Some Early Morning Tips by Mark Petch

KEYWORD SEARCHING

petch_mark — 2014-07-21 05:41:36 UTC

Student research can be very hit and miss due to the sheer volume of material on the internet. a basic tip for students is NEVER to search with a single keyword. As a recent exercise my students did a search using the word "pollution" and got just under 30 million references. when we added "water' and "Indonesia' to "pollution" we reduced that to around 3 million.

Students should generate keywords through discussion and brainstorming before they search to get the best out of the process

One of the problems with searching macro topics generally is that the are just too big to really focus on. An interesting tool for students to use is UBERSUGGEST.ORG. This website will take a broad keyword like "pollution" and then phrase it in dozens of sentences that narrow students down to more managable research themes and topics.

BLOGS FOR STUDENTS ( ACTUALLY TEACHERS)

petch_mark — 2014-07-21 05:41:44 UTC

Student blogging, (especially for reflection) is currently a request. Pretty soon it will be a demand and then and expectation. Teachers need to be comfortable with the whole process so get a grip on it sooner rather than later. Teachers and students all have their favorites and I have covered a range of alternatives in a PowerPoint called REFLECTION - INTERNET TOOLS.

Eventually , for practical reasons the school will need to settle on one system. My pick of the crop is KIDBLOG for management reasons. School based blogs need to be closed off from the public realm which is a problem with some of the popular blogging tools. Kidblog has the two essential features that keep teachers happy. Firstly classes can be grouped into schools. Secondly (and pricelessly if you have ever had to read 20 blogs) you can filter by student and see all their stuff in one go.

PREPARING FOR REPORTS

petch_mark — 2014-07-21 05:42:17 UTC

I hate reports, not just because I am lazy and unprofessional but because I consider a lot of what I write to be forced and generic.

An exception to that last semester for me was some home room reports that I wrote based on some student reflection and feedback that i had gathered using an online questionnaire. I was able to quote the students own comments about themselves and then bounce my own responses off those comments.

Accordingly I have put together a questionnaire that I'll get all my students to complete at least twice during the semester talking about their own goals and work. Hopefully the difference between what they say early in the semester and what they say later in the semester will give me something intelligent to say for a change. An additional benefit will, i hope, be getting students to take stock of their progress.

If I'm not mistaken, the decision to move towards QUALITATIVE and DEVELOPMENTAL reporting has already been made so maybe I'm ahead of the curve on this one.

Putting this together was really easy using a GOOGLE FORM. Take a look. Maybe you can help me ask some smarter questions.

GOOGLE FOR EDUCATION

petch_mark — 2014-07-21 05:42:36 UTC

Many teachers are generally familiar with what Google drive is and how it works. It continues to develop and now offers much better integration with Microsoft Office. Some teachers are familiar with Google for Education which offers to cluster Google products and services together under a unique domain for the school. This last addition is quite important as it means that we can have school based mail IDs (the reason why have persisted with Yahoo for so long)

In essence, Google for education packages student and teacher storage, mail and productivity resources under a school based log on. Apart from benefits in the areas of storage and functionality, Google for Education offers such things as filtered and customized browsers for searching and of course seamless integration across platforms and into up and coming devices such as Chromebooks.

An issue raised with Google education has been the data-mining of student accounts by Google and the tendency to routinely "recommend" apps in the Google Play Store.

MICROSOFT ONEDRIVE

petch_mark — 2014-07-21 05:43:28 UTC

Microsoft Onedrive offers a credible alternative to the Googleverse. Cross platform integration, inter device syncing, integrated mail, document sharing, cloud storage, premium productivity tools. Onedrive offers online versions of the authentic Office tools though more interesting is Office 365 which is subscription based. it allows for downloading to 5 devices and syncs them all together.

They are all there in a point for point match for Google. In addition, there are some unique and still
undervalued applications that Google doesn't have and to my great frustration this school doesn't use.

ONENOTE is a virtual TABBED notebook into which you can write directly or drag and drop content. It synchronizes across devices like Evernote. from a teachers point of view a really interesting function is the way you can create a book for a class and present notes and resources under tabs. you can even create pages for each student in a group for them to add material. Group projects where students contribute to sections of a notebook work really well.

SHAREPOINT is a real-time chat and collaboration tool that allows for chat, document sharing , transfer and collaboration.

VOCAB FOR REFLECTION

petch_mark — 2014-07-21 05:43:53 UTC

Students are challenged by the process of reflection because it involves higher order thinking skills. The fact that reflective writing (done well) uses higher order vocabulary is also part of the challenge. A very worthwhile task is for us to create a vocabulary for reflective writing. I tracked down a few sources and compiled them into my REFLECTION - INTERNET TOOLS PowerPoint (Screen 9) in Edmodo. Attached below is one example of those resources.

BTW the link below also contains material about other topics that teachers like such as plagiarism, Harvard referencing, study skills etc.

HELLO PADLET GOODBYE POWERPOINT

petch_mark — 2014-07-21 06:37:53 UTC

Padlet is a really easy to use web based application that students can use to present content as text, images, links, audio or video in full color. All they need to do is supply you with the hot link by posting it to Edmodo.

If you REALLY need a hard copy..not a problem, students can save the contents as a PDF or just print it out

Quite ironically a PowerPoint about using Padlet has been posted on Edmodo for you.

WORDS YOU ARE GOING TO HEAR..... MANAGEBAC

petch_mark — 2014-07-21 07:01:34 UTC

The IB is a system that requires regular and quite precise record keeping. Both teachers and students will need to hit a series of "posting " milestones with respect to CAS activities and large projects. MANAGEBAC is a system designed specifically for that. Its well made and easy to learn and use as a tool for managing groups and individuals. Expect to hear more about it soon.

WORDS YOU ARE GOING TO HEAR..... SCHOOL INTERVIEWS ONLINE

petch_mark — 2014-07-21 07:14:26 UTC

Considering how comfortable we are with email, Edmodo and texting, the booking sheets we use for parent teacher interviews are pretty crude and post apocalyptic. An alternative we have been taking a look at is an event booking tool widely used in Australian schools called BOOK SCHOOL INTERVIEWS ONLINE. Actually you can use it for much more than that. Attendance at any kind of event from sports events through to drama nights can be managed by setting up the details under an event code and mail/text bombing everyone out there who needs to know. Expect to hear more about it sooner rather than later.

MICROSOFT GETS ITS EDU-GAME ON

petch_mark — 2014-07-21 09:40:44 UTC

Traditionally Microsoft have always been late adopters of just about everything outside their operating system and corporate domain. They have discovered education quite recently and have started to develop useful things for teachers.

MS are developing apps and content for what they call 21CLD which means 21st Century Learning Design. Actually, the apps and the content are quite useful and have potential for us. They have tools to help teachers devise, implement and manage 21st Century learning activities. Their general definition of this is that it is COLLABORATIVE, TECH BASED and centered on GLOBAL CITIZENSHIP. Go here to check some of the apps connected with the project.

https://www.teachercollection.com/apps

The link below will take you to a Microsoft page that has sample activities and links through to rubrics which are under a spotlight in the school at present.