The weather here is finally feeling like Wellington, I head back north tomorrow so hope I don't take it with me. I have been exploring some new applications and working on brochures and poster in preparation to head to the Hanoi conference. Irfanview is just my favourite programme for taking screenshots and playing with images. Comic Life rocks too - I have made a storyboard about my students creating digital stories on that. Even though I am using them to 'work' it is a luxury to have this time to be using them.
I have also been setting up virtual classes for our Year 9ICT performance class at MMC on our moodle site - they are going to be researching medieval worlds in preparation for entering the Jane and the Dragon animation competition.
Some webquests I have referred them to as part of their research are available here.
This site has links to a range of teaching resources. Meanwhile my easter weekend has been both productive in terms of taking some great pics of students for my poster, and relaxing in having a couple of fabulous times out sailing. We would have stayed out but my daughter from Wellington was here and we also wanted to make the most of our time with her before she headed back south. Caught up too with our friend and sailing buddy Kim who is off to teach in the Gibson Desert in Western Australia - best of luck there Pricey, it will be a big adventure and you will make the most of it.
Just added two new blog links - one is for searching Flickr photos and enables you to search only those with Creative Commons rights, I have done two searches for images using Compfight and both were very successful.
The other blog link is rather different from this - it has a collection of Widgets for writers.
It's called Language is a virus, and I am pretty sure I will spend quite a bit of 'net play' time there.
Happy Easter everyone.
This is a great link from Andrew Churches, thanks for that. It is often difficult to come up with constructive approaches to texts and find ways of giving appropriate and adequte feedback. This is one that I know I will find very useful in critiquing the work of others.
Just attended an IT coaches meeting for moodling at Mt Maunganui College - there are so many opportunities for catering for a range of learning styles and offering students a variety of resources through this style of learning that I am amazed more teachers haven't adopted LMSs for their favoured approach to teaching. One of the most glaring advantages is that your activities and links are there for future use, better than any course book ever devised (as far as I know :) Another huge benefit is for students who might be absent for some reason or another - the LMS benefits the teacher and the student - no EXTRA preparation, and the student can access the class at any time that suits. This is just the basics - there are so many reasons for using an LMS that there is no way the benefits can be outweighed by any disadvantages.
I know there is a time factor in course creation and modification but hey, once it's been done the work to maintain it is minimal and the benefits optimum. Teachers need tools like this to help them keep up in such a fast paced environment as the one they are working in, if they are to continually strive to do the best for students.
