Inquiry, Videos for Teaching and Google Earth/Sky

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Following on from Monday, I really believe that using ICT can help you implement meaningful inquiries in your classroom. It's worth reading the Min of Ed's action plan called Enabling the 21st Century Learner: e-Learning Action Plan

Consider the use of webquests or similar as a way of individualising the inquiry process using ICT. They also can help you with the scaffolding around the process.

This Wiki has links to various Inquiry resources : http://fitzil.wikispaces.com/Inquiry+Learning

Steve has mentioned Kath Murdoch and Tasmania. She has done a lot of work on ICT and Inquiry and is well worth listening to and reading about. There are a couple of her books in our library, notably:

Classroom connections: strategies for integrated learning and Planning curriculum connections: whole-school planning for integrated curriculum

Here are some useful links too:

• http://www.ltag.education.tas.gov.au/Planning/models/inquirymodel.htm
• http://www.ltag.education.tas.gov.au/Planning/models/default.htm

I don't really mean it!

Internet Video Tools for the 21C Classroom:

Animation and poetry. This could be a way of bringing poetry alive. A thoughtful animation of the well known poem:

The Highwayman - Alfred Noyes

Could this change the way you teach poetry? Children could create their own examples using Photostory 3 or Powerpoint.

UK English standards for year 5 for this poem (Note that the filename .nbk is for the Smartboard notebook)I thought this one was good too. The Piano Well worth a look and you can see the UK resources for this video here and here.

Another way of creating online slideshows is using Animoto. Here is an example created in just a couple of minutes......
Wellesley Football 2007

Animoto 30 second shorts are free to make - give it a go and consider how you could use it in your classroom.
Other online slideshows:

• http://www.slideroll.com/
• http://www.onetruemedia.com/otm_site/create_slideshow
• http://www.spresent.com/v2/

Not really video as such, but an interesting way of looking at the news through headlines. Click on the headline to read the story - You can play with the config to get just New Zealand stories..

http://www.marumushi.com/apps/newsmap/newsmap.cfm

This photo is amazing! Space station floating above Aotearoa! 12 Dec 2006 ( I can see Wellesley boys jumping off the wharf!) - http://spaceflight.nasa.gov/gallery/images/shuttle/sts-116/html/s116e05983.html

And continuing the space scheme, the latest version of Google Earth lets you look at space (our sky) in the same fashion with high resolution imagery. This has to be a great tool to use with a Smartboard. Download this version of Google Earth from the Wellesley Intranet. Let me kno if you have trouble installing it.

No relevance to videos or ICT but this link has a good diagram of the main coffee types - so that you know what you're asking for (or making). I heard some order a Vienna coffee the other night but I don't know how it's made. Can't see any mention of a Vienna here though. Any ideas??
http://www.lokeshdhakar.com/2007/08/20/an-illustrated-coffee-guide/

Google, Digital Natives and more on Smartboards

Google are a major force in ICT and their influence is growing. I'm currently playing with igoogle, which partly points to the future direction of the web - a more personalised home page - IGoogle .


I believe Google earth have improved the resolution of imagery over New Zealand. Might be worth a look. Found your house yet??


More in Google Earth

• 2007 Tour de France route
• New 7 wonders of the World see the winners in Google Earth
  

There are a number of tools for educators available from Google. Here's a list: http://teachdigital.pbwiki.com/googletools

What you don't want to see when you've just run out of petrol:

And, I love signs which provide clear information:

Try this New Zealand Census at School - register your class to take part: http://www.censusatschool.org.nz/

Digital Native

Marc Prensky's suggestiuons for useing Cell Phones in the classroom: http://www.marcprensky.com/blog/archives/000043.html

This page has links to more of Marc Prensky's work: http://www.marcprensky.com/writing/

Smartboards.....

Some more sites with interactive whiteboard resources:

• http://www.waukesha.k12.wi.us/WIT/SmartBoard/specificapps.htm


• http://eduscapes.com/sessions/smartboard/


• http://www.clarion.edu/admin/computing/classrooms/resources.htm


• http://www.prometheanplanet.com/uk/server/show/nav.914

This is an interesting world clock with a lot more data besides. Watch the earth gradually warming up and CO2 emissions increasing.

Put it up on a Smartboard and stimulate a discussion. How many bicycles is that now???

Finally, Do you drink green tea? Concentrated chemicals derived from green tea dramatically boosted production of a group of key detoxification enzymes in people with low levels of these beneficial proteins, according to researchers at Arizona Cancer Center. See Biosingularity

Shrinking the World Tools and Busy Teachers

I've put a site which contains links to Climate change information. Have a look and see if you can use it, or suggest some more sites. I'll update it with more links as we go.

Wellesley links for Climate Change

I mentioned Google maps last week. Did anyone have a play? Just open it up and type in any address in the world.... yes that's right!... any address in the world for a zoomable map which shows the actual address on a map or if you like the satellite image. There are a growing number of web tools out there that pull together web features in a useful way.

Or have you tried Google Earth? Again there are huge possibilities for using Google earth in the classroom. If you want some ideas try these links:

• http://www.googlelittrips.org/
  
• http://www.juicygeography.co.uk/googleearth.htm

There are other search engines than Google. In fact their are about 500,000 of them. Maybe in a school a talking search engine is good idea. Ask the question and hear the answer. Here are two of them - both "manned" by women interestingly enough.

Try ask Vox:

And if you really want the full on search experience, try Ms Dewey. But she's not for kids and don't keep her waiting for too long.

Spreadsheets

I often think we don't use spreadsheets enough. Excel is a powerful tool which can be used to achieve a range of tasks - not just graphing! If you haven't used a spreadsheet in the past, have a look at this useful list of relevant ways of using spreadsheets in the classroom.

http://www.west.asu.edu/achristie/CTC/spreadsheets.html

Busy Teachers

This is a repeat of a quoted blog from last year. It's from Dean Shareski in his Blog Ideas and Thoughts of an EdTech and I think it bears repeating:

Our culture is obsessed with being busy. When’s the last time you asked someone about their job or life and they didn’t use the word busy? It’s worn like a badge of honor. To even hint you might not be busy, conjures up visions of laziness and lack of ambition. As we plan various activities and events for schools, I’ll often hear, “that’s a busy time for schools”. Tell me when it’s not a busy time?

That fact that everyone is busy should be a given by now. It’s almost akin to breathing. Should I preface every statement about my current state of existence by stating that, “I’ve been really breathing lately….consuming a lot of oxygen.”

I’m trying to stop acting like I’m so busy and telling everyone how busy I am. No one really cares and it’s nothing worth talking about. Telling folks about how busy you are creates too many negative images. Talking about busyness does not usually leave the impression you love your job. I do love my job so maybe I don’t think of myself as busy. My job is to support teachers. When a teacher asks for my support, I figure out how to help. I don’t need to remind them how busy I am because they’re just as busy. I want to give people the impression that I have lots of time for them. They need to feel relaxed and I’d like to alleviate some of the stress they might be feeling in their daily grind. Life and work shouldn’t be taken so seriously. Relax. I’ve worked with some great people that I know were extremely busy but always had time to chat with me about work, life and I dare say it, even fun, non-work related stuff.

I think this is the type of classroom we ought to be creating. One where teachers have lots of time to work with students and there is less a sense of panic and mayhem and more one of calm and reflection. Is this possible?

How could we achieve this in our classrooms?