Tag: collaboration
Blindfolded Team Drawing
I have recently been mixing things up in my classroom, offering games at the end of a lesson when students have really engaged. To keep them on their toes I have had classes play computer games where the student in front of the computer is blindfolded, and the rest of the class must give them directions. Some students asked to play again today, but I thought I would add a little variety, making the blindfolded student draw an image that their classmates could see. The result was a quick win on a simple circle, but much laughter and shouting in trying to recreate John Lennon's famous face doodle. Team work definitely benefits, as do self expression and leadership.
Software Philosophy
I love open source software, not just for technological reasons, but also for philosophical reasons. Isn't it lovely to be able to share things freely and build a better world together? Over the past few years I have tried to convey this love to students, but generally have failed miserably. This year I will try once again, and to help me I have put together a visualisation in order to try and make the situation clear. In designing this I have tried to be as impartial as a fanatic can be, showing that open source is not the right choice for everything, but that it has its place and does some things incredibly well.
Printable Version (PDF) | Graphic File (PNG, medium size)
Movie Trailers
To round out three years of ICT & Media studies, I recently asked my Year 9 students to study the art of movie making (you might have seen our Zombiefest work, which was a practice exercise for the students). As their final piece of work, …
Read the rest
Backwards Tournament
Traveling to work this morning I was thinking of ways to get my students to collaborate better in big groups. This is something that students (and adults) are generally pretty bad at, so in my pastoral time I often look for games and activities that …
Read the rest
Margaret Gould Stewart: How YouTube Thinks About Copyright
http://www.ted.com/talks/margaret_stewart_how_youtube…
Copyright is an area of immense interest for me: I cannot say exactly why, but I think it is to do with the interplay of creativity, reward and culture. I mostly think of copyright as being a battle between the content creators and content …
Read the rest
Photo Game No. 01, 15/05/2009
This collection of 10 interesting photos can be used to stimulate students in a variety of ways. For instance, in small groups they can be asked to produce a story based around any 5 of the pictures, in any order, which can then be presented …
Read the rest
Storybird
http://storybird.com/Storybird is a site that allows you to create short, visual stories that you can share on the web. This is a great tool for encouraging creativity through digital storytelling.…
Read the rest
Jamendo: Free, Legal Music
Jamendo is a fantastic source for music that students can legally use in their own creative works. Shared under Creative Commons licenses, the site offers a whole range of sounds, much of which is very professional in its composition, performance and production.…
Read the rest
SurveyMonkey.com
http://www.surveymonkey.com/
SurveyMonkey is a free, easy-to-use, online survey tool. Teachers can use this to get feedback from students and parents. Students can use this to obtain raw data for projects. Use this lesson plan to incorporate SurveyMonkey (or any similar too) into a lesson on …
Read the rest
Time Magazine: Why Facebook Is for Old Fogies
http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0;9171;1879169;00.html
An interesting look at the constantly changing face of the Web, and the various ways we use it to communicate. It is vital for teachers to understand the system’s that students use, and how they operate.…
Read the rest