David Nettlebeck has some very worthwhile articles on his website about learning through technology. Lots of them have a literacy focus and are great for teachers who are interested in how technology can engage their students as well as improving their literacy and thinking skills. He has a particular focus on secondary schools and offers PD for schools as well. It’s definitely worth a look.
Posts Tagged ‘technology
29
Apr
Interesting articles
Here is a list of some useful sites that I’ve come across in my travels. Obviously it is not an exhaustive list. I will add to it, but there are some here that may be useful.
E-potential is a Victorian Government website aimed at encouraging and supporting teachers to use technology as part of their everyday teaching. It has surveys you can take to find out how much of an expert you are and very useful links. It also has good resources.
Intel’s teacher website is a fantastic way of using technology to engage students and to allow them to think more creatively and deeply. The resources are easy to create and lend themselves to a very large variety of subjects. Highly recommended.
This one -Create Surveys - is a useful survey tool.
Assign-a-day is useful for keeping track of upcoming work and assignments. Teachers can upload all of the work due and give students a link to it all so that they can access it whenever.
This one – smile – is good for creating online quizzes and activities for students to complete.
On a similar topic to the one above Hot Potatoes is free software that teachers can download to create quizzes, cloze activities and crosswords for students. The finished file is saved as a webpage and can be stored on any computer. This is an excellent resource.
Smartboard software for any school that has smartboards is an excellent interactive classroom resource. As well as creating great lesson activities you can record the activity on the Smartboard and save and print files for students and teachers.
Kathy Schrock and Discovery School have created literally hundreds of resources for educators. Worth checking in no matter what you’re teaching.
Teachit is the definitive English teacher’s website. So many resources here. It used to be free and now sadly is not, however it is still very worthwhile viewing.
As I said, these are only a very small amount of the useful websites for teachers available. Feel free to add more readers.
23
Apr
Second Life
Second life can help students to learn in their first life. What a great concept. I’ve been asked to explore this as something that we may look at in the future. I am a complete novice when it comes to online games so I’m in the early ‘research’ stage ( I love research!)
An online article here is a good place to start as is the fabulous third instalment of ‘Back to School with the Class of Web 2.0′ which is a really comprehensive list and commentary of ways to use the web for learners and teachers. A one stop shop really.
As far as Second Life is concerned I was discussing this the other day with my e-learning buddy at school (well really my mentor) and we were coming up with ideas for how to use it, I was thinking for English that it would be really useful to create a literary world, say Shakespeare or something that students don’t normally love as much as teachers (at least initially). You could have characters from the plays in there to interview and chat and students could walk around and experience the world and really immerse themselves in it.
I am learning to run before I walk, so more on this later. Sometimes the ideas run way ahead of reality, which is exactly what I love about using technology as a tool for school. However, I think I may need a second life just to get everything done!
