I had a breakthrough moment today - well, several, in fact. My September starters had reached the end of their "waves" topic, so it was time for revision and a topic test. Groans all round usually. So far this year, I've introduced the idea to them of preparing revision sheets as we go along. So, at the end of the General Physics and the thermal effects topics, I gave them each a single sheet of A4 paper, with a few headings, diagrams and partially completed sentences. They were told to complete this sheet and add anything they liked to it, so long as they only used one side of the A4 paper.
As an incentive, I allowed them to use the revision sheets in their topic tests. So far, I'd had mixed results, with some students completing the sheets well, others poorly or not at all. They couldn't really see the point of it. However, we are starting to talk about the exams now, so I guess they are slightly more focussed.
Anyway, I went through a couple of exercises I'd previously prepared on the IWB, from the wonderful Learning Activities Toolkit. This comes with the Smartboards and enables quizzes, games and other activitiesto be prepared in just a few minutes. I used a Keyword Matching activity as well as an interactive page which was already in the Gallery - there are so many pages pre-prepared in the Gallery, it's often surprising what can be found.
Afterwards, I gave my students a blank piece of A4 paper and said that I thought it was time they took a little more responsibility for their own revision, so I hadn't prepared a template for them. One or two did look shocked and a little worried, but I told them I would help them and give advice if they needed it and they settled into the task well. So well, I was stunned by the co-operation between students and the impressive quality of their work.
More than that, they started making suggestions of their own, about revision. One student, T, said that she thought the IWB activities were a really good way to revise and suggested they could write their own questions in future. Another student, who usually struggles with Physics, was the first to ask for the wireless mouse so that he could try to complete the activities to check his understanding. This technology really captivated them and having a wireless keyboard and mouse means they can stay seated, which speeds up the activities. A second and larger class, doing the same activities later in the day, simply passed the mouse from one student to the next without being asked to do so.
At times, I felt I wasn't really needed in class! The students just got on with the tasks, some alone, others working in pairs or groups, but every one of them engaged and busy.
Several students commented that the revision sheets were a great idea, they totally understood it now, with C declaring that reading the textbook and writing just the important points, or those she couldn't remember easily, made the revision more effective as she was interacting with the textbook! Wow, I felt as though I'd died and gone to Teacher Heaven.
I was able to give some directed praise during the task, especially to the groups working well together. What was also interesting was that some had chosen to use the same format as the previous template sheets, so clearly that had a bigger impact on them than I'd thought. I've also promised to publish their revision sheets in our VLE "Study Smart", which they are keen to see. One student remarked "ooh, we can be famous!"
Perhaps even more interesting was that they also asked me, without any prompting, if I could make an app for their mobile phones as flashcards or as a similar exercise to the Keyword Matching one. This generation really does look to their mobile technology in every part of their lives. They want us to keep up and are genuinely appreciative if we make the effort to do so.
Monday 31 January 2011
Monday 17 January 2011
Teachers' Conference
What a busy week! First the BETT exhibition and then on Friday and Saturday, our Teachers' Conference.
I love the Conference. Every year, I come away re-invigorated after meeting so many enthusiastic teachers. The energy everyone seems to have as well as the ideas and creativity shown by so many is just brilliant. It is contagious- I can't help but come home feeling exhausted but determined to try out something new that a colleague has been generous enough to share.
Generosity is probably the one word I would use to sum up the Conference. So many people give freely of their time to share their best ideas, pass on invaluable tips and discuss problems openly. Behind the scenes, the IT support team do a fantastic job, making sure everything runs smoothly and there are no hitches with equipment. The catering team made sure we were well fed and watered and the organisation of the whole Conference, though a nightmare at times, I've no doubt, was so efficient that the entire Conference seemed to pass off smoothly and like a well-oiled machine. My congratulations and thanks to everyone involved this year.
I was fortunate enough to give a couple of presentations this year - one on some of the tips I have learnt about using IWBs and the other on my James Bond lesson. Everyone who attended my sessions was so kind, warm, supportive and positive. That kind of audience gives back so much to presenters, I felt priviledged to stand in front of them. I don't think I walked down the stairs after the IWB presentation and into lunch - I floated!
I attended a fantastic "bring and share" session where we discussed ideas to try in the classroom to help support language learning. This was just what I need, loads of new ideas to try - interestingly, the session was run by an English teacher but all of the ideas discussed could be adapted for use with any subject. That is another reason for attending the conference - getting to meet and discuss ideas with teachers of other subjects is a rare opportunity and always shows me how much we have in common, rather than our differences. Being open-minded and prepared to think beyond the obvious brings huge rewards.
Once again, the Conference demonstrated the pace of change in the classroom and outside. Technology is advancing at a frightening pace it seems and our students will use gadgets and social networking that could leave us behind unless we work at it to keep up. More importantly, we were reminded that they will use social networking sites and gadgets whether we invite them to or not. Much better that we start using these as well to encourage and enhance their learning. I left the Conference determined to think even harder about using Twitter, Blogs (maybe a class Blog?), forums and the like in class as well as "flip" cameras and other gadgets.
I also need to go through my bag of goodies and leaflets from BETT to decide what to investigate further and what to place in the "round file" and then to get on with it all rather than leaving it until tomorrow. Figuratively speaking, that is!
I'm exhausted but excited by the prospect of it all.
I love the Conference. Every year, I come away re-invigorated after meeting so many enthusiastic teachers. The energy everyone seems to have as well as the ideas and creativity shown by so many is just brilliant. It is contagious- I can't help but come home feeling exhausted but determined to try out something new that a colleague has been generous enough to share.
Generosity is probably the one word I would use to sum up the Conference. So many people give freely of their time to share their best ideas, pass on invaluable tips and discuss problems openly. Behind the scenes, the IT support team do a fantastic job, making sure everything runs smoothly and there are no hitches with equipment. The catering team made sure we were well fed and watered and the organisation of the whole Conference, though a nightmare at times, I've no doubt, was so efficient that the entire Conference seemed to pass off smoothly and like a well-oiled machine. My congratulations and thanks to everyone involved this year.
I was fortunate enough to give a couple of presentations this year - one on some of the tips I have learnt about using IWBs and the other on my James Bond lesson. Everyone who attended my sessions was so kind, warm, supportive and positive. That kind of audience gives back so much to presenters, I felt priviledged to stand in front of them. I don't think I walked down the stairs after the IWB presentation and into lunch - I floated!
I attended a fantastic "bring and share" session where we discussed ideas to try in the classroom to help support language learning. This was just what I need, loads of new ideas to try - interestingly, the session was run by an English teacher but all of the ideas discussed could be adapted for use with any subject. That is another reason for attending the conference - getting to meet and discuss ideas with teachers of other subjects is a rare opportunity and always shows me how much we have in common, rather than our differences. Being open-minded and prepared to think beyond the obvious brings huge rewards.
Once again, the Conference demonstrated the pace of change in the classroom and outside. Technology is advancing at a frightening pace it seems and our students will use gadgets and social networking that could leave us behind unless we work at it to keep up. More importantly, we were reminded that they will use social networking sites and gadgets whether we invite them to or not. Much better that we start using these as well to encourage and enhance their learning. I left the Conference determined to think even harder about using Twitter, Blogs (maybe a class Blog?), forums and the like in class as well as "flip" cameras and other gadgets.
I also need to go through my bag of goodies and leaflets from BETT to decide what to investigate further and what to place in the "round file" and then to get on with it all rather than leaving it until tomorrow. Figuratively speaking, that is!
I'm exhausted but excited by the prospect of it all.
Thursday 13 January 2011
BETT 2011
I had a brilliant and an awful day at the BETT exhibition at Olympia yesterday.
The brilliant part was the exhibition itself. Wow! Every year I'm just stunned by the size of this exibition. I went prepared - I had my personal plan of which stands I wanted to visit and had worked out a route. That plan went out of the window as soon as I started walking down the first aisle. At each stand there were people who started talking to me as I walked past. Just trying to read the names of the companies they represented was invitation enough - and I was too poilite, at least at the start of the day, to say "no thanks".
Besides, the promise of winning something is always way too tempting. I'm now waiting until Monday to find out that I must have won at least one "Smart table", 4 Kindles, 1 iPod, 3 iPads and about a million free one year subscriptions to various pieces of software. Lucky me, hmm?
Of course, once the inevitable phone calls start coming through from the company reps, reminding me that I said I was interested in their products, I shall remember why I told myself NOT to enter any competitions this year! At least I also came away with enough pens to last until next year and enough chocolates and sweets to expand my ever-increasing waistline by another 20 inches! Thank goodness for the Sunflower Learning stand which offered free fruit to visitors, the apple was most welcome!
Anyway, I spent most of the day (productive part, see later for the awful side) seeing something exciting on one stand and thinking "This is fantastic, it's new and exciting, a good price and my students would love it - we MUST buy this" and then walking to the next stand and repeating that process over and over again.
I was struck by how many apps there are this year for use with students' mobile technology - revision software, educational games, educational software in general. This is an area that had definitely expanded over the past 12 months and one I need to think seriously about. I must buy myself a smartphone too - I need to keep up - my excuse at least.
I love the idea of using games to enhance students' learning as anyone who has read my previos blogs may remember. Playstation are currently developing Physics games for use on their PS3s which could be mindblowing.
There really was far too much of interest for me to even begin to do justice to it here. I've come away exhausted but invigorated by some of the ideas and material out there now and in the development process.
Ok, so now I have to explain the awful part. Olympia is not the easiest of venues to reach. Getting to Earl's Court is fine, but there are just not enough trains from there to Olympia, or back again. Consequently, the thousands of visitors to BETT are crammed in so tightly, we almost had to take turns to breathe. Very uncomfortable and claustrophobic.
Once at Olympia, the organisation this year left much to be desired, in my opinion. The cloakroom facilities are inadequate for the number of people visiting. I queued for 30 minutes to leave my coat and about 90 minutes to retrieve it at the end of the day, by which time many of the tickets that had been pinned to coats etc, were on the floor and staff were unable to find some coats, including mine. I found my own, by searching through all of the coats myself, but this is hardly a good way to run a cloakroom.
In addition, eating is always difficult at BETT due to the number of visitors. After a wait of over 20 minutes to reach the food counter and a further 15 minutes trying to find an empty place at a table, I ended up sitting on the floor to eat. Not great when you are tired and really want a break for a few minutes. I think that I should at least have been able to sit on a chair after paying the high cost of exhibition food.
That said, I still think it was well worth going to BETT.
The brilliant part was the exhibition itself. Wow! Every year I'm just stunned by the size of this exibition. I went prepared - I had my personal plan of which stands I wanted to visit and had worked out a route. That plan went out of the window as soon as I started walking down the first aisle. At each stand there were people who started talking to me as I walked past. Just trying to read the names of the companies they represented was invitation enough - and I was too poilite, at least at the start of the day, to say "no thanks".
Besides, the promise of winning something is always way too tempting. I'm now waiting until Monday to find out that I must have won at least one "Smart table", 4 Kindles, 1 iPod, 3 iPads and about a million free one year subscriptions to various pieces of software. Lucky me, hmm?
Of course, once the inevitable phone calls start coming through from the company reps, reminding me that I said I was interested in their products, I shall remember why I told myself NOT to enter any competitions this year! At least I also came away with enough pens to last until next year and enough chocolates and sweets to expand my ever-increasing waistline by another 20 inches! Thank goodness for the Sunflower Learning stand which offered free fruit to visitors, the apple was most welcome!
Anyway, I spent most of the day (productive part, see later for the awful side) seeing something exciting on one stand and thinking "This is fantastic, it's new and exciting, a good price and my students would love it - we MUST buy this" and then walking to the next stand and repeating that process over and over again.
I was struck by how many apps there are this year for use with students' mobile technology - revision software, educational games, educational software in general. This is an area that had definitely expanded over the past 12 months and one I need to think seriously about. I must buy myself a smartphone too - I need to keep up - my excuse at least.
I love the idea of using games to enhance students' learning as anyone who has read my previos blogs may remember. Playstation are currently developing Physics games for use on their PS3s which could be mindblowing.
There really was far too much of interest for me to even begin to do justice to it here. I've come away exhausted but invigorated by some of the ideas and material out there now and in the development process.
Ok, so now I have to explain the awful part. Olympia is not the easiest of venues to reach. Getting to Earl's Court is fine, but there are just not enough trains from there to Olympia, or back again. Consequently, the thousands of visitors to BETT are crammed in so tightly, we almost had to take turns to breathe. Very uncomfortable and claustrophobic.
Once at Olympia, the organisation this year left much to be desired, in my opinion. The cloakroom facilities are inadequate for the number of people visiting. I queued for 30 minutes to leave my coat and about 90 minutes to retrieve it at the end of the day, by which time many of the tickets that had been pinned to coats etc, were on the floor and staff were unable to find some coats, including mine. I found my own, by searching through all of the coats myself, but this is hardly a good way to run a cloakroom.
In addition, eating is always difficult at BETT due to the number of visitors. After a wait of over 20 minutes to reach the food counter and a further 15 minutes trying to find an empty place at a table, I ended up sitting on the floor to eat. Not great when you are tired and really want a break for a few minutes. I think that I should at least have been able to sit on a chair after paying the high cost of exhibition food.
That said, I still think it was well worth going to BETT.
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