Useful links: 12/05

• Word Search Maker Easy tool to use. Makes quick online and printable word find puzzles

• Australian Teacher Response “As part of its Australian Teacher Response initiative, AITSL has developed resources to help support teachers and school leaders during these changing times. Since the emergence of COVID-19 (coronavirus), teachers and school leaders have been working to adapt and innovate lessons and learning opportunities in the many ways as they provide education for students across Australia.

• 5 critical life skills everyone should have – Big Think “The World Health Organization identified 5 basic life skills that are crucial to cultivate and learn in order to have a better and more productive life.
  Ranging from creative thinking to learning to cope with stress, these skills should be instilled in youth during their education and nurtured over a lifetime. Although the best time to develop these skills is during one’s youth, the second best time is right now.”

• Why Are Some Kids Thriving During Remote Learning? | Edutopia “Though remote learning has brought many challenges, some students seem to be thriving in the new circumstances. What can we learn from them?” An interesting discussion in this post.

• Introducing algorithms | Digital Technologies Hub Some good ideas that offer some interesting ways to help students learn about algorithms

• Examples of learning intentions | Assessment for Learning Useful page that has examples of learning intention that could easily be adapted for different classes

• 51 ways to introduce learning objectives

• Proof It! – A Fun Proofreading Game at Portland Proof  Useful game that tests the skills of students in a fun way

• Letter Word Block Puzzle Solver A useful tool to create Nine letter “target word” puzzle

• Boggle Solver: Word Finder and Solver Create your own Boggles using this tool

• Wordtwist | Our Other Puzzles

• Word Wipe | Instantly Play Word Wipe Online for Free

• Wordtwist | Games Results A useful tool. Used in my English class, after the lesson tasks have been completed. It offers a fun way to make the students play with words/vocabulary.

• develop their own mobile apps.”

• 5 Doable Digital Citizenship Goals for Teachers | edCircuit “Some simple ideas for addressing cyberbullying, online privacy, Internet safety, online privacy, cyberbullying, media balance, online relationships, news and media literacy. The Digital citizenship topics tackle big questions”

• How Your Teacher-Librarian Can Be An Ally When Teaching With Inquiry | MindShift | KQED News“Teacher-librarians employ their unique expertise as they walk students through the learning library and demonstrate how to navigate databases and locate resources. They also sharpen research skills by helping students understand the validity of information and evaluate it by recognizing bias and persuasion in various sources. If teachers are open to it, the teacher-librarian can become a valuable support for teacher practice and student academic growth.”

• 5 Effective Studying Techniques That Are Backed by Research | Edutopia “Teachers can guide students to avoid ineffective studying habits in favor of ones that will increase their learning outcomes. A few techniques are discussed here”

• Creating a Strong Classroom Community With Group Work | Edutopia “Collaboration and socialization are key aspects of any workplace. In the real world, people collaborate, debate, and share. This can begin in the classroom where healthy socialization patterns can support student creativity and foster critical thinking.

• Writing Tools – WordCounter.net 8 writing tools – words per page, webpage word count. alphabetize list, character count, editor counter, random word generator, capitalize sentences, citation generator.

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Lesson: Understanding RESPECT as the basis for Creative writing

I had a Year 8 English session 5 today (the last class for the week). I was wondering how well the boys would do after the incredibly steep learning curve they were on this week.

We have used laptops for a long time but our boys like the classroom and face-2-face times with their peers and the teachers.

I prepared what I thought was a reasonably simple lesson to introduce this year’s Creative Writing competition. The theme for the 2020 Shared Stories project is “RESPECT”.

When we were told about the theme at the end of last year, some of my colleagues were less then impressed. Last year the theme was “Gratitude”. Many teachers disliked that theme but I had a great Year 7 English class last year. They responded very well to that theme so I thought “RESPECT” had the potential to be just as worthwhile.

My idea was to discuss what creative writing was and then give the students time to investigate the meaning of “respect” so that they could devise a working definition for themselves.

Lastly I set them the task of keeping a diary for the next few weeks. The idea is for them to record something respectful that they have noticed each day. They have the option of a written diary or a visual one.  For the second choice, they can create a visual diary in what ever format they like – online – Canva, or a tool on their computer.They must enter an image for each day and then explain why you chose that image. The diary can also combine options 1 & 2 but they must try to have an entry for each day so that they will develop a really rich source of ideas for their creative writing piece.

If you are interested in them, a copy of my slides are available on slideshare. 

When I first thought about how we would do this with the students,  it was going to be a whole class collaboration but here we were today in our own houses.

So I created a a video introducing the slides to the boys and the also got a PDF version they could save. They shared there synonyms for “RESPECT” on the class padlet and also on our class forum.

Toward the end of the session they posted up some reflections. There is a range of skills in the class and some boys normally have a learning support teachers in half of their English classes.

I will share some of the reflections I received from these 13 year old boys, as I received them. I think they are starting from a really good base and that they understand about Respect.

i learnt respect is just ore than being kind or care full. I learnt respect more people than you should and use maners. the more you respect people, the more love and respect you gonna get from people.

Today i thought hard and brain stormed more about respect and wrote what they meant

we need to focus on respect when we are mostly talking to people and playing sport

Useful links

“Educational Postcard: ”…real engagemen” (CC BY-NC 2.0) by Ken Whytock

 Creativity and Knowledge | @TeacherToolkit The author considers the question: Can creativity be cultivated in our current school system? He shares his thoughts on “Why real creativity is based on knowledge” by Tim Leunig from TEDxWhitehall.. Some interesting ideas and observations. Concludes with “This therefore concludes, that creativity has its foundations built upon a knowledge base, but with anything delivered in the classroom, it requires the skills of a good teacher to ensure outcomes are met.” And puts up some questions that based on the article.

What should parents know about Steam? From CommonSenseMedia. team is a place to buy, play, discuss, and learn about games on the internet. It works differently from other websites in that it requires you to download the Steam “engine” to run the games. Once you install the engine and create an account, you can play free games, chat with other users, play multiplayer, join forums, learn about new games, play demos, and even create games for others in the site’s Workshop section — all for free. Most popular games require an additional download — and they often cost money.

While sites such as Twitch and YouTube Games are popular places to watch others play games, Steam is mainly about playing your favorite games against others, including friends you know from real life. Kids who have Steam accounts regularly exchange Steam “handles” so they can meet up online.”

Teaching with Technology: Using Microsoft Excel in the Classroom This piece looks at some of the ways teachers could integrate the application Microsoft Excel into the classroom is becoming more and more prevalent in many schools across the world. The guide offer assistance to teachers who want to this tool in classes with students. “Also listed are some unique ideas for ways in which to use spreadsheets in different lesson plans.” There are a range of tutorials and basic guides for both novices and more experienced users.

Creating games using Microsoft Excel: Tic Tac Toe | The Piffle Lab An explanation about creating a simple game using Excel

How To Create A Game In Excel – YouTube YouTube video, published 10/04/2015, that aims to explain how you can create a simple game in Excel. Useful for teachers to use with students

Mapping the online world – Nominet “The international nature of the internet was affirmed in the mid-eighties, when a system was agreed for allocating each country its own space online. Each would get a two-letter code within the Domain Name System, the address book of the internet. In 1985, the first three were delegated: .us for the USA, .uk for the UK, and .il for Israel. The internet’s reach would go on to expand well beyond the confines of the globe, as astronaut TJ Creamer showed in 2010 when he tweeted from the International Space Station.

At Nominet they have been looking for a way to visualise global internet use. The result is our map of the online world, an atlas redrawn according to the number of registrations within each country’s internet domain* — whether .uk for the UK, .de for Germany, .cn for China, and so on.”

Feedback Q & A Infographic | An Ethical Island An Infographic about useful feedback – asking for it and what to give

https://anethicalisland.files.wordpress.com/2016/08/lesson-ideas-3.pdf Some useful ideas for organising lessons. This outline provides a great framework for teachers from any learning area.

elements.wlonk.com Keith Enevoldsen has created an interactive periodic table that illustrates exactly where you may encounter even obscure elements on the chart.

K-12 Digital Citizenship Curriculum | Common Sense Media Links to their digital citizenship resources

Parents ‘oversharing’ family photos online, but lack basic privacy know-how – Nominet “Mums and dads are sharing nearly 300 photos online on average every year, with the top three destinations for these being Facebook (54%), Instagram (16%) and Twitter (12%). Nominet’s study polled 2,000 parents who have children 0-13 years old, revealing other findings including”

Cyberbullying – A guide for parents | Office of the Children’s eSafety Commissioner “Cyberbullying support tool from the Children’s eSafety Commissioner. Sometimes cyberbullying feels like a minefield. As a parent it can be hard to know if a situation qualifies as serious cyberbullying. Work your way through our support tool for guidance on how we can help you.”

Report Cyberbullying | Office of the Children’s eSafety Commissioner “Make a cyberbullying complaint. Select “Make your complaint” to open the form in a new browser window.”

Keep Calm and Carry On (reporting) | Office of the Children’s eSafety Commissioner One parent’s post about dealing with cyber bullying. It also has links to the Office of the Children’s eSafety Commissioner where there are several places offering an online complaints system to deal with serious cyberbullying. These can assist individuals with their own decision-making.

Rewrite Your Story | Office of the Children’s eSafety Commissioner “You can’t undo the past, and you can’t change the actions or words of other people, but you can Rewrite Your Story. With all the information around online and at school about cyberbullying and how to handle it, in real life for some reason it’s different.

The Future of Collaboration Spaces Encompasses Video, Interactive, Mobile — Campus Technology “The future of classrooms, is moving toward models where students are doing more problem-based learning, working together in teams, and sharing what they’re learning with peers and professors. This is the type of teaching and learning our new classrooms must support.” A recent learning space renovation at Indiana University focused on informal learning, collaborative technology and sharing ideas and content across multiple devices and users.

9 digital tools for your classroom toolbelt | Ditch That Textbook “Finding a new digital tool can open up new opportunities for you and your students. This is an annotated list of tools created by one classroom teacher gathered from interactions with other educators.”

Windows 10 deployment (for educational institutions) – Free step by step guide – Microsoft UK Schools blog “A step by step guide together for upgrading to Windows 10 from a previous version of Windows, such as Windows 7. This definitely caters more for the IT pros within an educational institution, but those more tech savvy educators will find this pretty accessible, also.”

Building a Common Understanding of the 4Cs. Season 3: Episode 2 – TLTalkRadio In this podcast, two teachers are talking about the 4Cs. “Our focus this school year is to build a shared understanding of the 4Cs. In this podcast, we introduce the 4Cs – Communication. Collaboration. Critical thinking. Creativity.”

Top Tips for Fast Formative Assessment that Works @coolcatteacher In this podcast Vicki Davis and Steven W. Anderson discuss formative assessment, the ability to know what you students know the moment they know, and how it allows you to adapt your teaching and increase your effectiveness. They also discuss the benefits of and how you go about updating what you’re teaching in real-time.

Entry events for project-based learning – Innovation: Education Some ideas about how to get a class started on PBL. “Take students someplace outside the classroom, either into the community or around the world, and ask them a challenging question. Ask them to consider something that might never have occurred to them, such as, “What would the community do if this resource was not here, or was unusable?”  At a historical site, ask “How could our community engage more with this place?” At a landfill you could ask, “What will happen when this landfill is full?”

Teaching copyright with video mashups – Innovation: Education The meaning of the concepts of copyright and fair use, as applied to creative work, has broadened dramatically in the digital world. Students are some of the biggest consumers and creators of work created on digital platforms, but they don’t often understand: 1. what they may legitimately use. 2. how they may use it. 3. What protection exists for their own creative work. 4.Introducing “fair use” concepts. The authors of the post explain how they took the excellent Rework, Reuse, Remix lesson from Commonsense Media to create the foundational lesson plan for an 8th grade Digital Learning class hat St. Francis Xavier School, in Winooski VT. It introduces the concept of fair use and how to apply it to case studies”

EducationHQ Australia – Five ways to get started with STEM It is easy to be practical with STEM studies. “There are so many benefits and as we get further down the track of understanding that whilst STEM will always be a combination of those four core disciplines, it is just as much about interdisciplinary work and collaboration. As a teacher, we don’t have to provide all the answers for students. We just need to create the problem, the context or the inspiration, and great things can happen” There are 5 ways discussed here to get started with STEM with examples linked back to the Key Learning Areas.

Anywhere Learning

Today I have been reading quite a few articles about learning, especially in the areas of PBL and STEM. I then saw a tweet about this Infographic from Mia macMeeken. The ideas here reflect a few key ideas from the articles I have been reading.

1. Learning can happen anywhere and not be seen as something that can only be done in a classroom.
2. Learning needs to be authentic and involve real-life experiences.
3. Creativity is an essential part of learning.
4. Learning needs to involve reflection to complete the process

An Ethical Island

How can we incorporate learning into a learner’s life? Often when we sit down to write curriculum we think about it in a classroom setting. Is there a way to encourage life long learners through our curriculum? I think we can incorporate Anywhere Learning strategies. What strategies do you use to incorporate Anywhere Learning?

~Mia

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Reading – Choosing what to read in the holidays?

It is the end of Semester 1 and our 2 week holiday period is almost here. Many of the boys have been asked to read over the holidays and classes have come to the library for them to find something.

We have e-books as well as hardcopy books. Many of our boys like the later and subject matter and the cover play a part in their choice but for some it is the size of the book (number of pages) that is the deciding factor. We often explain to these boys that if the book does not interest them then the book will be too long whatever the length. It is with these thoughts in mind that I came across the following infographic.

It is an interesting take on recommending reading material and is based on the “average” person’s reading speed (300 words per minute) and the number of words in the novel. Of course reading difficulty would also come into play so it offers only a rough guide to the times suggested but I thought it might make an interesting talking point if i showed it in the library.

Please include attribution to PersonalCreations.com with this graphic.