My Digital Classroom

Once again, we taught our inter-disciplinary unit on the Great Barrier Reef. Unlike last year, however, we added a few new things to make the unit more interesting, effective and authentic.

Lat term we were able to place a Skype call to marine biologist, former teacher and current charter boat captain, Matt McDonald. As it is really difficult to have new software installed on the computers on our school network, I ran a portable version of Skype from my USB. These USB apps are great and I’ve been able to get around a number of software issues by running programs straight from the usb. My favourites are the portable versions of Skype, Firefox, Audacity, Camstudio (screencasting), Virtual Dub (video editing) and VLC media player. These programs open up the possibilities in the classroom and enable you to do a number of activities which were previously prohibitive.

To minimise the potential for the Skype call to drop out, I made the call during recess. The students handled this remarkably well and I was surprised by how excited they got when the image of Matt appeared on the IWB. Tapping into the knowledge of an expert located on the reef was invaluable for the students and they got to ask a number of interesting questions and have them answered.

Proofreading and editing are essential parts of the writing process. One tool I have been using to help students with their writing is the online word processor, Google docs. One of the things I love about using Google docs is the ability to collaborate. Whenever students start writing their draft on Google docs, I get them to add me as a collaborator. I can then see the development of their work and give them instant feedback. I also get the students to invite three other students to be collaborators so that they can proofread the work. Students can all proofread the same document and are not constricted by time or the four walls of the classroom. I get each of the proofreaders to use a different colour when making corrections/suggestions to make it easier for the writer to identify who has made each change.

Pilot p-500 Uploaded on March 23,2005 by Mr. Wright Creative Commons Attrib., Non-Commercial, Share Alike Licence

Another way I’ve used web 2.0 tools to help with editing and proofreading is by utilising some of the free text-to-speech sites. Two I have used are Read The Words and Spoken Text. One important aspect of editing and proofreading is listening to how your work sounds. While those students with strong literacy skills can already do this successfully, getting somebody else to read the work really helps the weaker students. Using a text-to-speech application highlights to students some words which are commonly confused- the most obvious example I come across is were & where. Students immediately pick up those mistakes when they hear them and can make the necessary changes. While this does not pick up mistakes with homophones, I find it a useful part of the editing and proofreading process.

Today was another day at the Secondary Literacy Network. It is one day per term where a number of the Literacy leaders in Catholic schools in Melbourne get together for a day of professional learning. One of the things I really enjoy about these days is hearing from other literacy leaders about how they are trying to embed literacy across the whole school and some of their experiences. The personal journey of one such leader today was both eye-opening and refreshing. This was a person who had been teaching for 15-20 years (across both primary and secondary) and was experiencing the same sorts of problems that I, and many others, are experiencing in our own schools.

In the following session, Jo Ryan from Clonard College shared how she had been teaching her Year 9s about a year 12 issues unit. She has scaffolded the work to a high degree and provided the students with a framework to approach what can be a difficult part of the course. We were all given a copy of her unit and I think this is something that we could use back at school as a way of preparing our Year 10s for VCE English.

Listening to the Edtech crew podcast last year, I was trying to figure out what the point was of social bookmarking. Fast forward one year later and I have come to rely on one site in particular- Diigo, for keeping me up-to-date with all the new tools, sites and information available on the web.

So what is social bookmarking?

1. Basically, it means you can have all of your bookmarked/favourite sites kept online. Normally when you bookmark a website, it goes into the bookmarks/favourites folder on that particular computer. If you log in on another computer, you do not have access to any of your bookmarked sites. When you set up an account with Diigo (or Delicious), you can bookmark your favourite sites and that information is kept online. You just have to log in to the site to retrieve your bookmarks.
2. Bookmarks on Diigo & Delicious are organised by tags. Tags allow you to bookmark sites under a number of different categories at the same time. It is like placing the same piece of paper in a number of relevant folders in a filing cabinet.

So why do I use Diigo instead of the more popular Delicious? Simply, it is the ability to join groups. While I do spend a bit of time on the internet, I do not have the time to search for everything. By becoming part of a group, I can benefit from all of the links found by other members of the group by receiving emails periodically. By joining multiple groups, I can share and receive links in a number of different areas. Some of the Diigo groups I belong to include IWB Pedagogy, OZ/NZ Educators, English teachers, Ed Tech Crew. They all provide me with links on a daily or weekly basis.

The video below is another excellent tutorial from the people at Commoncraft and it explains the ins and outs of social bookmarking and how it all works.

This year we have been making great use of our headsets at school. We have been able to enhance our teaching (and student engagement) of the novel, Master of the Grove by Victor Kelleher by providing audio files to our students. Each of the teachers at year 8 have graciously given up their time to record the files and the students have been just as eager to get their hands on them. The files have enabled weaker students to access, what would otherwise be, an inaccessible novel.

We have also scrapped one of our previous tasks, chapter summaries, in favour of a comic strip. Instead of having to complete a summary of every chapter, students were allocated one chapter in which they had to summarise the main information in four frames of a comic. We completed the first chapter as a class on the IWB and I showed them one I had prepared earlier using Toondoo. Students presented their comics to the class at the beginning of each new lesson to recap what happened in the previous chapter. These comics were then pinned up at the back of the room in chapter order so that students had a constant visual summary of the text. Students were able to draw their comics by hand or use one of the many web 2.0 comic creating tools on offer.

We have found that these strategies, as well as summarising the information prior to reading, has greatly assisted those students with lower literacy levels in successfully completing the novel.

Our year sevens are studying Holes for the first time this year. One of the activities I got the students to do last week was to try to identify some of the links between characters and over time. I was originally going to get the students to create a mind map using a new tool I’ve found, called Webspiration. It is basically an online version of the concept mapping software, Inspiration. Unfortunately our network doesn’t have the latest version of flash so I had to think of an alternative. I then turned to bubbl.us and created the mind map below which contains most of the major characters. I started to create links between the characters but, unlike webspiration, I cannot write down why they are linked. I therefore had this up on the screen and the students had to come up with their own links for each of the characters. As the links were left blank, students could use their knowledge of the novel to come up with links of various depth. It was amazing to hear the range of different links that the students came up with for each of the characters.

Following on from this, I then got them to construct a timeline of the novel using 36 cards from the scholastic website. I had intended to use the website itself and the Holes Match ‘em up game, but we had the same flash issue. It was interesting to see the different strategies employed by the students to complete this task, some working systematically, some working in teams, while others seemed to have no particular strategy.

Both of these activities worked well with my classes and they were extremely motivated to get both tasks done. When studying next year, I would like to use webspiration as the students then have to create the whole mind map and have to link the characters themselves, rather than having links already made and then just working out what the links are. I could also use the IWB more in getting the students to come up and make the links between the characters, rather than having them already there.

Here are a couple of things I tried last week when teaching the importance and the role played by music in films.  What I first intended on doing was showing different scenes in the film where the music plays an important part. The problem with this approach is that the students can also use their knowledge of the film, as well as the character’s reactions to gauge the purpose of the music in the scene. I then hit upon the idea of using the cd soundtrack from the film which would isolate the music itself, eliminating the vision as well as the character’s voices. As the cd is difficult to acquire, I decided to go to amazon.com and use the samples of selected tracks from the soundtrack. The students then had to decide what the filmmaker was trying to achieve with each piece of music and the characteristics of the music.

Another activity I thought could work was getting different examples of recognisable music which are trying to elicit the same emotion in viewers. Then get the students to identify the similarities between each piece.

If other people have further ideas about teaching the music in films, I’d love to hear them.

It has been quite a while since I last posted and I guess I hit that point where my motivation was starting to wane a little. Added to that, there have been issues with the videos and slideshare files on my blog, which are yet to be resolved.

What I found refreshing to see recently was Jess McCulloch’s post on difficulties she was having in class with a particular student and the responses she received from her Twitter network.  What I find sometimes daunting with the edubloggosphere is that it seems as though those blogging are perfect teachers where the students find every lesson engaging and there are no issues in the classroom. While I know that teachers are going to be more likely to post about their successful lessons, it is nevertheless a relief to see the occasional post like Jess’ where I can see that everybody still has the same sorts of issues.

Over the holidays, our school installed the updated version of the animation program, Kahootz. We had a great time using the program last year as part of our study of film as text. The students had to create a deleted scene from the film using Kahootz, taking into consideration things like camera angles and shot sizes. The characters had to look and act like their film counterparts, and at the end they had to present their scene to the class and explain why they used certain camera angles & shot sizes, and how the scene fits in to the film. The students had a great time and they were able to demonstrate their understanding of the film in a visual format.

The version we used last year (Kahootz 2) had its limitations in that there were limited settings, characters and sounds. However, this was also a good thing, as it forced the students to problem solve and work together to find solutions. This is what I’m a little worried about with the new version of Kahootz. I don’t know if we are going to see the same level of problem solving that occurred with last year’s students. Students will no longer have to try to alter the shape and colour of the one fish available in order for it to look like a clown fish or angel fish. In the new version, there are four or five different fish to choose from.

In Kahootz 3, there is a wider range of settings and objects/characters, and the students are able to record their own voices and lay down soundtracks. The program is a lot more powerful and easy to use, which will also reduce some of the frustrations felt by some of the students last year who hadn’t used the program before. I guess I’ll just have to wait and see what they create this year. I’m sure I’ll be amazed again.

I am sick of the funding arrangements for schools in Australia. The Federal funding of schools should be on a needs basis. Whether they are a Government, Catholic or Independent school, money should be given to where it is needed most. Whilst the Government has a responsibility to provide every citizen with an education, they should not be subsidising the most affluent schools in Australia.

I recently caught part of the ABC’s Q&A program on 12th June. I could not believe it when I heard Joel Fitzgibbon, in response to a viewer question say “But surely you’d agree there’s no harm in the Government investing the equivalent of what they don’t spend sending a kid to a public school on a private school…” Actually Joel, I do think that there is harm in doing this! You end up with a system where your capacity to pay determines your standard of education. Parents don’t send their kids to a private school because they want to save the taxpayers money, they do it because they believe that their child will get a better education. It’s not as though the parents are receiving this money to offset the cost of fees to these schools. The money is going (in a lot of cases) to build new facilities, yet the fees still increase.

To a certain degree, I understand why the Government agreed to continue the current schools funding arrangement until it expires in a couple of years- it gives schools certainty about their funding and enables planning to take place. What it has done, however, is increase the divide between public and private schools and solidify the drift away from public schools. Unfortunately, when the time comes to negotiate the next round of funding, I believe that the Government, to a large extent, will continue funding schools that don’t need it.