iPads - Did you know it's a camera too?

Here's an interesting experiment for you;

Walk into a Electrical goods store that sells Tablet PCs and get them to sell you one.  Not just walk in and buy one, make them work for the sale.  They'll tell you all about the new technologies, tough as nails screens, what wireless networks they can access, the range of apps, screen size, CPU speed, how much memory it has....

Almost none of them will tell you "and lookie here, it's even a camera!".

As teachers being bombarded by manufacturers, sellers and "latest teaching practice" regarding the newest technologies, it's all too easy to forget that the most basic functions can be invaluable classroom tools.  Just to show how much we can forget this sort of thing I'll bring back a video I used a while ago:

Watch on Youtube.

Even the top end designers have stopped, taken a breath and decided that the best way to move forward is to jump into a time machine and take a huge step backwards.  Make it work like a normal old everyday whiteboard or chalkboard!  Pens for different colours.  An eraser to erase with.  Being able to erase a mistake with the side of your hand!

Basic functionality is a really big deal.  Even with the rapid pace that technology is advancing the designers of these technologies never forget this and neither should you!

So, as I said above, the iPad is a camera too!  Even if you have access to the most powerful iPad and the latest and most effective apps on offer it's a good thing to remember that even the most basic model still has a camera!

Watch "Classroom uses of iPads" on Youtube.

 
For most of that you don't even need to be connected to the school's network or use up your mobile internet!

Regards,

Mel.

Premier's Active Families Challenge.

The Premiere's Active Families Challenge is now open for entry for the 2013 year. Along with this there's advice for teachers on how to implement active activities into classrooms.  I'd like to remind everyone that it's always a good idea to keep on top of these things so you know what's going on if you replace a teacher for a day and it appears in the lesson plan they've left you!

The more interesting part I wanted to direct CRTs to in particular is on the For Teachers page.  If you scroll to the bottom there's a link to download a Teacher's resource (PDF). 

This resource provides the teacher with:

•  Evidence about the importance of physical activity in schools
•  How to build physical activity into your weekly timetable
• A guide to selecting your activities
• Teaching tips related to physical activity
• 30 activities ready to go – each linked to Victorian Essential Learning Standards (VELS)

Each activity is quite well set out including all of the information you need to successfully run a session.  Indoor/outdoor, equipment required, rules, activity focus etc.  It also includes a handy diagram in case the words aren't quite clear on how the game is played.

While many are games we all played as children it's still well worth adding to your CRT Toolkit!

Regards,

Mel.

February 2013 Meeting addendum.

Internet research RE crt PD held on 13/2/2013.  Key word addressed “Inferencing” http://www.catawbaschools.net/schools/Oxford/staff/Rachel_Lamb/Web%20Page%20Library/Reading%20Resources.aspx http://missknightskhronicles.blogspot.com.au/2012/01/inferencing-anchor-charts-freebies.html   Inferencing for Middle Years http://www.ehow.com/way_5279281_inference-activities-middle-school.html http://forums.theteacherscorner.net/showthread.php?3913-Inferencing http://edublahg.blogspot.com.au/2008/09/teach-inference-in_03.html Key word addressed - “Metalanguage” http://education.qld.gov.au/corporate/newbasics/html/pedagogies/intellect/int6a.html

 

    http://www.vcestudyguides.com/what-is-metalanguage

Thanks Pam for sharing your further research with us!  As always it's much appreciated.


Regards,

Mel.

40 weeks, 40 classrooms - Adding to your Makaton Sign Bank!

View on Youtube.

If you missed the first video on using Makaton in mainstream classrooms you can find it here:  Using Sign Language as an Engagement Tool.


Note:  I still call it Makaton because that's what's on the cover of my books!  It is now called "Key Word Sign Australia".

Regards,

Mel.

A little late in coming but... Icebreakers!

Watch on Youtube.

Those links I promised!

Icebreakers on EducationWorld.com
Ice Breakers on Teachervision.com
Free Icebreakers on Teachers Pay Teachers.com

Happy hunting!

Mel.

Buying things online.

This morning on 7 Networks "Sunrise" morning show there was a segment on how certain Twitter accounts (Mc Donald's being one) were recently hacked and had fake tweets circulated.  In some ways it's a laugh but in other ways it's a little more serious.  If internet giants like Twitter and huge companies like Mc Donald's can't keep their internet security up to scratch, what hope do we have?

To be perfectly honest, there's not a high chance of these highly skilled hackers targeting you personally.  They are targeting huge corporations for what amounts to a publicity stunt.  Still, things can happen.

While many of us are now "online purchasing" veterans and know the ins and outs, some of us still need a little advice.  Why?  The internet is full of wonderful teaching resources and not all of them are free!  Some of us are worried about having our credit card information bouncing around the internet and, although it's rare, bad things DO still happen occasionally. It's not an irrational worry and you should guard your personal information very carefully!

The good news is that there's a couple of simple "everyday life" things you can do to buffer yourself against having things go wrong when buying online.

Make sure you know where you are.

First and foremost, ALWAYS READ THE ADDRESS BAR IN YOUR INTERNET BROWSER BEFORE ENTERING ANY PERSONAL DETAILS!  Yes, all capitals in a sentence is an eyesore but it's really that important.  If you are buying something from a website, especially if you followed a link in an email or from Facebook and the like, make sure that website or their payment provider is the one in the address bar.

Copies of popular shopping websites are out there and they look exactly like the real thing.  You'd never know the difference by just looking at them.  Make sure you read your address bar and make sure you are in the right place!

Debit Cards.

Almost every bank, building society and credit union will have multiple debit cards for you to choose from (Visa cards, Mastercards, etc).  Debit cards are exactly like credit cards, usable in all the same ways, except they don't have any credit attached to them.  You must first put money onto them before spending it.  The beauty of them is that you can't spend any more than their balance.  If you never put any more money on them than you need for a purchase they spend their life at a balance of $0.00 unless you are about to pay something.  

Even if, because it does happen, your debit card information is stolen then there is no money there to spend and no credit to spend money that isn't there.

You should still keep an eye on your transaction reports!  If declined charges start appearing then contact your bank immediately, inform them and have them issue a new card with a new number!  Informing your bank as soon as you know will prevent you from accruing fees for refused charges (if your card has them).

When you want to make a purchase, simply put the required funds on the card and then make the purchase immediately so the money isn't sitting there to be gotten at by unscrupulous individuals.

PayPal.

There are many online credit services but our personal favourite is PayPal.  Not only is it among the safest of these services, it is also one of the most widely accepted.

PayPal is like an online bank account and credit card all in one.  Money can change hands between PayPal accounts almost instantly meaning anything you purchase has an exceptionally short processing time.

Although Paypal fees can be higher than just using your debit card, there are a few security benefits that make it very worth it.

First, by using Paypal your credit card information isn't sent out across the internet to multiple vendors who's online security may or may not be good.  You can even link PayPal to your credit card to use it as a buffer between your information and the vendor.

You can direct deposit from your bank account into your paypal account if you don't want to use your Credit Card online.

You receive an email for each and every purchase made via your Paypal account.  If something has gone wrong, you'll know very quickly!

PayPal also has a Buyer Protection system.  If you buy something online and it is not as described or pictured, or even never arrives, you can lodge a claim within 45 days of your purchase.  PayPal will then investigate and, if they find in your favour, attempt to recover some or all of your money on your behalf!  It's not bulletproof and doesn't cover digital purchases of resources and the like but it's an excellent backstop for physical goods.

PayPal also has the added benefit that it can be deposited into if you sell something online.  You don't have to be handing out your bank account numbers etc for people to pay you!  You might not sell online at the moment but you never know ;).

PayPal is not a small thing and we suggest you have a more in-depth look at PayPal on their website:

https://www.paypal.com/au/webapps/mpp/how-paypal-works.

I have both a debit card and PayPal account for shopping online.  I pick and choose depending on where I'm paying and what I'm buying to keep my fees to a minimum.  I've done a lot of online shopping (and selling) and I've never been caught out sticking to these two methods of payment (knock on wood of course)!

Regards,

Mel.

Reading to students is about a lot more than words on a page!

I'm a big one for reading to my classes.  If you've read much of this blog it's kind of hard to miss that one!  Not only this, I'm also all about giving them an animated experience as an engagement tool.

Today I was pottering around, with the TV on for noise and I saw something that gave me an idea for a really great visual way to show you why I believe in the animated reading, why it changes a book from a story to an engaging experience.

I don't know whether you've paid much attention to this before but:

Shaun the Sheep from Aardman animations (more clips on the Shaun the Sheep website).

Shaun the Sheep takes place in an animal's world without words, even the farmer speaks in an unintelligible garble of sounds.  When it comes to discussing motivation for literacy it can seem a bit odd to use something like this as, instead of writing "Shaun opened the barn door", you see Shaun open the barn door because of the visual medium. What is truly fascinating though is the use of tone, cadence and body language to convey the attitudes of the characters rather than descriptive writing.

Even before children have a solid use of language they are able to understand the Shaun the Sheep stories fairly completely.

I used to play with my daughter, crawling around the floor having fun with each other but we were not having the same experience.  If we played with blocks?  She was enjoying playing with blocks and I was enjoying playing with my daughter. I could sit and watch Shaun the Sheep with my daughter when she was one and a half and we would both be "getting the same story".  It gave us common ground on a level far more advanced than reading to her, playing with blocks together, etc.  We were experiencing the same thing, at the same time, with the same level of enjoyment for the same reasons. We truly had something in common.

That is an incredibly powerful thing.  It shows how useful and effective these components of communication truly are.

While the absence of words is, usually anyway, counter-intuitive to a classroom setting that doesn't mean we shouldn't pay attention to what this situation is teaching us.

Tone, cadence and body language are integral parts of stories when told verbally and they are capable of telling a large part of the story by themselves.  They are very engaging and very universal when compared to written language, especially at the early primary level where a child's vocabulary might be letting them down.  It is also invaluable in assisting ESL students bridge the gaps in their vocabulary by providing a much more detailed context for an unknown word.

When you read a story to your class as part of a lesson?  Know the story!  Be animated!  Use tone!  Use cadence!  These things will draw students into the story and encourage them to approach stories, and literacy in general, in exactly the same way.  Enthusiastically.

And, in the end, enthusiasm is just another word for self motivation ;).

Regards,

Mel.

The CRT Resource Challenge!

Heather over at the Rowville CRT Network blog occasionally throws up a thinking challenge for her members and I think challenges like that are a great idea.  Having just concluded our Network's February monthly meeting it was time to decide on what to do for the next one.  Drawing on Heather's inspiration I decided to base our March meeting on a challenge. 

The idea was to encourage our members to just go crazy and explore the extent of their skills, use that to drive the 2.5 hr Meeting's discussion and, hopefully, end up with some resources to stick up on our Skydrive to help everyone populate their CRT toolkit with some really useful, and adaptable, lessons and activities.

And then I sort of thought, why stop there?  Ours is only one network of 26 and I'm sure there's a lot of CRTs out there who don't belong to Networks that have plenty of good things to show us too!

Simply pick the first random thing you come across in your everyday life that you could build a bunch of lessons or activities around!  Just one base resource and see how flexible you can make it and just squeeze every last piece of learning you can out of it.

Just go crazy!

To get the ball rolling I'm going to continue on from a blog post about finding a page on Pears out of a Woolworths catalogue and provide some examples of the many ways I could think of to use it in a classroom setting!  These are still "works in progress" but I'll get them finalized (and add more) as the month wears on.

My chosen resource:

 

Pro Forma examples (PDF for Acrobat Reader, also viewable/printable online through Skydrive): 

Science idea I still don't have a writeup for yet:

 

As usual I've gone a little berzerk and jumped right into it with both feet like I usually do when I'm on a roll. Remember that this isn't a game of "keeping up with the Jonses" and everyone's contribution matters, no matter how much free time you have to devote to it! If it takes you a week, a month, a year? Whether you produce a lot or one tight and bulletproof lesson plan that uses up 2 hours in a productive way? That's just fine!

Note; don't forget that the sidebar is full of useful links to other sources of inspiration like Teacher blogs, Youtube channels and handy resource sites!

If you would like to share your work when you are done, send it in to us and we'll put it on our Skydrive in a public folder.  People get access to your ideas to populate their CRT toolkit, you get access to theirs to do the same!

Full lesson plans, pro formas, dot point ideas, "thought webs" and everything else are just fine.  If you can include the basic resource then feel free to include it in some form.  Scan it, take a picture of it, if you have based it on a book include the ISBN number orif you used a Youtube video then include a link.

Will you need help building pro formas etc?  Well, we'll even help you with that if we have the time.

An archive of free lesson plans, pro formas and ideas by CRTs for CRTs!  Let's give it a go!

Technical resources;

Finding it hard to make or type your own lesson plans or pro formas?  As CRTs we often aren't supplied with computers or laptops so don't have access to the same whiz-bang software that our full-time counterparts do.  Although we use Microsoft Office ourselvs to keep us compatible with the Victorian Education system's computers, we recommend Apache OpenOffice as a free yet powerful and easy to learn alternative to commercial office suites if you just can't afford to be shelling out all of those dollars!

You can then use the free Bullzip PDF Printer to turn it into the reliable, multi-platform PDF format!

Submissions and contacting us;

If you wish to share, simply email your dicuments (or Zip file) as attachments to Wodongacrt@vit.vic.edu.au. In the body of the email please include who you would like them credited to (or simply tell us you wish to remain anonymous), the year levels it's intended for (Primary, Secondary, VCE, Grades 7-9 as examples) and a shortlist of curriculum areas you are covering.

Don't hesitate to just email or leave a comment on this post if you have any questions or comments either!

Australian National Standards:

Please keep in mind that the new National Professional Standards for Teachers places a heavy emphasis on self reflection, seeking advice from colleagues and engaging with colleagues through professional networking to improve practice and identify professional learning needs. Part of the idea of this challenge is to kick start the expansion of your professional network to make all of that a lot easier in the long run!

Regards,

Mel.

Pearing it down to effective!

It's my daughter's job to bring in the mail from the letter box and she loves finding catalogues, newspapers and the occassional letter.  We sit on the couch with the catalogues, one of my kids sitting either side of me, looking through the colourful pages of items you can buy.

My eyes lit up the other day as it came to the fruit and vegie section of a supermarket catalogue (yes, I can be a bit odd like that).  The local Woolworths Supermarket had a full page spread on pears in one of their "Fresh Food Update" segments.  It showed different varieties of pear, photos of each, decription of each and the times when they are in season.  A full colour page of information for nothing!!  And all I had to do was grab a couple of extra catalogues at my local supermarket when I was in.

So simple and yet so much to teach with.  Foods come in different varieties even when they are the "same thing".  Different varieties can have different shapes, different colours, different textures and so on.  Fruit also has a "season" and the seasons vary between the varieties.  The different varieties also cost different amounts depending on whether they are in season and the like.

These pages are great for planning lessons around because there is so much you can do with something like this.  You could make informational text questions and activities for the students.  You could complete a graph on when varieties are in season, or a survey of which pears students eat.  There is room to complete a decriptive piece using adjectives, art with use of colour, shapes and different drawing mediums can be used.   The list is endless and it cost me nothing for the base resource, it just turned up in my letterbox!  It's even in colour!!

The thing I love about these kinds of classroom activities (apart from free resources of course) is that they offer life lessons to go along with their school work.  While they learn about writing, spelling, the seasons and the like, they also learn a skill that's practical in nature.  Not all pears are the same, in season fruit is less expensive than out of season fruit and the like.  

On top of this, when the students visit the local supermarket or fruit market with their parents, it will give them a new perspective on what they see.  Many of them will reflect back on the lesson when seeing mounds of fruit and vegetables trigger memories of the lesson.  They will also become inquisitive because, although they can see the pears that they learnt about, they also see apples, bananas, beans, peas and carrots which they didn't.  Their minds branch out like little trees, with new branches sprouting as they naturally wonder whether these things have a season like Pears do, whether they come in different varieties like pairs do, do they come in different shapes and sizes like pears do.

It's using Life Lessons to encourage student reflection and further exploration of the world they live in.

Not only life lessons can be used in this way.  I am very particular of using elements of play in my lessons for the same reasons.  A classroom craft activity or lesson that has elements that will be incorporated into everyday play provide the same memory trigger for student reflection.

Why don't you have a go at thinking outside the box and see what you come up with that would trigger Student Reflection in their everyday lives!

Mel

Schools acknowledging student behaviour

As a CRT, I love walking in and out of different schools and different classrooms.  Working with different teachers gives me a better understanding of the wide variety of planning documents and activities that are used, not to mention the wide range of classroom set ups, language used and routines.  It allows me to pick and choose from the best on offer to integrate into my own teaching practice.

Student acknowledgement is something that is also different, but at the same time very alike, in schools.  In the past, students were acknowledged for their academic achievements through certificates at assemblies. This, of course, hasn't stopped happening but in recent years schools have again started to acknowledge how students conduct themselves in and out of the school.  It is now within a more positive framework than the old "rap across the knuckles for being bad" approach in bygone days.

Acknowledging students in their everyday achievements is something I come across in the majority of schools I work in.  Most often through a ticket system and in each school, even though the same generic system is known by a number of names depending on it's focus.  "Purple Moments", "BOBs" (Being Our Best), "Way To Gos" and "Gotchas" are a couple I have come across.

In some schools there are different areas that you can acknowledge students in.  They are usually in the areas of being safe, being a productive learner and making good choices in relation to behaviour. These schools have taken these three areas and made rules around them as one of the steps in their positive behaviour management strategy.  They are not your normal rules in that they don't start with "don't".  There is a positive spin on all these rules.

Some teachers may remember the 6:1 rule.  6 positive comments before a negative.  This is not an easy task but to be able to acknowledge something small in a student's schooling shows them that something doesn't have to be big to be good or worthwhile. That they don't have to do something big to be acknowledged

So the next time you walk through a school for work, have a look for how students are acknowledged.  You might find matrices and displays of student achievements in colour on walls and listen to the language used by the students and the certificates awarded at assembles. You will find that if you take these on board it will help you keep on track with the 6:1 rule and help you maintain a generally happier classroom!  Using them will also provide a consistency between the class' normal teacher and yourself, providing a sense of familiarity in your teaching even though you are a CRT. This familiar aspect will help accelerate the students becoming comfortable with you as their teacher.

For further reading;
The PBS (Positive Behaviour Support) Facilitators Manual 


Mel.

VIT PRT Seminars

VIT have posted their PRT (Provisionally Registrated Teachers) Seminars throughout Victoria.  Regional Victoria has been covered extensively with Wodonga and Sheppaton on the list to host seminars.

This is a really important seminar as the requirements to gain your full registration has changed as of the 1st of January 2013.  These seminars will step you through the new process, giving you support and answers to any questions you may have.  Always remember you are not alone!

The Wodonga PRT Seminar is scheduled for Wednesday 8 May 2013.  Full details can be viewed here.

The Shepparton PRT Seminar is schedualed for Monday 20 May 2013.  Full details can be viewed here.

If you are looking for another location, you can view the full list of seminars here.

Regards,

Mel Lichnovsky-Klock