From Blog to Book.

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Contents

1 2012 5

1.1 July . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5

Home! (2012-07-13 09:18) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5

About me! (2012-07-13 09:19) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5

Using iPads to record videos (2012-07-13 09:34) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5

Describing key comic book characters (2012-07-18 19:34) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7

1.2 August . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7

iMovie (2012-08-31 20:22) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7

1.3 September . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8

Using Mobile Technologies in the Classroom (2012-09-10 09:16) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8

Clucking & Clapping (2012-09-10 19:17) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8

September 11th, 2001 (2012-09-10 21:10) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 10

Do we ever stop being a teacher? (2012-09-17 10:55) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 11

Designing a Character Profile (2012-09-21 08:30) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 12

1.4 October . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 13

Evernote (2012-10-17 20:29) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 13

Student feedback (2012-10-18 09:54) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 14

1.5 November . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 15

Using Piktochart (2012-11-08 11:03) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 15

Using Audioboo to conduct a SWOT Analysis (2012-11-15 09:38) . . . . . . . . . . . . . 16

Update on Evernote Feedback (2012-11-20 10:22) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 17

Careers Advisor: Personal Attributes (Unit 1, LO1, P1) (2012-11-22 14:04) . . . . . . . 18

Kagan Manage Mats (2012-11-22 14:57) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 19

Why do I blog? (2012-11-28 16:57) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 20

2 2013 23

2.1 January . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 23

Creative iMedia - Unit 202: Assessment Objective 1 (2013-01-10 17:29) . . . . . . . . . 23

Improving PowerPoints for Students (2013-01-10 17:34) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 29

Differentiated Wordsearches (2013-01-18 12:11) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 30

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Video Scribe (2013-01-23 10:49) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 31

Explain Everything (2013-01-30 13:49) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 33

2.2 February . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 35

Improving Literacy: Spelling, Punctuation & Grammar (SPaG) (2013-02-05 10:30) . . . 35

Using Audioboo to provide feedback (2013-02-24 21:19) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 35

2.3 March . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 37

How to...! (2013-03-05 20:40) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 37

Cambridge Technicals in IT - Unit 1: LO3 (P5, P6, M2 & D2) (2013-03-06 10:45) . . . 37

SmartArt Evaluation Templates (2013-03-11 13:32) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 39

Continual Reviews/Evaluations (2013-03-11 14:19) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 40

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Chapter 1

2012

1.1 July

Home! (2012-07-13 09:18)

About me! (2012-07-13 09:19)

When I began my teacher training back in September 2008 I was introduced to a course called iMedia. Ivery quickly fell in love with the course & the numerous opportunities for students & staff alike.

When I applied for my first job I was lucky enough to be employed by a school who already ranwith iMedia & I was given the opportunity to develop the new Creative iMedia when it became available.Since then I have developed a passion for delivering Creative iMedia using a range of Web 2.0 technologies.

In recent months I undertook action research into using blogs to enhance literacy & develop studentreflection. This was a resounding success so I have decided to set up a blog to show & explain my use oftechnology in & out of the classroom to enhance my students’ learning. Within the next academic year Iam hoping to trial the use of mobile devices within the classroom & use the tools which students haveavailable to them all day, everyday. I intend to chart the successes & the failures here & I hope to learnfrom others too!

Using iPads to record videos (2012-07-13 09:34)

I have a class who love the creative element of Creative iMedia but the research part is less interesting forthem. I can sympathise & some of the topics aren’t the most interesting.

On Tuesday I was delivering a lesson about internet connections which from past experience has not beenthe easiest thing to deliver or one that has produced the best quality work.

I decided within the lesson to use iPads which have just been bought by the school to record thestudents speaking about dial up internet, broadband internet & Wi-Fi. This turned out to be much moreproductive than previous lessons on the same topic!

I had anticipated that the students would use the iPads to mess about with the numerous apps in-stalled on them but they were brilliant! All of the students remained on task & completed the work that

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I asked of them. I had structured the lesson so that the looked at source material, answered questions& then recorded their first video & so on. I think this worked well & the videos produced were reallygood. I definitely think the scaffolding of the lesson was the key to it’s success. By having a 5 part lesson(starter, dial up, broadband, wifi, plenary) pace was good & this helped engagement.

Ideally I would have liked all of the students to record their own videos & then use iMovie to editthem together but this hasn’t really been possible because of time restrictions. However, it only took mea few minutes to drop the videos onto the timeline & export them. If it wasn’t so close to the end of termI would have definitely got students to edit their videos themselves.

I started with this video purely for the sound. The sound of dial up internet is so familiar to any-one around my age or older but none of the students in my class could identify it or linked it to internetaccess.[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gsNaR6FRuO0]

I think most students were quite surprised at how internet access has progressed.

I also used these videos to scaffold the lesson:[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3br3AdsjZbM]

[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ytFW fz-2IM]

Why do I blog? misschambersict (2012-11-28 16:57:49)[...] blogged myself for my own benefit. So, I set up this blog & posted my first post called ‘Using iPads to RecordVideos’. Since then I have written a number of posts detailing the things I have done & how well they [...]

Creative iMedia – Unit 202: Assessment Objective 1 misschambersict (2013-01-18 11:04:08)[...] using iMovie & the camera function on the iPad. This is something they’ve done twice previously & bothtimes it was a success. Again, the idea is that students make notes & then record [...]

Explain Everything misschambersict (2013-01-30 13:49:43)[...] now I have started to look at using Explain Everything. In the past I have asked students to record videos toshow their understanding but this was suggested to me by a variety of people as an alternative [...]

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Describing key comic book characters (2012-07-18 19:34)

[1]

I have had another one of my hair brained ideas. So, in true ”Miss Chambers has lost the plot again”fashion... My students are going to become a comic book hero.

I have taught unit 206 to two groups previously & they have always enjoyed it but I sometimes geta bit bored with all of the worksheets & the endless story lines, page layouts & so on. I was talking tomy brother about a fancy dress party he’s attending where they’re all going dressed as superheroes &suddenly realised that this was the perfect way to complete the assessment objective where students haveto describe key characters from comic books. Rather than students researching & writing about theircharacters in a template format I’m going to get them to do the research, complete a Facebook profilefor their character & then record themselves as that character as if they’re doing an interview for thenews. That’s going to be the evidence they submit. I hope that this will, again, introduce the ’creative’part into Creative iMedia but also make the lessons lots of fun for the students &, hopefully, make ourmoderator smile too!!

I’ve just bought three masks from eBay which students can wear & I’ve been promised the full Ba-nanaman costume ready for September too. I’ll be looking for other masks over the summer such asDennis the Menace, Iron Man, etc. any other ideas?

1. http://misschambersict.files.wordpress.com/2012/07/20120718-232508.jpg

1.2 August

iMovie (2012-08-31 20:22)

Today I have been working with transition students who are going to be starting Year 7 on Wednesday.They were enthusiastic, cheerful, motivated & interested in EVERYTHING!! When I said we were usingiPads they were all very excited. It’s the first time I had properly used the iMovie app so I was quitelooking forward to it & hoping to experiment with it ready for future lessons.

The students were creating a trailer using the pre existing templates. I asked the students to create atrailer for summer school; they had to advertise it & show what they had done in the week. After about

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an hours planning the students were allowed to use the iPads to create their trailer in small groups. Itwas lovely to watch students being creative & inventive without too much input from me or any of theother staff present. Normally, when teaching Creative iMedia, I provide students with a brief which theyhave to follow. The brief provides students with a certain amount of freedom but it does limit them atthe same time because of the restrictions provided by the ’client’. Today students were just able to dowhat they wanted providing they were advertising the summer school. All of the students were brilliantat solving 99 % of the problems they faced. It was nice to see students troubleshooting & not relying onmy understanding; they were independent learners & I became a glorified camera woman for most of thesession!!

This afternoon we held a premier for the students & their parents/carers where they were able to showtheir videos. I purposely hadn’t watched the completed videos before we showed them & I was amazedby the quality of them, the inventiveness & the creativity. However, what surprised me the most was thecontent. I had expected students would focus on the activities that they had done throughout the week;Students had worked with a professional artist, travelled to the Centre for Life to use the 4D ride & theother exhibitions, played sports, created art and much more. What they focused on the most was thefriendships that they had made. I think this is absolutely wonderful! The students have done so much,and enjoyed it all, but what they valued was the friendships they had made & how this will help themwhen they start next week. The trailers are brilliant & students are all going to get a copy of the videos;who knows, maybe they will be a recording of when life long friendships started!!

1.3 September

Using Mobile Technologies in the Classroom (2012-09-10 09:16)

I recently had a discussion with my new Year 12 class about communication & technology. We werediscussing text speak & it’s rise to prominence. I felt fairly old when I had to explain how I was limitedto 150 characters due to the restrictions we had with mobile phones. They found this hilarious &, after afew comments about me being ancient (I am 27 this week!!! Hardly old!), we began discussing their useof mobile technology. When I was in 6th Form we were excited by the prospect of being able to changethe cover on our mobile phones; now, just 10 years later, students have iPhones, Blackberrys, etc whichchanges how we can approach education.

This is something I have been interested in for awhile & I hope to do some action research on theuse of mobile technologies in the classroom this academic year. It seems ludicrous to me that we are notexploiting the technologies students have to enhance their education. What I want to know is how youuse the technologies students already have within your lessons.

Do you allow students to use their mobile phones?What do they use them for?What are your experiences of mobile technologies?I’d really appreciate some feedback so that I can begin my action research alongside colleagues from otherschools.! Thanks in advance for anyone who responds!

Clucking & Clapping (2012-09-10 19:17)

I have started to teach the new [1]Cambridge Technicals in ICT & have started with unit 1 which is allabout communication. If I’m being honest communication is not the most exciting of topics and it’s muchless popular than the web design unit they’re doing with other people in my department.

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We all understand the importance of communication in the work place but I am not sure how muchstudents value it as an essential work skill. To help them to understand this I decided to start off byplaying some communication team building games which had two purposes. Firstly, some of our studentsare external students who have come for 6th Form; I was hoping that this could help to remove some ofthe barriers between the students. Secondly, they’d have a bit of fun while realising they couldn’t do thetask without communicating with each other.

We started by playing [2]Cluck & Clap. Basically, students have to cluck when they see an X andclap when they see an O. I started off by guiding them through it and then left them to their own devices!I also made it much harder the second time! The audio on the video isn’t great so I apologise for that!

[vimeo http://www.vimeo.com/49167803 w=500 &h=375]

[3]Cluck & Clap - OCR Cam Tech in ICT: Unit 1 (P2) from [4]Laura Chambers on [5]Vimeo.

The students started off by being really independent & working in their little groups with everyonedoing their own thing but eventually started to chat. Firstly, they decided someone had to count them in;this was successful and they all managed to start at the right time. However, that’s about as successfulas that got!! Eventually they had a discussion where half of the class would cluck and half would clap.

[6] We also played [7]Cowboys, Ninjas and Bears which is a 21st Centuryversion of Rock, Paper, Scissors and also way more fun! Students had to strike a pose after three andthe loser sat down. I used this mainly as an ice breaker and students seemed to really enjoy it. Even the

quieter students joined in and had a laugh.[8]

I found that this was the perfect starter for students to begin to work as a group, get to know each otherand to learn something. At first students were very reluctant and a bit shy; for that reason I am not100 % sure how this would work with a small group. They might be too shy and might not want toparticipate. I was definitely helped by the students who I know well (i.e. the ones who used to be inmy tutor group in Year 11) and the more outspoken members of the group. I believe this helped me tohave more informed conversation with the group and, with it being my first proper lesson with them,helped me to engage them & loosen them up so they’d happily have the flowing conversation I like tohave with Year 12 and Year 13 students. Students were able to identify what they’d done and eventuallymade the link to communication; they were able to apply their knowledge to the communication cycleand write more detailed coursework. However, what they really benefitted from was a fun lesson witha bit of silliness. They relaxed and had fun which is important and they bonded a little bit. Anyonewalking into my classroom would have had a shock though!! 25 Sixth Formers clucking & clapping orpretending to be a ninja, a bear or a cowboy is definitely not what you expect in an ICT lesson!!

Other team games which I found which might be suitable are [9]Flip the Duck (which I was desperate toplay but couldn’t find a rubber duck!), [10]Bodyguard & [11]Circle Up

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1. http://www.ocr.org.uk/qualifications/type/cambridge_technicals/it/it_l3/

2. http://thefoodproject.org/sites/default/files/Cluck%20&%20Clap.pdf

3. http://vimeo.com/49167803

4. http://vimeo.com/user12555791

5. http://vimeo.com/

6. http://misschambersict.files.wordpress.com/2012/09/lesson-1-team-games-006.jpg

7. http://thefoodproject.org/sites/default/files/Bears,%20Cows,%20Ninjas.pdf

8. http://misschambersict.files.wordpress.com/2012/09/lesson-1-team-games-007.jpg

9. http://thefoodproject.org/sites/default/files/FliptheDuck.pdf

10. http://thefoodproject.org/sites/default/files/Bodyguard.pdf

11. http://thefoodproject.org/sites/default/files/CIrcleUp.pdf

September 11th, 2001 (2012-09-10 21:10)

It’s been 11 years since 9/11 and I remember it like it was yesterday; I suspect most people do. I was 15and I had just started Year 11 when I came out of school and my Grandad told me what had happened.I truly believe that was the moment that I realised the world wasn’t the rosy little bubble I lived in.

In April 2005 I was lucky enough to travel to NYC with a friend. As a 19-year-old university stu-dent I was keen to see everything, shop until I dropped and experience the New York life style. However,my overwhelming urge was to go to Ground Zero and pay my respects to those who had died as well as

those who had suffered. [1] I think it was the quietestmoment of my life; I was in a busy city and all sound seemed to just disappear. I saw a giant hole inthe ground with metal still in there but what really got me was the messages on the fencing surroundingGround Zero; people who had lost loved ones had left the most touching messages. It’s something I willnever, ever forget.

In September last year I was a form tutor to a lovely group of Year 11 students. Ten years on from 9/11 Iremember thinking that these students were still in primary school when this tragedy happened. As wesat and reflected on the horrific events I asked them what their memories were; some had vague memoriesand some had none except for what they had been told by teachers or parents. I explained what I hadexperienced both at the time and in the subsequent years including my visit to Ground Zero. In October

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I was lucky enough to travel to NYC again. [2] Ground Zero hadchanged hugely and, with the 10 year anniversary having been just a month before, the new memorialwas a fitting tribute. I also visited the museum housed next to the fire station which was situated next towhere the towers used to stand. Alongside my brother and our friend we read the stories and rememberedwhat we’d seen ten years earlier. Towards the end of the museum is an area to reflect and they also askyou to write about your story. To be honest, I hadn’t really thought that I had a story but now I thinkeveryone who witnessed that day has some sort of story to tell. I sat and wrote about how I felt on thatday and how I felt ten years later discussing it with my form; it’s safe to say I shed a lot of tears. When Ireturned to school I showed my form pictures and I shared my experiences with them. Most were veryinterested and we chatted for a good hour about it.

This year I have a Year 7 form; 11 years ago most of them were not even born. Having debatedhow to reflect on this event with them I’ve realised something; there’s a place for creative teaching, web2.0 technologies and exciting lesson plans. However, there is also a place for just talking, sharing ourexperiences and not trying to do anything flash. Tomorrow I am going to talk to my form, show them acouple of pictures and see what they have to say. I love my exciting lessons and my slightly odd ideas butsometimes it’s just not necessary. I don’t think this applies singularly to tragic events; sometimes it’s okto just teach something or chat about something rather than use tools to convey ideas. Technology iswonderful but we don’t need it all of the time!

1. http://misschambersict.files.wordpress.com/2012/09/ground-zero-2005.jpg

2. http://misschambersict.files.wordpress.com/2012/09/picture-222.jpg

Do we ever stop being a teacher? (2012-09-17 10:55)

While on holiday in Turkey this year I was sitting on my sun bed reading the newspaper and I cameacross an article which was perfect for one of my lessons. When I mentioned this to my friend (who isn’t ateacher) she sat up, took her sunglasses off, rolled her eyes and said ”do you ever just stop? Relax, you’reon holiday; stop thinking about teaching!” This all made me think; do we ever actually stop?

I think that the answer to this is generally no. I don’t know any teacher who doesn’t draw on ex-perience from their own lives or see something in a newspaper and be inspired. I was fortunate enoughto have a wonderful History teacher during my GCSEs and my A-Levels who had resources for EV-ERYTHING! We always used to talk about how there wasn’t a subject which he hadn’t recorded a TVprogramme for, found a newspaper article, collected a souvenir, etc. The vast amount of ’stuff’ that hehad collected through his teaching career was, frankly, immense. I never understood how he had so many

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resources. However, now I get it; in my relatively short teaching career I have gathered a lot of ’stuff’ andI dread to think how much I will have when I retire. I cannot shut off the teacher side of me; I constantlysee opportunities to help my students learn and to improve my lessons. Secretly, I am thrilled when Ifind an article, buy a prop or simply have an idea (usually at the most random of times). Here are someexamples:

A few years ago I was in London with my Mam and I spent a long time taking pictures to supple-ment my [1]Rules of Photography (originally for OCR iMedia) lessons and the PowerPoint that I used.This PowerPoint has a couple of images on it which I think are great but there were loads more that Iprinted and asked the students to sort into categories to test their understanding. I think using imageswhich aren’t from Google is much more interesting. Also, the images that I used sparked conversationwith students about travelling and culture; I think it’s important to take these opportunities when they’reoffered to us to expand on our schemes of work.

I also have my wonderful goddaughters to thank for a few lessons. When we’re talking about agebeing a barrier to communication I love to show my classes pictures of the girls using the family iPad.Tizz is just 5; she can, however, use an iPad to do certain things. She’s learning to read but she could dothis before she’d gone to school. Her younger sister, Lola, is great at finding Peppa Pig episodes withoutany help from us. It’s a great way to demonstrate a point!

Last academic year I was teaching [2]OCR Nationals Unit 27 to my Year 13 class. e-Marketing issomething they experience everyday but don’t realise it. When you’re looking for an example there’s

never one to find! [3] I was thrilled when I found an example when one of my friendsliked a post by T in the Park. Perfect for demonstrating my point to the class and it just happened to beEXACTLY when I needed it! For this unit I also like to use the cultural videos which were produced asadverts by HSBC. There’s a whole range of them which are really useful to use and quite funny.

[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sSLPEwvVvN0]

I love it when something comes along unexpectedly; last year my Year 12 students were studyingcommunication when [4]Blackberry services failed; everyone else was annoyed whereas I was thrilled (Isuspected if I had a Blackberry I wouldn’t have been quite so pleased!) as I was able to demonstrate mypoint to my Year 12s easily. It also helped that most of them were suffering from a lack of technology!

Teaching has, simply, occupied every part of my life! In most situations this isn’t a bad thing. Last year Iwas fortunate enough to have a wonderful ITT student, [5]@missdrydenICT, who worked hard, very hard!When I told her to take a weekend off and enjoy herself she told me I was the pot calling the kettle black!She’s right; none of us ever really stop do we?

1. https://docs.google.com/open?id=0B_VNEJVGK9k_MkIzbEw0OWppTVU

2. http://pdf.ocr.org.uk/download/units/ocr_14983_unit_nationals_27.pdf?

3. http://misschambersict.files.wordpress.com/2012/09/liking-a-status.png

4. http://www.telegraph.co.uk/technology/blackberry/8820075/BlackBerry-services-collapse-again.html

5. https://twitter.com/missdrydenICT

Designing a Character Profile (2012-09-21 08:30)

I am still teaching [1]Unit 206 (Storytelling with a Comic Strip) to my Year 11 Creative iMedia class. Wehave come to the point where we have to think about our characters.

In the past I have always found it difficult to get students to think about what character they wanted to

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create & I have struggled with students being able to write enough detail about their character. Thistime I have approached it in a completely different way to how I would have previous; this time I askedstudents to create a [2]Facebook profile for their superhero as a way of engaging them in the task.

The FB profile asks them to fill in certain things like:

• Name

• Status

• Birthday

• Relationship status

• Home town

• College/school

However, the part I was really interested in was the ’About Me’ section where students detailed theircharacters’ super powers & their motivations for doing what they did. The students seemed to respondwell to this & it was more engaging for them.

There’s still a few things which we haven’t been able to complete yet which is a shame; I’d like toadd photos of the characters but that will have to wait a little bit longer. When the students have startedto complete the actual comic I will be asking them to add a picture.

Another use for the FB profile is for OCR Nationals L3. When I taught [3]Unit 27 I was struggling to getstudents to fully understand target markets & the differences between them. Students were strugglingto grasp the diffrences in disposable income, likes, etc. I had students build a profile for themselves atthirteen, eighteen & twenty five to show the differences in things such as email addresses, relationshipstatus, likes, dislikes, political & religious views, etc. Students benefitted from this & were able to drawcomparisions & see the changes over time &, therefore, changes in priorities.

1. http://pdf.ocr.org.uk/download/units/ocr_40570_unit_qcf_206.pdf?

2. https://docs.google.com/open?id=0B_VNEJVGK9k_U0xhUlp0S3JtS2M

3. http://pdf.ocr.org.uk/download/assess_mat/ocr_55974_sam_nationals_unit27.pdf?

1.4 October

Evernote (2012-10-17 20:29)

Last academic year I taught [1]Unit 27 of OCR Nationals to my Year 13 group & within that unit theyneed to give a presentation about tactical e-tools. Part of the mark criteria directly relates to the qualityof the presentation as well as the delivery & this requires a witness statement from me.

[2] When I did this last year I used [3]Evernote to make notes for three

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reasons; reason 1 was because students were giving their presentations using my desktop, reason 2 wasbecause my writing is appalling & I didn’t want to lose the paper I had written on & the final reason wasbecause I had just bought my iPad & wanted to play with all the apps. I did find Evernote to be usefulon this occasion but I hadn’t thought anymore about it than a useful way to avoid using paper.

I’ve just begun teaching unit 27 for the second time; I love this unit because it appeals to my BusinessStudies background & I find marketing to be a fascinating subject especially with the growth of socialnetworking. However, I don’t think that last year I delivered it as well as I could & this was partly downto it being the first delivery. With this in mind I was keen to audit all of the assessment objectives &improve them for this cohort.

Assessment objective 2 is definitely not a student favourite; who at 17 or 18 really likes to standup in front of their peers & deliver a presentation? I’m not a big fan of it & I’m 27! However, in a lotof ways this is one of the most important AOs because it teaches a skill as well as subject knowledge.Presenting is a skill which we all need at some point in our lives & something pretty much all of us dread.Last year my students hated it, did it & forgot about it. I diligently wrote witness statements & sentthem to students to read as feedback. However, I’m not even sure how many students actually read thisnever mind reflected on their performance. This years have a plan & it involves Evernote again. Thisyear I intend to take notes & almost instantly I intend to email students with their feedback to type upas a witness statement & give to me to sign. Students will also have to evaluate their own performancetoo & identify what they’d do to improve their performance next time.

My hope is that students will have a better understanding of their own performance & will be ableto learn a skill as well as develop essential subject knowledge.

1. http://pdf.ocr.org.uk/download/units/ocr_14983_unit_nationals_27.pdf?

2. http://misschambersict.files.wordpress.com/2012/10/evernote1.png

3. http://evernote.com/

Student feedback (2012-10-18 09:54)

A few years ago I took part in an action research project through the Catholic Partnership which weare involved in as a school. Our main focus was feedback for students. I trialed the use of oral feedbackrecorded using microphones & found it to be really useful especially when I was marking things likewebsites. One of the principles that I took from this was that students then had to transcribe theirfeedback & act on it. At the very least I knew students were forced to pay attention to my feedback.Since then I have to say I haven’t used recorded feedback as much as I would like to but this is due torestrictions such as where I am marking; when I’m in the staff room it’s hardly fair that I am yabberingaway when other people are working hard in their PPAs.

Since then I have been conscious of the type of feedback I am giving to my students & how they’rereacting to it. We’ve also introduced a new whole school marking policy which has been implementedsince September. This has refocused me on marking & feedback.

With this in mind I have a new approach to my Year 13 students who, I think, are a little lax when itcomes to their feedback. I’m not really sure how much they actually take on board. The new process is:

1. They hand in their work.

2. I mark their work & electronically give them feedback using the editable PDFs supplied by [1]OCR.

3. They use their paper marksheets & the annotations on their work to write down 4 targets & theircurrent working at grade.

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4. They make relevant improvements to their work to achieve their grade.

The first hand in for this group was yesterday & I will be spending Sunday evening marking the majorityof their work. The editable PDFs supplied by OCR are really useful as I can see the mark criteria & editthem as & when I need to. Also, one motivation is that students won’t be able to lose their mark sheet asI will always have a copy. I’ve marked one students’ work already which was fantastic; however, there wasstill room for improvement & the process of recording her progress was really easy using the PDF file.

I will also put common areas for improvement onto their class blog to support them. This will pro-vide students with a record of the areas which need improvement as a whole group which I think isimportant; there’s always common mistakes in a group.

My hope is that they will consider the feedback they have received much more carefully & will beable to identify common problems with their submissions (i.e. spelling, lack of print screens, poor sentencestructure, etc).

1. http://pdf.ocr.org.uk/download/assess_mat/ocr_55974_sam_nationals_unit27.pdf?

1.5 November

Using Piktochart (2012-11-08 11:03)

Most of my Year 13 students have picked a business called Beach Break Live to study for their Unit 27coursework which is pleasing. However, I need them to know everything there is to know about thisbusiness & I was struggling with how to get them to display their research. I am getting a little bit boredwith Google Docs; I’ve done the collaborative working lessons several times &, while they’re of greatbenefit, sometimes things need to change.

I’ve settled on getting them to do an infographic using [1]Piktochart to display their knowledge. Info-graphics are about getting the key information displayed in an easy to read format which is perfect. Iwill freely admit that I like the bright colour schemes that Piktochart offers & I do think they’ll lookfabulous on my walls when I get around to put them up. One advantage of Piktochart is that it allowsthe students to download their infographics as image files which is great for their coursework.

Here are a couple of examples of the infographics that my students produced:

[slideshow]

Infographics seem like the perfect way to prevent the age old research technique - copy & paste! I’veoften wondered just how much a student actually reads when they are required to research. I think it’sgenuinely very little. Instead they resort to the age old technique of a Google search & then start to copythe information they have found & not in a concise manner.

1. http://piktochart.com/

Creative iMedia – Unit 202: Assessment Objective 1 misschambersict (2013-01-10 17:29:31)[...] am in love with infographics as previous blog posts have shown. I think that they’re pretty & interesting!!Again, I will follow the same [...]

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Using Audioboo to conduct a SWOT Analysis (2012-11-15 09:38)

With my Year 13 OCR Nationals class we have been conducting a SWOT analysis of Beach Break Livefor their coursework (level 3, unit 27).

Some of my students have never studied Business Studies & others have. Therefore, there’s a dif-ference in basic understanding between the students. I broke my lesson down into 4 parts to teach SWOTanalysis.

[1]

Initially we discussed strengths & weaknesses as a whole group using McDonald’s as a case study. For thisI used a wonderful website called [2]Marketing Teacher which I have found really useful for a number ofdifferent ICT & Business Studies elements. To break up the lesson, I used a template sheet from [3]MindTools (you can clearly see I don’t believe in reinventing the wheel) to get students to list the strengths& weaknesses of BBL. Following this I asked students to create an [4]Audioboo of BBL strengths &weaknesses. I repeated the process with opportunities & threats before students were asked to completetheir write-up.

[5] I haven’t ever used Audio Boo in a lesson before & found that this was agreat little tool for the students to break up the lesson & assess progress throughout. Students wereslightly hesitant to complete task initially for fear of embarrassing themselves but did, eventually, get intoit. What I really liked about this activity was its simplicity; students needed minimal instruction & theywere able to use their own handheld, mobile devices which, in my opinion, we should be utilising morewithin lessons. By scaffolding the lesson & giving students just a short amount of time to complete theirAudioboo I think they stayed on task very well. With younger students in KS3 or KS4 I can see howit would be tempting to stray off task & record things which they weren’t meant to; however, by usingtimings & the planning sheet before recording, students had limited time & as they had to share theiroutcome with me they didn’t have the opportunity to mess about.

Here are some examples of the Audioboo’s produced by students:

[gigya src=”http://boos.audioboo.fm/swf/fullsize player.swf” flashvars=”mp3=http %3A %2F %2Fau-dioboo.fm %2Fboos %2F1060291-swot-analysis.mp3 %3Fsource %3Dwordpress &mp3Author=Dawnr&mp3LinkURL=http %3A %2F %2Faudioboo.fm%2Fboos %2F1060291-swot-analysis &mp3Time=07.36am+15+Nov+2012 &mp3Title=SWOT+analysis”width=”400” height=”160” allowFullScreen=”true” wmode=”transparent”]

[gigya src=”http://boos.audioboo.fm/swf/fullsize player.swf” flashvars=”mp3=http %3A %2F %2Faudio-boo.fm %2Fboos%2F1059803-bbl.mp3 %3Fsource %3Dwordpress &mp3Author=D3W3Y467 &mp3LinkURL=http %3A

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%2F %2Faudioboo.fm %2Fboos %2F1059803-bbl &mp3Time=07.28pm+14+Nov+2012 &mp3Title=BBL”width=”400” height=”160” allowFullScreen=”true” wmode=”transparent”]

[gigya src=”http://boos.audioboo.fm/swf/fullsize player.swf” flashvars=”mp3=http%3A %2F %2Faudioboo.fm %2Fboos %2F1059575-swot-analysis-bbl.mp3 %3Fsource %3Dwordpress&mp3Author=rebeccabarton &mp3LinkURL=http %3A %2F %2Faudioboo.fm %2Fboos %2F1059575-swot-analysis-bbl &mp3Time=09.48pm+14+Nov+2012 &mp3Title=SWOT+analysis+BBL” width=”400”height=”160” allowFullScreen=”true” wmode=”transparent”]

For anyone interested, I have included my [6]PowerPoint which I used in my lesson.

1. http://misschambersict.files.wordpress.com/2012/11/swot.png

2. http://marketingteacher.com/swot/mcdonalds-swot.html

3. http://www.mindtools.com/pages/article/worksheets/SWOTAnalysisDownload.htm

4. http://audioboo.fm/

5. http://misschambersict.files.wordpress.com/2012/11/audioboo.jpg

6. https://docs.google.com/open?id=0B_VNEJVGK9k_TlFJN0hqdk1pTFU

Using Audioboo to provide feedback | misschambersict (2013-02-24 21:19:10)[...] an app which I have found particularly useful in the past & have blogged about previously [...]

Update on Evernote Feedback (2012-11-20 10:22)

[1] I recently published a post about how I intended to use Evernote as afeedback tool in my lessons so I thought I’d best explain how it went.

I used Evernote while students were presenting for assessment objective 2 to take notes & then I emailedit back to students for them to type up a witness statement (hopefully to save me time) & to perform aself evaluation.

An example Evernote can be found [2]here. (NOTE: WWW stands for ’what went well’ & EBI stands for’even better if’ which is something we do whole school when giving feedback. I decided it was better tostick with this method when giving the feedback)

For me there were several benefits which I found; firstly, I realised that I could keep a record of theirfeedback & avoid wasting trees photocopying various pieces of paper. I now know my feedback is secure&, should something happen to one device, I have the a back up on the Internet & the app on my phone& iPad. Secondly, I used to scrawl notes while watching presentations which would need to be added to& rewritten after the presentation because they were not legible for the examiner & couldn’t serve as thewitness statement. I created a template in one note which I just copied & pasted to another until I hadthe templates created for each individual student. Improving & arranging the notes was much easier & Ihave forwarded the final copy to the students for them to see. The third major benefit is that I know thestudents are going to have to read the feedback because they’re required to print it for me to sign & toproduce a self evaluation using the feedback I have provided & that other students have provided (I alsoasked students to make notes using Evernote for each other). Overall,I found this method quick, easy &secure.

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To me there are obvious benefits to the students. All of the presenters received their feedback withintwo hours of delivering their presentation which was helpful to them as they want to know what they’vegot grade wise. In addition to this, they’re able to start their self evaluation quite quickly. It’s alwayseasier to evaluate immediately after the event. Students also don’t need to worry too much about losingfeedback because they’ll always have access to it.

The only issues I did have was with the app crashing each time I tried to email the students’ theirfeedback. However, this was easily solved by logging into the website. It proved to be more awkwardwhen I had a larger group presenting but it’s not the end of the world & nobody else seems to have hadthis issue.

I have started to use this during my meetings with my ITT students too & it is something that Ifind incredibly useful as I have a record of the meeting rather than just them. I often found that ifstudents weren’t bringing their meeting sheets to the next meeting then we couldn’t be as productive asI’d have liked. That’s no longer a problem now.

UPDATE Jan 2013

Just as an update, I have started to use Evernote with my Year 12 classes who are studying Cam-bridge Technicals. I have asked students to create a booklet about legislation which they have done. Irealised quite quickly that I had an issue; my printer was broken so I couldn’t get their work in a physicalformat. Therefore, I have decided to use Evernote to make electronic notes & I have shared these usingthe link option available of the web version. This has many benefits; firstly, I have saved an awful lot ofpaper & secondly, I have been able to work from a variety of locations over the Christmas holidays. Byproviding students with the link they’re able to see updated feedback as they go along. I will be addingto this for the other parts of the LO as soon as I get the marking done. The other section is a Mediatorproduct so, again, it’s not a physical thing. I have shared the link via the blog by adding all students to adocument & sharing via Google Docs. Again, I am asking students to add a summary of the feedback totheir mark sheet so that they’re reading & summarising their feedback. This is something which I feel isquite important.

If anyone has an other great note taking & sharing apps they’d like to recommend I’d be gratefulbecause I am looking to solve the crashing problem. It might start to irritate me soon!! Cheers

1. http://misschambersict.files.wordpress.com/2012/11/evernote.png

2. https:

//www.evernote.com/shard/s194/sh/9e5c470a-5c59-44cd-b45a-f9d48e1f03ce/3ce6ec61b4134de6c89b0f9aafda49a5

Careers Advisor: Personal Attributes (Unit 1, LO1, P1) (2012-11-22 14:04)

As many of you know, I am teaching the new [1]Cambridge Technicals qualification from OCR. Myself& my students are finding Unit 1 quite dull & tiresome at this point so I am keen to find new & moreexciting ways to deliver the content.

At present we are on Unit 1 which is about communication & employability skills within the IT sector.P1 is ”explain the personal attributes valued by employers”; I am sick of reading reports, discussingformatting, etc so I have decided to deliver this using Mediator. Students were asked to create a Mediatorproduct which includes the following:

• A splash screen including an introduction

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• A page per attribute as highlighted in the specification

• Fully linked pages including navigation back to the splash screen on each page

• A definition of each attribute

• An explanation of the attribute

• Why employers value this attribute

Students are being assessed on this as part of their assessment week so I require them to consider theaesthetics as well as the information included. I like that this has a more creative element (definitely moremy thing) & it teaches them additional skills even if it is just the basics.

To support this I have also asked out careers advisor, Anne, to come in & speak to students aboutwhat employers are looking for. She addressed three key areas including personal attributes, job specificskills & qualifications. Anne talked to students & carried out small activities including class discussionswhich allowed students to explore the requirements of various jobs.

The video which she showed can be seen [2]here.

Students seemed to be very engaged in the lesson; in part, this was due to someone else being atthe front of the classroom. Students often react better when there is someone different leading the lesson& this was obvious in this occasion. In addition to this, Anne was giving them real life examples whichshe has picked up in her day-to-day activities. One of these examples was about an apprenticeship with awell-known, national company which put into perspective the personal skills students would need if theywere to apply for a job. At no point was this all about IT jobs; I think that a generic approach to careersis important especially considering the squeeze on Pastoral time. This was especially pertinent to a groupof students who, in the main, are looking for their first full time job.

1. http://www.ocr.org.uk/qualifications/type/cambridge_technicals/it/it_l3/

2. http://www.btplc.com/Responsiblebusiness/Supportingourcommunities/Learningandskills/Majorprogrammes/

MovingOn/Brandyou/Whatdoemployerswant/index.htm

Kagan Manage Mats (2012-11-22 14:57)

[1] At the beginning of this academic year my Subject Learning Co-Ordinator, [2]@gmcICT, introduced me to Kagan Manage Mats; Kagan is something he’s talked about alot over the last couple of years while I’ve been here.

[3]Kagan Manage Mats are great! They’re really useful within classroom situations to manage groups &promote discussion & participation in classrooms. Over the last couple of months I have used/seen theseused in a variety of ways & all seem to have worked really, really well.

Manage Mats have been divided into four squares; number 1 is shaded blue & has a small A in the corner,number 2 is shaded purple & has a small B in the corner, number 3 is shaded blue & has a small A in thecorner & number 4 is shaded purple & has a small B in the corner.

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• Today I was teaching a lesson on legislation for Cambridge Technical (Unit 1) & I used these asa way to group students. All students sat in tables of no more than 4. I assigned each studenta legislation to quickly find out about giving them until the end of a song which I was playing(Munford & Sons for those who are interested). When students returned to their seats I asked all ofthe people who were ’1s’ (as indicated by the mat which was on the table in front of them) to standtogether, all the ’2s’ & so on. Then I asked them to share in their new groups & make notes on thelegislation. After 10 minutes of doing this, students returned to their original groups & explainedall of the legislation which they now knew to the group. Once this had been done all students hadwritten something about all of the pieces of legislation without having to research them.

• This worked because students were asked to work outside of their comfort zone with people whothey hadn’t worked with before by mixing up the groups. They were completely at random asit depended on where students were sat in the classroom as to what number they got. Also, Iconsidered doing this as a Google Doc & asking each student to research one piece of legislationbut I wanted the discussion element. By summarising the legislation & writing it on paper studentsweren’t able to just copy & paste the first answer they found & they had to be able to understandit too as they had to explain it to other students.

I have also used this for a new version of think/pair/share which I call shoulder/face/share. The matshave something called ’shoulder partners’ & ’face partners’ which means you talk to the person who is atyour shoulder & then people who are face to face with you. Instead of ’think’ I say ’shoulder’; studentstalk to their shoulder person & jot down ideas, etc. Then instead of ’pair’ we have ’face’; students talkto the person opposite them. This then followed by a discussion as a class. It’s just a new variation onthink/pair/share which I quite like.

As with any other tool it’s the scaffolding that makes it work. Today, I had sheets & timers to helpstudents stay on track & with shoulder/face/pair I have used an adapted version of the PMI sheet.Without this it can become a little pointless.

I team teach a Year 13 class with [4]@gmcICT for OCR Nationals (unit 20 websites) & the matshave been used a lot in these lesson. For example, when students are discussing things as a small groupthey feedback to the whole group by selecting a number at random i.e. all of the ’2s’ stand up. Theythen become responsible for feeding back to the whole group about what has been discussed in their smallgroups.

There are loads of possibilities for this tool & I have found it really useful; it’s something so simplewhich can be embedded into a lesson very easily. In fact, there is literally no effort needed!!

There’s another side to the board called ’Fan-N-Pick’ though this is not something I have used. Ifanyone has I’d be really interested in hearing how it was used!

1. http://misschambersict.files.wordpress.com/2012/11/kagan-manage-mats.jpg

2. https://twitter.com/gmcICT

3. http://www.kagan-uk.co.uk/

4. https://twitter.com/gmcICT

Why do I blog? (2012-11-28 16:57)

This week when I received my TES I saw that there was an article called ’[1]Where it’s @’ about the risein teachers blogging & the increased use of Twitter for teachers to communicate, collaborate & network.

I’ll admit that after the first couple of paragraphs I was beginning to feel slightly concerned that the TESwas suggesting we only blog to vent & critisise. I kept reading & realised this was not what the article was

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about!! However, it did get me think about why I actually do blog. What’s the point? Why do I bother?

I started blogging myself in July 2012 after my Subject Learning Co-Ordinator, [2]@gmcICT, sug-gested that I should. I had already done an action research project which focused on blogging to enhanceteaching which was a resounding success. However, I hadn’t actually blogged myself for my own benefit.So, I set up this blog & posted my first post called [3]’Using iPads to Record Videos’. Since then I havewritten a number of posts detailing the things I have done & how well they have worked. However, thisdoesn’t explain the point of it or why I bother.

I’ve pondered this for a good few days now & I have come up with a number of reasons why I blog:

1. I blog because I like to. I guess that could be called self indulgent & perhaps it is but I like toshare the things that I have done. I often find the best ideas come from the things I read on Twitter orthe blogs that I have linked to through tweets from others. I don’t need or want to reinvent the wheel atany point; I just want to teach lessons which inspire students & help them to achieve & I find that otherpeople’s experiences help me. Hopefully, at some point, my ideas or experiences might help other people.

2. I blog because it helps me to evaluate. When I write things down I can be a bit more honestwith myself than when I just turn things over in my head. I find that I am more analytical &, often, lesscritical than I would be if I were to just think about things.

3. I blog to keep a record of what I’ve done. I often have good lessons & then ideas slip out ofmy mind & I sometimes forget to do something again. Having this blog records what I have done, howit’s worked & how I can use it again.

The article in the TES certainly made me think about what I am using this for. I don’t use thisto vent my frustrations on anything (except the failure of technology sometimes!!) or to critisise thingsbut I do like to evaluate my teaching regularly & this is a suitable tool to do this. As the blog must becurrent I am made to do this in a busy world. It’s good to sit down & take some time out! At some pointI hope people comment on my blog & I can start a dialogue; perhaps someone would like to tell me howthey’ve approached something similar or completely differently!

1. http://www.tes.co.uk/article.aspx?storycode=6303473

2. https://twitter.com/gmcICT

3. http://misschambersict.wordpress.com/2012/07/13/using-ipads-to-record-videos/

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Chapter 2

2013

2.1 January

Creative iMedia - Unit 202: Assessment Objective 1 (2013-01-10 17:29)

Anyone who follows me on Twitter will know that I have been struggling to create a unit of work whichwas interesting, challenging & enjoyable for [1]Unit 202 of Creative iMedia. My class has 7 boys in it&, to be honest, the unit didn’t appeal to me nevermind them. They’re a lovely group who enjoy thepractical element of the course but are less inclined to do the written bits i.e. the research, the planning& the evaluating. To be fair, I completely understand where they’re coming from; I am the same!

I have spent a lot of time talking to colleagues/friends (a special thanks to [2]@m115 bem forher help) & borrowing their work & tweaking it for my class to incorporate a greater range of e-learningtools, iPad activities, differentiation, etc.

Assessment Objective 1

My PPT for AO1 can be seen [3]here.

This was the AO I was/am most worried about; research audio software, research audio file for-mats, etc, etc. This isn’t the most exciting thing to do!! The tasks which I have used have been varied.The first couple of lessons were about getting students to get information onto paper. For 1.2 theyhad to create a [4]Prezi to explain broadcast methods & platforms which can view digital media. I’veexperienced a few issues with Prezi; firstly, the computers didn’t have Flash Player which was a probleminitially but easily fixed. The students quite liked Prezi but I did have to ban certain motion paths forfear of being sick; it was like being on a rollercoaster!! Downloading the Prezis was a pain too. I’ve alsoexported them as a PDF (using the print function) to be on the safe side for moderation as sometimesthings seem to stop working when I’ve checked them on Maps. Below is a copy of a Prezi I did as an[5]example though as a PDF. When I can embed the Prezi I will!

[6]https://docs.google.com/open?id=0B VNEJVGK9k MFg5M282TFRPNEU

My next step is to approach 1.3; students need to research the capabilities & limitations ofsound software, still image editing software & moving image editing software.

I am going to get students to create a table for sound, a podcast for still image editing soft-ware & an infographic using [7]Piktochart for moving image editing software. I intend for students totake one lesson for sound software, two for still image software & one for moving image software plus ahomework research task. Students will be provided with scaffolding for each lesson.

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Sound Software

As this is the first one that they’re doing I intend to get them to complete a [8]table which isalready in their work area. This table will be changed & printed for the other areas so that students arefollowing a familiar process. Students will be asked to find capabilities & limitations for one piece ofsoftware (initially Audacity) & then feedback to the group. They will then be sent away to research oneof their own & then feedback to the group & so on until they have three pieces of software in their table.Students who are MAT students might have the opportunity to add additional software to their table. Iwill be providing some websites to help students & I have also printed some resources which I have found.

15/1/2013 - This has worked quite well. Students were fairly well engaged in the lesson whichwas pleasing. Only a couple of students struggled which I expected due to their particular learningdifficulties. All the other students have managed to email me their work which I will check & feedback tothem ASAP.

Still Image Software

Students will be given a sheet with a table on similar to that for the sound software. Again,the lesson will be structured so that students will have to gather information for one software andfeedback and so on. I intend to show videos & suggest possible websites (which I will share when I havefound them) to scaffold the lesson & prevent students from looking here, there and everywhere - or, as ismore likely, going to Wikipedia & no further. In addition to this, some students have difficulty reading soI will be checking reading ages of sources, using video for auditory learners, etc.

Creating the podcast will be a second lesson where students will develop sound editing skillswhich will be important later on in the unit. Taking this opportunity for a practice is important & allowsstudents to familiarise themselves with the software before the crucial piece of work. Before creating aPodcast, students will be shown this video from YouTube (obviously not all of it):

[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-hrBbczS9I0]

By using this video, I hope to push the students with better skills to play with the softwarehaving given them a starting point leaving me to be able to assist the weaker students more easily. As inthe video, students will be using [9]Audacity to create their podcast.

17/1/2013 - In the first lesson, I carefully structured the lesson into 6 parts. I started with theintroduction & the starter activity which was the same as the previous lesson & then I moved on tothe first piece of software. The students looked at the capabilities & limitations of iPhoto as a photoediting package using the information from the [10]iTunes website. The information is easily accessiblewith this source especially considering the reviews which are available. I think this was important forthe less able students in the class because some other sources were very, very technical & it would havebeen difficult to pick out the important parts. I had printed copies of these as well as the internet whichallowed students to choose which to use. After about 7 minutes the students & I discussed their findings.This allowed students to add to their notes in preparation for the next step. I repeated the processes forthe other two software options (Fireworks & Photoshop) then allowed students to look for their ownwhich they later fed back to the group. Below are two images of some of the work produced:

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[11]

[12]

I am quite happy with the work students have produced for the first part of this task but I amless happy with the quality of the resources I provided. I’d have liked to be able to check the reading agesof the sources (something which we are covering in Twilight Training this week ironically) though theiTunes source was pretty good & students were able to access that a lot easier than the other two sources.If anyone has any good websites for checking reading ages I’d appreciate it if you could pass those on.Behaviour can be an issue with this class & I find that lots of short, timed activities work really well &this is something I have stuck to quite rigidly.

[13] Recording the podcast was a separate lesson which took place theday after the research lesson. To record the sounds I gave each students a microphone. We use [14]EasiSpeak microphones which were originally designed for primary school children. These are really easy touse & students had no problems with them. I asked students to create small audio files; they recordedtheir capabilities & features for the first piece of software, started a new file for limitations & so on. Thisreduced the likelihood of making mistakes & is something I have learned from previous lessons withother groups. The best thing about these microphones is that they can transfer the sounds via a USBport which meant the students could add them to their own workspace easily as & when they needed to.There was some initial silliness from students which is a little bit disappointing but also to be expected.All students had a really good grasp of how to use Audacity from studying OCR Nationals which madethe process smooth. I’d forgot that they had already used this software but the lesson at least provided a

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refresher for them. Below is an example of one of the podcasts which I uploaded using Audioboo.

[gigya src=”http://boos.audioboo.fm/swf/fullsize player.swf” flashvars=”mp3=http %3A%2F %2Faudioboo.fm %2Fboos %2F1160495-still-image-podcast-1.mp3 %3Fsource %3Dword-press &mp3Author=MissChambersICT &mp3LinkURL=http %3A %2F %2Faudio-boo.fm %2Fboos %2F1160495-still-image-podcast-1 &mp3Time=01.58pm+17+Jan+2013&mp3Title=Still+Image+Podcast+1+” width=”400” height=”160” allowFullScreen=”true”wmode=”transparent”]

Overall, I am quite pleased with how this lesson turned out. The work produced by students isreally good & easily meets the mark criteria for this section. Most importantly, students enjoyed this &approached it with a positive attitude. This helped students with weaker literacy skills or EAL.

In terms of submitting this work through Maps, I have decided to take pictures of the sheetsstudents complete & upload those as well as the podcasts. I’m firmly in the camp of ”be on the safe side”& it doesn’t cause much disruption as we are using Maps3 so multiple uploads are an issue &, as longas students tag their posts, I am able to check everything off in one go (something which is a massiveimprovement over Maps2).

Moving Image Software

I am in love with infographics as [15]previous blog posts & tweets have shown. I think thatthey’re pretty & interesting!! Again, I will follow the same format though students will have done theirresearch at home (fingers crossed). They’ll have the opportunity in the starter to feedback to the group& add to their table so that they’re gathering additional information which they can act upon.

1.4 - 1.7 - File Formats & Compression

As you’ll see from my PowerPoint, I was intending to do a Prezi with the students for AO1.4but I was playing around with some apps which were suggested to me. [16]Video Scribe is a really easyapp to use & it is fun too! Below is an example of a video which I created in less than 10 minutes whenplaying about. I haven’t added any sound or used any of the advanced features but for 10 minutes it’s adecent video!

[vimeo 57595733 w=500 h=281]

[17]Video Scribe Example from [18]Laura Chambers on [19]Vimeo.

I am going to ask students to create a Video Scribe to explain audio file formats. I like howthis app exports to Dropbox & to the camera roll which is helpful. However, it can take a really longtime which is a shame & time consuming. I’ll have to sort this out after the lesson I think rather thanask the students to do it. The video above took 20 minutes to create the video.

30/1/2013 - Initially I had planned for this lesson to take just one but that soon turned out tobe unrealistic. I gave students a number of resources to use which I had found on the internet.Unfortunately, these were all printed articles because I have had real trouble finding videos, podcasts, etc.which is a shame. However, I did check the literacy levels & the articles were definitely suitable for thestudents. Again, I structured the lesson so that students had to read and make notes. We then discussedit and students moved onto the second file format. An example of the work is below:

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[20]

Students all managed this task quite well and we moved onto inputting the information ontoVideo Scribe. I am really pleased with how the students worked with the app. It is a little fiddly at firstbut students got to grips with it quite well. They got a little bit obsessed with the images which could beadded but this didn’t distract students from what they had to do so I am pleased. They also had thesense to make these animations smaller. That is definitely on of my top tips; when you’re exporting ittakes a long time so the preset drawings need to be made much quicker (some are up to 30 seconds).Examples of student work can be seen below:

[vimeo 58536093 w=500 h=281]

[21]Jevon’s Audio File Formats from [22]Laura Chambers on [23]Vimeo.

[vimeo 58536156 w=500 h=281]

[24]Chris’ Audio File Formats from [25]Laura Chambers on [26]Vimeo.

AO1.5 is all about still image file formats. I am going to ask the students to create a shortmovie using [27]iMovie & the camera function on the iPad. This is something they’ve done twice[28]previously & both times it was a success. Again, the idea is that students make notes & then recordtheir videos, import into iMovie & render a video to create their evidence. This is something which takesthe pressure off students because they can create multiple takes if they need to. 5 out of 7 students inthis class have literacy issues & this does help them with these issues as they don’t need to write all ofthe time.

I have used the following video as the prompt for students:

[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=maqbhJx3H4E]

This is a really simple video for students to listen to & it doesn’t make things overly ’techie’which is a problem with a lot of resources which I find, especially for this sort of thing! I liked this becausethe slide is on the screen which is helpful for students to read as they are listening. This engages twodifferent types of learners; I especially think it’ll be helpful for a couple of my students. I am providingstudents with a sheet which they need to fill in as the video goes along so that they can make notes inpreparation for their videos. The sheets can be seen below or you can see them as PDFs ([29]sheet 1 &[30]sheet 2)

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[31]

[32] Ideally, I plan to have these sheets printedback to back & blown up to A3 for the students. This class like things to be in colour too which is whythey’re so bright!

5/2/2013 - Today we finally got around to creating the videos & putting them together usingiMovie. Last week we watched the video above & then discussed the information the students had foundbefore they write their script. I think this was a really beneficial to the students & I was especiallypleased with the students that went away & did some additional research before writing their scripts. Ithink the video helped them with a starting point before they looked at more complex sources.

The videos the students created were quite good and definitely covered the relevant points which allowthem to achieve the assessment criteria.

Students used the camera function on the iPad to record their videos (ideally in small sections)then used iMovie to edit the videos together (simple drag & drop). In the past when I have done this Ihave always asked students to film each other but some students are really shy when it comes to being oncamera so this time I printed off the icons & asked students to film them while talking. This made theprocess much quicker than I expected so students carried on with their work from other units.

Below are two examples of the videos which were produced:

[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jzuh3l139AM]

[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CMvAjFcxor8]

As usual, I used the iPad exit tickets to find out what students said

”The iPads were fun to use. I found it better than writing stuff down in our books. However, it might be

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difficult for some people to get the hang of using the iPads.”

I think this is a very valid point; some students might find it more difficult than others. However, I dothink that students are very tech savvy and with some being experts it does make it easier for me to helpothers who are struggling more. As usual I have asked the students to upload their scripts to Maps sothat there is additional evidence ’just in case’ !

1. http://ocr.org.uk/images/81594-level-2-unit-202-digital-media-skills-for-asset-production.pdf

2. https://twitter.com/m155_bem

3. https://docs.google.com/file/d/0B_VNEJVGK9k_SDNBZnFmVWl3WlU/edit

4. file://localhost/mnt/ext/blogbooker/tmp/0qv41gjb/www.prezi.com

5. https://docs.google.com/open?id=0B_VNEJVGK9k_MFg5M282TFRPNEU

6. https://docs.google.com/open?id=0B_VNEJVGK9k_MFg5M282TFRPNEU

7. http://piktochart.com/

8. https://docs.google.com/open?id=0B_VNEJVGK9k_UEJTU19GWmdOaEk

9. http://audacity.sourceforge.net/

10. https://itunes.apple.com/gb/app/iphoto/id497786065?mt=8&ign-mpt=uo%3D2

11. http://misschambersict.files.wordpress.com/2013/01/still-image-software2.jpg

12. http://misschambersict.files.wordpress.com/2013/01/still-image-software1.jpg

13. http://misschambersict.files.wordpress.com/2013/01/microphones.jpg

14. http://www.tts-group.co.uk/shops/tts/Products/PD1727034/Easi-Speak-MP3-Recorder-Player/

15. http://misschambersict.wordpress.com/2012/11/08/using-piktochart/

16. https://itunes.apple.com/gb/app/videoscribe-hd/id505464331?mt=8

17. http://vimeo.com/57595733

18. http://vimeo.com/user12555791

19. http://vimeo.com/

20. http://misschambersict.files.wordpress.com/2013/01/audio-ff.jpg

21. http://vimeo.com/58536093

22. http://vimeo.com/user12555791

23. http://vimeo.com/

24. http://vimeo.com/58536156

25. http://vimeo.com/user12555791

26. http://vimeo.com/

27. https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/imovie/id377298193?mt=8

28. http://misschambersict.wordpress.com/2012/07/13/using-ipads-to-record-videos/

29. https://docs.google.com/file/d/0B_VNEJVGK9k_YUxCWkNaOTZOZGs/edit

30. https://docs.google.com/file/d/0B_VNEJVGK9k_Y2VibUJra1NlWTQ/edit

31. http://misschambersict.files.wordpress.com/2013/01/help-sheet-1.jpg

32. http://misschambersict.files.wordpress.com/2013/01/help-sheet-2.jpg

Improving PowerPoints for Students (2013-01-10 17:34)

I’ve spent a lot of time recently working with student teachers on developing resources & teaching aids.It made me think a lot about how I create my resources & I began to think more closely about my ownPowerPoints & how they aid & how they hinder learning.

I was always told during my teacher training that one of the best tools I had at my disposal waswhat I put on the board as it would help me to progress through my lessons. I’ve always found it easierto create a PPT than a lesson plan & often do that first when planning for a lesson before I write anLP (when I have to do so). However, I have begun to think that my PPTs aren’t going the extra mile&, sometimes, are pretty poor. So, after much consideration & a look at other people’s PPTs, I haveredeveloped most of my teaching resources.

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I have started to use a presentation style called ’Sketchbook’ which is available in Microsoft Power-Point 2010 because I think the colours are professional & simple as well as being appropriate for thestudents. Too often the templates are distracting for students. There are some other things which I havestarted to do also:

1. Following the learning objectives, I have a slide with the keywords for the lesson displayed on them.These usually link back to the objectives. The idea behind this is that students will be able toidentify key learning easier. The key words are highlighted throughout the PPT when they appearto draw students to their & help them make links within their learning. With one class I am askingthem to keep a record of the keywords & later on we will use an app called [1]Wordsalad to createan infographic to submit with their coursework. The idea is that they can use these keywords asprompts when it comes to writing their review.

2. At the top of each slide is a box which contains the learning objective that that slide/task relates to.This might be one or two objectives depending on the point in the lesson. This has helped me toensure that the lessons I am planning don’t vear off course at any point. In addition to this, it helpsstudents make the links between what they’re expected to learn & what they’re actually learning.They can then self assess to see if they are meeting that objective too.

3. I have started to include a box at the bottom which contains the blog address for that class (ifappropriate) & a twitter hashtag. While Twitter doesn’t seem to have taken off in my classroom yet(I am pushing it), I am hoping that students will begin to use it for when they need help or whenthey’re at home & find a suitable resource, etc. I am also using it for starters & plenaries in somelessons.

The video below was created using [2]Explain Everything (EE) on the iPad & uploaded to [3]Vimeo. Thisis the first EE I have done so apologies for the poor quality but I was just testing it!

[vimeo http://www.vimeo.com/57144728 w=500 &h=375]

[4]Improved PPT from [5]Laura Chambers on [6]Vimeo. >

I think my new method of creating PPTs has it’s benefits; I am hoping that students are able tomake links more easily between what I have asked them to learn & what they’re doing. I am aware thatnothing I am doing is particularly new or exciting &, frankly, I have created the PPT templates fromtaking the best practices of other people. My PPTs in the past have been well ordered but I think thiswill improve their effectiveness within lessons.

1. https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/wordsalad-your-salads-redefined/id545164778?mt=8

2. https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/explain-everything/id431493086?mt=8

3. file://localhost/mnt/ext/blogbooker/tmp/0qv41gjb/www.vimeo.com

4. http://vimeo.com/57144728

5. http://vimeo.com/user12555791

6. http://vimeo.com/

Explain Everything misschambersict (2013-01-30 13:49:37)[...] the first time with students. I have used it myself in the past which you might have seen on my previous blogpost but today was the first time that I have used it with [...]

Differentiated Wordsearches (2013-01-18 12:11)

Yesterday after school we had a twilight session about literacy, differentiation & sharing best practiceacross the school. In addition to this, we’ve had a recent book scrutiny which focused on marking policy

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& differentiation.

I have always struggled with differentiation for both higher & lower ability students particularly atKey Stage 3. I am lucky; our KS3 schemes of work & resources are created for us. However, there’s aneed to adapt resources for my own classes & this is something I have become a lot more concious of thisacademic year.

Last night I was trying to think of a suitable plenary for two Year 7 classes. One class is mostlyable with a couple of students who have SEN where as the other class has appoximately half the studentswith SEN or EAL. This makes teaching quite tough at times & can make differentiation difficult also. AllI wanted was something fairly simple to end the lesson. I decided on a wordsearch of the key terms fromthe lesson followed by a question & answer session as they’re exiting.

I have differentiated wordsearches before but last night I found a great site which made it even quicker &easier to do. [1]Teachers-Direct is very easy to use & quick too which is most important for all of us inour busy lives.

The first wordsearch I produced is for the [2]lower ability students who struggle with basic literacy.I chose the basic worsearch option which just creates a list of words which they can search for. An optionis to pick which direction you’d like the words to go in so I’ve picked ’natural direction’ for this wordsearch& then easy letters to surround the words.

The [3]middle to higher ability wordsearch is a little bit more complex. I’ve used an option to addquestions or phrases with the searchable words missing. Therefore, students have to answer the questionsbefore they can search for the key word. I have chosen for words to go in any directions & left the choiceof surrounding letters as medium.

What I liked most was the ability to save PDFs from this site. I now have two resources for thenext time I teach this unit. I haven’t expored any of the other features on this site as of yet.

1. http://www.teachers-direct.co.uk/resources/wordsearches/wordsearch-maker.aspx

2. https://docs.google.com/file/d/0B_VNEJVGK9k_UUM1Sjl1S0JqWE0/edit

3. https://docs.google.com/file/d/0B_VNEJVGK9k_UEJFUnRraXMzTjg/edit

Explain Everything misschambersict (2013-01-30 13:49:40)[...] much more focused on & aware of over the last couple of months. I have already blogged about differentiatedwordsearches and now I have started to look at using Explain Everything. In the past I have asked students to [...]

Video Scribe (2013-01-23 10:49)

[1] [2]Video Scribe is an app which I have recently started to use & one which I have reallycome to love!

The iTunes description states that it is a ”unique way to create engaging animated videos quickly& easily”. This is definitely something I would agree with. I spent a reasonable amount of time creatingtwo videos so that I could learn to use the app. In all honesty, I only needed to create one as it is simpleto use but I was enjoying using the app & wanted to make a second video. There’s options to add soundto the videos & to import your own images or record your own sound. I haven’t used these features yetbut I suspect they’ll be fairly simple as with all of the other features on this app. The app allows you toexport directly to the camera roll. Dropbox, Youtube or your mail (though all videos I have created have

31

been far too big for this option) which makes sharing really easy.

There are only two disadvantages that I can find so far:

1. When you enter text it appears on one line regardless of whether you add line breaks which is ashame. If you want text on a different line you need to add a second piece of text. It works best forinformation to be in really small chunks but this is good for most presentations.

2. Creating a movie can take a very long time. The two videos below took between 20 & 30 minutesto export to a movie which wasn’t overly convinient but I did just go away & make a cup of teawhile this was happening!

Below are the two videos I have created so far. Both have been uploaded to [3]Vimeo for you to be ableto see them.[vimeo http://www.vimeo.com/57595733 w=500 &h=281]

[4]Video Scribe Example from [5]Laura Chambers on [6]Vimeo.

[vimeo http://www.vimeo.com/58004225 w=500 &h=281]

[7]Video File Formats from [8]Laura Chambers on [9]Vimeo.

I intend to move forward with this by making videos for things such as: course overviews (for openevenings, etc), generic expectations guidance (for things like essay writing, literacy, etc) & for helps sheets.I hope this will engage learns a bit better than traditional methods such as paper hand outs.

I can see how Video Scribe can be used, from a teachers point of view, across a variety of subjects:

• Science: creating a ’how to’ video for an experiment

• Maths: reminders of key terms or rules for formulas

• English: literacy rules or ’how to’ for writing to persuade/inform/argue/etc

I am sure there are way more & I’d be really grateful if you could suggest ways which this could be usedin your own subject. I can also see this being a useful revision tool; create a video which gives the keytopics for a unit with some key points added. This could be added to a VLE, blog, etc for students tolook at at home when revising.

Using Video Scribe with Students

I have also asked students to produce Video Scribes to show their understanding of a topic. Belowis two examples of student’s work which details their understanding of audio file formats.

[vimeo 58536156 w=500 h=281]

[10]Chris’ Audio File Formats from [11]Laura Chambers on [12]Vimeo.

[vimeo 58536093 w=500 h=281]

[13]Jevon’s Audio File Formats from [14]Laura Chambers on [15]Vimeo.

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Students responded well to their task and created videos which met the requirements of the assess-ment criteria. They found the app a little bit fiddly & sensitive at first but were soon solving their ownproblems & getting their work done. I’m really pleased with this app & think it’s quite an easy one forstudents to use once they’ve got the hang of things.

1. http://misschambersict.files.wordpress.com/2013/01/videoscribe250.png

2. https://itunes.apple.com/gb/app/videoscribe-hd/id505464331?mt=8

3. file://localhost/mnt/ext/blogbooker/tmp/0qv41gjb/www.vimeo.com

4. http://vimeo.com/57595733

5. http://vimeo.com/user12555791

6. http://vimeo.com/

7. http://vimeo.com/58004225

8. http://vimeo.com/user12555791

9. http://vimeo.com/

10. http://vimeo.com/58536156

11. http://vimeo.com/user12555791

12. http://vimeo.com/

13. http://vimeo.com/58536093

14. http://vimeo.com/user12555791

15. http://vimeo.com/

Explain Everything (2013-01-30 13:49)

[1] Today I used [2]Explain Everything for the first time with students. I have used it myselfin the past which you might have seen on my [3]previous blog post but today was the first time that Ihave used it with students.

My Year 11 OCR Nationals class are studying Unit 21. Within this class I have a number oflearning difficulties, many of which include literacy problems. Within our school, and most others, wehave had a drive to improve literacy standards & it is something I have become much more focused on &aware of over the last couple of months. I have already blogged about [4]differentiated wordsearches andnow I have started to look at using Explain Everything. In the past I have asked students to [5]recordvideos to show their understanding but this was suggested to me by a variety of people as an alternativeespecially when students are talking about a product. My class has some students in it which severelystruggle with the written aspects of the course and this was an alternative to writing their evaluation.Initially I had decided to use this at the end of the unit when they had put together their final graphicrather than at each stage. However, another member of staff showed how she had used it with a Year7 student & I was so impressed with how it had worked for her that I have decided to do it at everystep (i.e when they’ve built their buttons, their banner and their navigation bar then again when it’s puttogether in a web page).

Video 1

[vimeo 58535819 w=500 h=375]

[6]Explaining the Creation of Buttons for Unit 21 - Kamil from [7]Laura Chambers on [8]Vimeo.

This video was created by a student who has EAL. His spoken English is excellent & his writ-ten English is pretty good too though sometimes he needs support. I’ve found with this video that he

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has spoken very well about what he has done & I am pleased about this but I don’t think he’s used thefeatures of Explain Everything very well which is a shame. I’d have liked to have seen more of this tohelp him to add more detail but this is sufficient. He hasn’t used the text tools, the drawing tools, etcthough I will encourage him to do this with the other elements of the course.

Video 2

[vimeo 58535667 w=500 h=375]

[9]Explain Everything - Aidan from [10]Laura Chambers on [11]Vimeo.

Again, this student hasn’t used as many of the features of Explain Everything as I’d have likedbut the video is successful. As you can see, it’s significantly longer than the first video with more in depthanalysis.

There are two things which I would do differently:

1. I’d provide students with a framework of questions which they needed to answer for each buttonsuch as: what canvas size is the button, what colour code is the button, what font did you chose,why did you chose this? This is a small list but I definitely think this would make an improvementto the overall video.

2. I’d demonstrate, using an Apple TV, how to use the app as I didn’t have the opportunity to do this.We have a couple in school but I didn’t plan ahead and organise changing rooms - completely myown fault!

I think we might have another go at this and produce a second, more detailed video for each student.

Feedback from students was very positive. We have something called an ’exit ticket’ which staff completeafter using the iPads and on it is a section for student voice. I asked a student to fill this section in for me& they said, ”The app worked better than actually writing it up even though it was embarrassing listeningto my own voice. I found the app to be more productive and fun as some of the features were cool.” I amreally pleased with this feedback! I think it’s important that students enjoy their learning! Sometimeswith things like this they’re not actually recognising that they are learning which is half the battle!!

I am really happy with this as a way to help students who struggle with their literacy. I know othermembers of staff do this with their students and I think it is definitely an alternative. I am still a firmbeliever that we need to help students with weaker literacy skills learn to read and write the old fashionedway (i.e. with a pen and paper or a computer) as this is vitally important for their future. However, Ithink if we break things up and make things more interesting for students they’ll be more inclined towrite when they’re actually asked to.

I have produced a video for my students to help them use Explain Everything which can be seenbelow or found [12]here.[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1CBhkpnQ3U8]

I’ve also made the video available through the [13]TES if you’re not able to access YouTube in school orif you need a different format.

1. http://misschambersict.files.wordpress.com/2013/01/explain_everything.png

2. https://itunes.apple.com/gb/app/explain-everything/id431493086?mt=8

3. http://misschambersict.wordpress.com/2013/01/10/improving-powerpoints-for-students/

4. http://misschambersict.wordpress.com/2013/01/18/differentiated-wordsearches/

5. http://misschambersict.wordpress.com/2012/07/13/using-ipads-to-record-videos/

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6. http://vimeo.com/58535819

7. http://vimeo.com/user12555791

8. http://vimeo.com/

9. http://vimeo.com/58535667

10. http://vimeo.com/user12555791

11. http://vimeo.com/

12. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1CBhkpnQ3U8

13. http://www.tes.co.uk/teaching-resource/How-to-use-Explain-Everything-6322759/

2.2 February

Improving Literacy: Spelling, Punctuation & Grammar (SPaG) (2013-02-05 10:30)

As you already know, we have been focusing on literacy a lot within St John’s & I have become quiteobsessive about find ways to help students to improve their literacy or overcome barriers to learning.

Yesterday I was browsing Twitter & came across a [1]resource tweeted by @TESPrimary. Initially,I thought that this would be a suitable resource for the lower ability students in KS3 but, after morethought, I’ve decided that it’s very useful as a reminder to all students.

From this resource I decided to make it a bit more suitable for my subject & used [2]Video Scribe(yes, I know I am obsessed!) to create a video.

[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Aray QFvsX4 &w=560 &h=315]

This video has been slightly updated from the resource I initially looked at & made more specificfor ICT with the inclusion of software in the capital letters section. My intention is that I can play this inlessons before asking students to make amendments to their work (i.e. self evaluation). I also intend toinclude the link in their ICT booklets & would like to add an image version to some of their homeworksheets.

I have also added this to my blogs for various groups including my form group & both sixth formclasses.

1. http://www.tes.co.uk/teaching-resource/-6317165

2. https://itunes.apple.com/gb/app/videoscribe-hd/id505464331?mt=8

Using Audioboo to provide feedback (2013-02-24 21:19)

[1] Audioboo is an app which I have found particularly useful in the past &have [2]blogged about previously also.

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This time I have used Audioboo to provide feedback for Year 13 students for their website. I can’tsay this was my idea but it is something I have done in the past. Approximately 3 years ago I took partin an action research project where I looked at providing feedback to students & I chose to use audiofeedback. To be honest, I found it incredibly useful then but I had forgotten all about it & this remindedme of the benefits!

In the past I used a microphone & I had to download the files & send them along to the studentsbut Audioboo has made this much easier than that. I am able to upload them to the Audioboo websitewhich students can access & I can embed onto the class blog or tweet the links too. This level of ease hasdefinitely improved things! I’m definitely keeping this up as I need to ease my marking load. I think thisis something I could do for whole class feedback too. I always add [3]generic feedback to my class blogswhen I mark an assessment criteria but I could do this verbally in the future.

[gigya src=”http://boos.audioboo.fm/swf/fullsize player.swf” flashvars=”mp3=http %3A %2F %2Faudio-boo.fm %2Fboos %2F1170911-jamie-allison.mp3 %3Fsource %3Dwordpress &mp3Author=MissChambersICT &mp3LinkURL=http%3A %2F %2Faudioboo.fm %2Fboos %2F1170911-jamie-allison &mp3Time=12.36pm+23+Jan+2013&mp3Title=Jamie+Allison” width=”400” height=”160” allowFullScreen=”true” wmode=”transparent”]

[gigya src=”http://boos.audioboo.fm/swf/fullsizeplayer.swf” flashvars=”mp3=http %3A %2F %2Faudioboo.fm %2Fboos %2F1170917-ryan-kelly.mp3

%3Fsource %3Dwordpress &mp3Author=MissChambersICT &mp3LinkURL=http %3A %2F %2Faudio-boo.fm %2Fboos %2F1170917-ryan-kelly &mp3Time=12.40pm+23+Jan+2013 &mp3Title=Ryan+Kelly”width=”400” height=”160” allowFullScreen=”true” wmode=”transparent”]

There’s two major benefits for me over written feedback:

1. Students get a lot more feedback from me than if I write their feedback. Using Audioboo I canrecord up to 3 minutes of spontaneous feedback as I am going through work which is especiallyhelpful when we’re talking about practical work like websites, sounds, etc. & this is probably a lotmore than I’d write. It’s easier for me too - anyone who saw my earlier tweet will know I had a sorehand from writing - because I can be more descriptive & more verbose.

2. When I provide the feedback in this way I always ask students to listen to it & translate it to theirmark sheets. This means the students are forced to listen to their feedback & I have a writtenrecord of what they’ve been asked to do to achieve the next grade. Basically, I am forcing studentsto pay attention & when I did this as part of the action research I definitely noticed that studentswere not needing as much time to complete their coursework & I wasn’t having to harp on at themabout following the advice I’d given them.

Of course there are downsides to verbal feedback! I struggled to find a quiet place to record feedback &tried to do it with others in the room but their voices over powered mine as I was trying to be quiet so Ididn’t distract or cause an issue. Also, it’s slightly embarrassing recording your own voice at times. Iknow I sound completely different in my head to what I do out loud but it’s something you just have toaccept as being the way it is!

One of the issues I found was that the iPad app is not particularly useful compared to the [4]iPhone app.Therefore, I have downloaded the iPhone app rather than the other option. It’s much more user friendly!

1. http://misschambersict.files.wordpress.com/2013/02/audioboo.jpg

2. http://misschambersict.wordpress.com/2012/11/15/using-audioboo-to-conduct-a-swot-analysis/

3. http://stjohnsnationalsunit27.wordpress.com/2013/02/24/advice-for-making-improvements-to-ao5/

4. https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/audioboo/id305204540?mt=8

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2.3 March

How to...! (2013-03-05 20:40)

[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1CBhkpnQ3U8 &w=420 &h=315]

[slideshare id=16972474 &w=427 &h=356 &sc=no]

[1]Uploading a video to YouTube from [2]misschambersICT

1. http://www.slideshare.net/misschambersICT/uploading-a-video-to-youtube

2. http://www.slideshare.net/misschambersICT

Cambridge Technicals in IT - Unit 1: LO3 (P5, P6, M2 & D2) (2013-03-06 10:45)

Like many I’ve been teaching OCR’s new [1]Cambridge Technicals in IT. If I’m being honest I have foundthe course difficult to teach though not in terms of content but more in terms of making it interesting. Irecently attended a course run by OCR which really helped me to get to grips with unit 1 & made mefeel a lot more comfortable with the content. I really wish this course had come much sooner than it didbut that can’t really be helped. I’d recommend the course to anyone!

Learning objective 1 & 2 weren’t too bad though really dry. I tried to make it interesting & Iknow I’d teach it very differently a second time though (look out for a post with a draft scheme of workon it!). Students kind of got to grips with it.

Learning objective 3 requires learners to be able to us IT to communicate effectively. It was al-ways obvious to me that students could take evidence from other places to achieve the Pass criteria andthen explain & justify their use of IT. However, I also think that this criteria can be used to make thingsa little more interesting across the unit & add something else into it to engage students.

Creating an app

I decided to ask students to use [2]App Inventor by MIT. With my Year 8 students I am cur-rently building apps & they have used help sheets to practice. I had just decided to create video guidancefor next academic year & then I had a brainwave! Why should I create the videos when I can ask myYear 12 students to do so! I gave my Year 12s the brief to create a video using Wink for Year 8 students.

To be honest, this hasn’t gone as well as I’d have hoped as there have been problems with AppInventor & students got quite frustrated. They’ve also not used their problem solving skills to makethe best possible Wink video which has frustrated me. Those who have finished their videos to a goodstandard have created an .SWF which I was hoping to pop onto YouTube but this hasn’t been possibleyet. When I convert the videos they begin to run far too fast which is a shame.

I’m definitely going to do something similar next year with a new cohort but I will be using an-other software such as Screenr or Jing so that students have a better experience. Either that or I’ll bedoing a lot more work on how to use Wink.

Creating an Explain Everything video

The second task I asked students to do was to create a guide for OAPs showing them how touse the basic features of email. This was a change of audience and purpose and we had a lengthy

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conversation about audience and purpose, effective communication & so on.

The students really worked hard to produce their videos & some are very imaginative such as”email for old dummies” as a take on the dummies series of books. Two examples are below:

[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ddrIHsG6e48]

[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H2PyygLJN4g]

I gave the students a double lesson to complete the work & most were able to create a videowithin this time frame though, as expected, some students approached this with a more mature attitude

than other. All students h[3] ave definitely achieved P5 & P6.

This was really easy for me to manage because I exported all the videos to YouTube & tweetedthe students with the link. They’re going to convert the link into a QR code to put on their essay so thatthe moderator will be able to find it easily. I think this will also aid with internal moderation because Iwon’t need to locate the student’s videos and pass those details onto my colleague; they will just need toscan the work to see what the student’s work is like.

What will I do next?

The next step is to complete M2 & D2 where students explain and justify the choices of IT.They will also look at the infographic they produced for unit 12 (websites) and discuss this too. I’veprovided the students with some [4]questions to answer as a guide and to help them to achieve theDistinction criteria. The advice from OCR is that a Distinction can be achieved by expanding on thedetail given for a Merit & I think most students will manage to achieve this.

What will I do in the next academic year?

It occurred to me that this might be a good place to start with students who are new to thecourse. Firstly, it’s quite engaging; if I give students an iPad in their first couple of lessons they’re morelikely to be interested in the course. Secondly, the criteria lends itself to initial assessment. As thereis Pass, Merit & Distinction criteria involved in this learning objective it becomes much easier to levelstudents and judge their literacy skills and time management skills. Also, I find that classes change a lotat the beginning of Year 12 as students decide what they want to do & what they’d prefer not to do. Atask like this is easy for them to catch up on if they miss the first couple of lessons.

1. http://www.ocr.org.uk/qualifications/

cambridge-technicals-it-level-3-certificate-introductory-diploma-diploma-subsidary-diploma-extended-diploma-05347-05349-05352-05355-05358/

2. http://appinventor.mit.edu/

3. http://misschambersict.files.wordpress.com/2013/03/ee-qr-code.png

4. https://docs.google.com/presentation/d/1uPbw-PHBKM7Oj72TFjFxNciUfoQx4EeNsSa-R2QmiB8/edit?usp=sharing

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SmartArt Evaluation Templates (2013-03-11 13:32)

I often find that students struggle with evaluations especially if they come at the end of a lengthy project.This is something which always happens with Creative iMedia students and I have tried various ways ofgetting them to write comprehensive reviews which are detailed.

One thing which I have been trialing with my current group is a key questions sheet for studentsto make notes on using Smart Art within Microsoft Word. It’s a really simple but effective tool to createa flow chart for students.

Sheet 1

Below is an image of the first sheet which I give to students. In this case I designed the sheet forstudents studying Unit 202 for Creative iMedia where students had to manipulate three assets.

[1] As you can see, the students have to answer questions in aset order so that they’re working through the assessment criteria and so they’re thinking in a logicalmanner. As a group we sit & discuss their work and the project process so that students are helping eachother to remember problems that they had had. Students just need to make notes in bullet point formatbefore they go away to their computer & expand on the points by writing in full sentences and includingrelevant screen shots to support their answers.

Sheet 2

[2]

The second sheet helps students to make the link back to the client brief and identify where they’ve donewell and where they need to make improvements.

This definitely works; when I did this with students for their Pre Production unit their reviews weremuch more detailed. The class I currently have are weaker in terms of literacy that the classes I had lastacademic year but their reviews were much more detailed & informative as well as structured appropriately.Students find the whole class discussion really beneficial and this could be done in small groups or as awhole class. I think students like this because writing a review/evaluation can seem really, really dauntingand difficult but this breaks it down into smaller chunks and allows when to bullet point first whichmakes it easier to write full & detailed sentences. I have also done this to help students to analyse therequirements of a task. It’s quite versatile!

One of the benefits of SmartArt is the bright colours which can be altered to fit your needs. I lovethe bright, cheerful nature and I know students are also attracted by this which is really good. I feel

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this loses some of it’s impact when it’s not printed in colour & you can say things like ”we should all becompleting the blue box now” which is helpful.

Another thing to consider is that this is really easy to do. In this day & age we’re all really busy& need things to be simple, quick & effective. This doesn’t have the all singing, all dancing, flashy natureof using an iPad or something but it is effective & it does what you want it to do: promote discussion,give confidence and allow students time for thought.

1. http://misschambersict.files.wordpress.com/2013/03/smart-art1.png

2. http://misschambersict.files.wordpress.com/2013/03/smart-art2.png

Continual Reviews/Evaluations (2013-03-11 14:19)

Students studying Creative iMedia often find that they are struggling to remember the problems theyencountered throughout a project when they come to writing their final review. I can understand! It’sdifficult to look back at and remember something which you might have done 6 to 8 weeks ago or longerif there’s a holiday in between.

With this in mind, and because I was doing action research, I asked students to create an individ-ual blog where they could record their progress in each lesson. Below are some of the links to a couple ofblogs.

• [1]Emily’s blog

• [2]Brogan’s blog

• [3]Shannon’s blog

• [4]Hollie’s blog

Students were asked to edit images to produce a final product which could act as a poster for a travelcompany or be printed onto promotional material such as cups, t shirts, mouse mats, etc. As you cansee from the image gallery below the students produced some amazing work & used some very advancedfeatures within Photoshop.

[gallery type=”slideshow” ids=”584,586,587,583,588,589,585,590”]

I knew that this would cause some students problems in terms of technical ability as well as rememberingwhat they were asked to do. Therefore, the blogs became really useful. As you can see from the blogsabove, students recorded their progress with individual images as and when they needed to. Studentswere able to demonstrate their understanding & document any issues which they’d had and how they hadover come these.

What was the final impact?

This was the fifth project that students had done for Creative iMedia so I knew that the reviewswould be more effective than previous ones simply because students had had more practice. However, Iwas impressed with the final pieces of writing which students had done. I definitely noticed that I wasn’toffering suggestions for improvement as readily as I had been and I knew students had been looking backat their blog to complete the review.

I used their blogs as a starter for some lessons. Students looked at their blogs and said what they

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needed to do in the lesson & set their own objectives based on their previous blog post. This workedquite well because the students were naturally at different points throughout the project and it was hardfor me to set whole lesson objectives. Obviously this naturally lends itself to a built in plenary to mostlessons too.

A benefit which hadn’t occurred to me was the ability to get students to give feedback to each other andfor me to give feedback at various stages. I liked this because I could do it in the car on the way home(don’t worry I car share, I wasn’t driving!!) or while I was watching TV or during a break duty, etc. Itmade life much easier especially if I needed to devote time to the students Photoshop skills within lessonsrather than spending my time acting as a client. Also, I asked students to post any problems they had sothat others could give them the solution. This was brilliant for me because, to be honest, I don’t alwayshave the answer & students often know more than me. I asked colleagues to feedback to students toowhich was nice. Unfortunately, none of the blogs above show these things as I can’t remember who didget feedback from staff!!

[slideshare id=17103815 &w=479 &h=511 &sc=no]

[5]A02 ao4 pdf from [6]misschambersICT

Were there any problems?

Something which I found really annoying was the issue of submitting the blog as evidence. I hadn’t reallyconsidered that OCR say that nothing external can be looked at as it needs to be secure within Mapsto be moderated. This lead to a lot of copying & pasting on my part which was a shame. I hadn’t eventhough about it until it was too late to ask students to do it!! At times it was quite difficult to get studentsto put their images onto the blog & write about it. I think this is mainly down to their enthusiasm forPhotoshop though!

All of this has entered my head because I am starting unit 113 again next week with my currentYear 11s. I’ll definitely be asking the group to do the same thing (starting next week) but I am goingto look for a way for them to create a PDF or something when they’re done; it was too time consumingfor me to do. If anyone has any suggestions of how I might go about this I’d be really grateful. I’ll beusing blogger again with the students as this appears to be one of the more accessible blogging sites forstudents.

Just because I am proud of their work I have added an image of one of the final products. For somestudents we printed their work onto cups, etc to show them what they’d be like in the end and to useduring parent’s evenings and such like.

[7]

1. http://emilymasongraphicsediting.blogspot.co.uk/

2. http://brogandobsoncreativeimediaunit113.blogspot.co.uk/

3. http://shannongoldbergcreativeimedia.blogspot.co.uk/

4. http://holliewatson113.blogspot.co.uk/

5. http://www.slideshare.net/misschambersICT/a02-ao4-pdf

6. http://www.slideshare.net/misschambersICT

7. http://misschambersict.files.wordpress.com/2013/03/product.png

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Edited: March 11, 2013