Teachmeet Bath Spa University

This is the first time I’ve been involved in organising a teachmeet and it’s interesting to have a mixture of teachers, lecturers and trainees all sharing thought and ideas.

Chris Smy, Head of Maths, talked about why teachers should use Twitter and how it’s made him a better teacher and HoD. He recommended taking part in #ukedchat every Thursday 8-9pm to develop ideas and take part in lively, informed discussions. Advantage to getting in touch with other Heads of Maths, because he’s the only one in his school. Also in charge of timetabling and can vent frustrations and get ideas from people with experience.

Much cross fertilization between phases of education and recommended #mathchat and #nqtchat. He explained how to cope with following increasing number of people. “It’s a bit like boiling a frog” i.e. start gradually and you’ll cope with a slow increase in numbers.

Using Twitter with students. The teacher’s account is a separate professional one and it’s protected. Can respond to quick questions about homework, but the students don’t necessarily expect an immediate response. It’s quite a skill to respond to maths questions in 140 characters! Issued guidelines about to behave and how he will respond on his blog. Starting to approach SLT about making it official so that it can be extended to parents and primaries.

Nicky Newbury, a year 5 teacher, talked about her involvement in a project called Playing the Writing Game, run by the Wiltshire Literacy and ICT advisers. Trying to disseminate the findings throughout the school and finding some teachers more sceptical than others. Chose to use Wii games because all but 2 children had one at home. Started by using African Safari. It provided a fantastic immersive, 3D environment. Children got so much from it, it wasn’t necessary to complete the game. Children created their own travel blurbs and fact files. Children come into contact with expert zoologists via the game and used Wordle, Switcheroozoo and Google Earth to supplement the learning and explore the information.

The next game she used was Just Dance 2. It played to the more competitive children, but all are really enthusiastic.

My Word Coach – improves vocabulary and spelling rewarded by games. Tracks children’s improvement graphically. Motivated because it’s a game. Children have been blogging about their experiences using Wii games.

Endless Ocean – used by Y2. Virtual diving to inspire descriptive writing, diary entried, sealife facts, collaborative understanding, positional language in telling other what to do!

Another Code R – used by Y6.

Night at the Museum – big cross curricular topic. Tour guides, historical character guides (especially baddies). Challenging to organise 30 children. now has a system where a group watches for 20 min, writes for 20 min and plays for 20 min. groups have specific tasks and roles while they’re engaged in the gaming activities. Roles switch round to avoid boredom.

Trying to set up a central resource of Wiis and planning to share with a wider group of schools. So far teachers are using their own equipment from home and bought their own games. Feels like a treat rather than learning! Engages reluctant writers and early evidence

http://bowoodclass.wordpress.com children all contribute to the blog and homework is set via the blog. Also taking part in quad blogging with @deputymitchell.

http://nickynewbury.wordpress.com

Possibility of renting software at about 10-20% of the price of purchasing it. Web-based and cached on local hard disk. www.stream2school.com.

Sally Thorne talked about using Google Maps in History teaching to get a feel for a place. Enhances their understanding of the history of a place. Created a map of the journey across the USA to the west coast. Embedded in Moodle page. Embedded information (text, images, links and tasks) connected to a pin. Created a map with Y8 about the key events and locations in 1066. Motivated to write accurately because they knew it was publicly available.

Reommended www.googletreks.org for more ideas in this vein. Maps created by teachers that can be used and can upload useful maps you create.

Sally’s blog www.sallythorne.com

Donna Hay talked about building your own VLE using Google Sites. Never satisfied with commercial VLEs and couldn’t move materials from one school to another. All Donna’s lessons now stored on Google Sites. Materials embedded or attached so available to students at any time. Enables students to work independently at their own speed. Students feel they are in control of their own learning and can take responsibility for. All sites are publicly available through a link on the school website. Students and parents can see what’s going on.

Edmodo adds the ability to interact online. Creates virtual classrooms for specific groups of students. Sets up class discussions and uses during lessons. Encourages all students to take part and informs teacher about who has contributed. Students use online discussions to develop more in-depth pieces of writing/projects.

Uses ietherpad to produce collaborative pieces of writing. Can be silly to start with and delete whole pieces of work. This wears off quickly and students take it seriously and productively. Also useful during meetings with staff.

Twitter – Donna recommend #ictcurric (ICT teachers’ discussions). Have set up a repository of engaging ICT activities – improving on current ICT curriculum. She did a great job of selling the benefits of Twitter to ‘meet’ people who share your enthusiasms.

Chris Smy demonstrated a cheap alternative to a visualiser. Usually £250 each. Used a decent webcam and a retort stand. Uses freeware Myscreencam to provide a large image from camera. Hue Cam also recommended.

Clare Fenwick described how useful ‘stumbling around’ is and what she’s learned in the last year of working for Vital. She promoted Twitter as a personal learing network. She also mentioned the wider uses of Google – Scholar, Videos etc. She talked about www.wolframalpha.com and how it provides real answers rather than just data/information. Enter a date, it will tell you important events on that date. Enter your first name to get a demographic break down. Enter a food for full nutritional breakdown. She also reminded us about Microsoft’s education site and the free resources available there e.g. Songsmith, Autocollage, Mouse Mischief etc.