are blogging regularly and not just because it is homework.

However, my other classes have been very slow adopters. I know these things take time - but with all the time I put into it - I start to wonder if it is worth it!!!

While I know some would argue, not all our kids have internet access - I can say that that is now only true for some. Those that do not have access at school anyway!!

I think the issue lies in having that intial PLAY time on a site, getting them used to finding the website and blog. I have managed to allocate only a few lessons to do this last term - in the hope that it would take off. I do not have time to take out any more lessons - and yet I know that it would really help the students if I did!! Dilema.

At the end of the day, many of my senior students have admited that they are just lazy! so maybe it is simply a case of perservering and calling parents where apporpriate. I mean I know they are using BEBO etc regularly - there really is very little excuse!!!!

Anyway, enough gryping!! I just want things to happen over night - none of this taking time stuff!!!! I suppose the horse will drink eventually when it gets thirsty!! I guess the trick is making it thirsty?????????????

That's about it:)

Using wikis with the kids...

The kids have been getting excited about our new project. We are going to communicate what we learn about the Treaty or Waitangi on a wiki using Web 2.0 tools.

For me I am feeling a bit daunted - given that the computers go so slow at school and the tools are all new to the kids, including using a wiki.

However, we spent Friday getting used to using the wiki - just typing into it and adding a table of contents. I think the hardest part is going to be getting the kids used to the quirks of wikipsaces editing. However, if I get the students to work out the patterns in "text editor" which uses wiki text (code) I think they should be able to use it and problem solve when their edits did not quite come out the way they thought!!

All the students really enjoyed themselves, and you could feel a buzz as they knew they were really talking to the world about their learning.

Exams are next week - so it will be a while before we do too much more on this project.

Taking to it like ducks to water...

Having found the toondoo site over the last holidays and highlighting it on our school blog and wiki, I was surprised to see that none of the students really took that as a hint to have some fun and take up the challenge.

I suppose like most things, it is not until someone sits you down and shows you that you feel you can take the leap out of the comfort zone??? Or maybe they just didnt really think I made the cartoon on a free website... who knows...

Last week I gave my students two lessons to "take action" and bring attention to an abuse of Human Rights. So I let them decide which way they felt comfortable bringing attention and which Human Right abuse they would choose (old or present).

(Just as an aside - most choose to bring attention to the Holocaust - which goes to show that kids still feel like it is relevant to them in some way)

So groups decided on the following...
- Make a poster
- Blog
- Make a cartoon
- Make a powerpoint presentation
- Make a skit
- Make a song/rap/poem thingy!!!


At first the only ones that was online was the powerpoint and the blog - although the powerpoint people did not know that there powerpoint would end up in their blogs. I did not want to promise something I had not tried at school - despite being able to do it at home!

Yaaa I was so excited to see that slideshare was not blocked at school, and it took just minutes for the kids to email me their document and then upload it to slideshare, get the code and then embed into their blogs and then have me approve their blogs. I was jumping out of my chair with excitment as this just all fell into place!! Click here to see their first attempt.

So often the kids decide to make a powerpoint presentation to communicate their information, but at the end of the day - who are they communicating to? With this tool and the help of a blog, they now have another medium to communicate with inside their blog, which is to a worldwide audience.

The blog option was an obvious one and was short and sweet and made its point - no surprises there.

The other interesting group was the cartoon group. They were a bunch of quite impressive artists and so looked foward to showing off their skills, however I knew they did not have long to do this and suggested that they make the cartoon on the computer.........

I was given screwed up noses - which I was shocked at but then thought they were probably thinking I meant using word and clipart!!! BORING and hard to do.

Little did they know I meant Toondoo. Reluctantly they let me show them what I really meant and how simple it was to use (which I did for literally one minute). Within two minutes they were creating their impression of the Holocaust. Now I have a bunch of students who are creating cartoons online as if it were second nature to them. Click here to see the cartoon in a student blog. (the same cartoon is below)

I guess my point is that, all this kind of thing is second nature to our students - the problem is, is that it is not second nature to us teachers because we have not been brought up with it and we think that it is going to be hard to teach them how to use something.

The thing is, our students can actually problem solve and they are not afraid to play around until they get what they want out of something. It is rare for me these days to take my kids to the computer rooms and have a lesson teaching them "how to do..."

Now I teach two/three people and simply let the knowledge spread around those who have not already worked it out by playing with it. This spreads faster than an email around the world and much faster than I could have taught the whole class. What's more, students' communication skills and knowledge are being reinforced through this process.

My next project with my class is creating a collaborative wiki with what we are learning about the Treaty of Waitangi. We should have this finished by the end of term 2 - so keep an eye on this one :)
http://treatyortrick.wikispaces.com/

Student blogging in the classroom and as homework

The interesting thing for me, is the different way this has made me think about how I teach and also why I teach things.

Last year we concentrated on thinking skills and integrating them into our classes. This has been so much fun. Lessons are now really quite invigorating and I look foward to teaching them. The students get to have a voice in the class room as they are thinking about their learning and thinking creatively and laterally about the information. This has been so beneficial.

My Year 10s, who I also taught last year are really starting to show the benefit of these thinking skills. The level of thinking that they are putting into their work is really showing up. Recently (after a gruelling assignment task) I made their weekly homework to simply blog their essay that they had written before. Previously, while I know that the students were helping each other out with the essay, it was all very secretive....they didn't really want to share what they were doing with each other. However, since blogging their essays, they are now going in and reading each other's essays and commenting on each others work - albeit the "hey that was great" kind of comment.

This is so powerful. My kids have been lead into reading without even a hint of an argument. WOW!!!!!!!!! This in contrast to when they were told by their English teacher that they had 2 hours of reading to do over the weekend, and there was a big huge groan around the room. I commented to them, that if they counted up the time they spent reading each others blogs, they would have read for almost an hour!

It has taken longer than some to really get into the whole blogging thing.... and I think in some cases, it was a case of my expectations that a part of their homework would be on the computer each week. (I have to admit failure when it came to my year 9s with this, but I will perserveare; my seniors are very spasmodic also...but I have to remember... BABY STEPS!!)

For many of my students this was a completely new experience and completely out of their comfort zone, however as my expectations have increased, more students have come on board slowly but surely.

Pop over and read some of thir blogs - they would love some comments from people all over the world and NZ.