2013-11-07 - TeachMeet KL

Post date: Nov 07, 2013 2:50:35 PM

The 3rd SEA TeachMeet took place at ISP this afternoon. Thank you to Ian Pittman. Once again, it was fantastic.

This time some student voices were included. I always find students speaking about their learning so powerful. These Year 8 girls were no exception. The first student talked about why she felt that gaming has a role to play in learning. She backed her own passion for gaming up with authoritative quotes and statistics. Two games that she talked about that I would like to look at more closely are CSI Adventure (science) and Asphalt 8.

The second group of students discussed doodling and explained how many learners retain information presented visually more effectively. They recommended Tony Buzan's iMindmap.

I presented on Fotobabble and explained how I am using it for an oral history project where I have embedded fottobabbles into a LibGuide and the children hunt for QR codes around the school that take them to the fotobabble. They then answer some questions about what they have heard.

I also gave a quick plug for CTR a monthly newsletter that I subscribe to. It is well worth the USD20 per annum. I always get something out of it worth looking at.

Guto Aaron from KLASS spoke about coding apps for primary school. This was fantastic on two levels, firstly because the apps were great, but secondly because Guto's classroom is almost next to the library. I had no idea what he was doing with his children, and it was exciting to hear. Why did I hear about it at a TeachMeet at another school? Why was I the only person from our school there? I think the TeachMeet format is ideal for staff meetings. If we had 20mins at every staff meeting where someone from each year group shared something amazing that they were doing in class or some interesting tool that they are using the whole school would get a snapshot of what other year groups are doing and who the "go to" people are to help them if they want to try these things themselves. The presentations are 3 minutes long, everyone must have something to share for 3 mins 2 or 3 times a year. I also think it would be an interesting format for Network meetings.

The apps Guto talked about were

• • Bee Bots (suitable for Reception & Year 1)

  • Daisy the Dinosaur (slightly more advanced)

• Hopscotch

• A.L.E.X.

• Cargo-Bot

• Move the Turtle

• Game Press

All of this in less than 3 minutes! Every one looked amazing.

 and, there's more...in the remaining seconds Guto showed us Epic Citadel and explained how he had used it as a stimulus for a writing task.

Later in the session someone recommended Kahootz 3 for stimulating creative writing

The next presenter shared some Google Apps hints that were really great, like how to insert folders into Google sites to keep information current without having to continually update your site. Using the script Auto Crat to mail merge and using Sheet Spider to filter a single Google spreadsheets into separate sheets.

Another teacher spoke about how she used Google forms to survey her class before a lesson to find out what they wanted to know and then they revisited the form after the lesson to see if all their questions were answered.

Kate used hyperlinks hidden behind an image in a presentation to direct students to specific websites that she want them to use. This is particularly helpful in Primary.

A Year 5 teacher shared Book Creator. I know that Patrick from KLASS is doing great things with this, but being able to hear someone talk through a project that they had done with their class, to see the embedded features (iMotion animations, linked indexes etc) that children came up with themselves was amazing. We also briefly discussed iBooks author and the possibilities of publishing eBooks to the iBooks store.

Someone recommended ICT Magic as good place to find educational games and someone else flagged up The Adventures of Kara Winston as a site with useful eSafety resources

Finally, I see on my notes the word WAX...I have no idea why, but it must have been something else that impressed me. I guess that so many great ideas were been thrown out so quickly it was inevitable that I would miss something!

Again, thank you Ian Pittman and ISP for organising. It was great.