Category Archives: Resources
Teaching & learning resources, including those created by me, and those created by others.
Hands On Stuff
At the end of last school year I asked my students for some feedback. One of the things that came through loudly was a desire for more hands on time. This was most acute in Year 8, where I had simply tried to sneak in a little too much theory. In response I turned two theory-heavy units into one, trimmed down the content, and gave more time over to hands on exploration. One of the new additions was a lesson where kids could just teardown and rebuild old electronics, which I put at the end of a unit spent fixing and driving remote control cars. Below are some photos of what was a really energetic and well-received lesson, in which I did relatively little teaching. Aside from promoting some individuals to think about what components were for, and why things were design in a certain way, I really just asked kids to think about why we throw so much away, instead of fixing it.
Anatomy Of A Phishing Scam
Phishing scams are easy to fall for, and hackers know they only need to catch a small proportion of potential victims to make it worth their while. Use the guide below to teach students and staff how to spot a phishing scam.
Strimming With Students
Strimming, weed whacking, weed eating, call it what you like, it’s a crazy process. Take a piece of nylon string, use a 2-stroke petrol engine to spin it around real fast, and then use that force to hack away at vegetation. As part of my Art of Physical Labour programme, I try to get students to understand machines, how they are useful, why they are potentially dangerous, and what their limitations are.
So, after a session of hand weeding, I thought I would introduce something new, and have students look at, pull start and (for the more responsible) use a strimmer. If you have never used a strimmer before, you could be forgiven for underestimating how intimidating they are to new comers. It’s not just the danger of being lacerated, but also flying stones, the noise of a 2-stroke engine, the heat, fumes, vibration. This is not something to approach lightly.
At first sight of the strimmer, students were excited by the prospect of using a power tool, but at the same time I could see some trepidation from some of the younger kids. I asked them some questions as to what this thing was, how it worked, and why it could be dangerous. We discussed the measures we could take to protect ourselves, including being sensible, knowing the machine, wearing safety goggles, long trousers and closed toed shoes. For extended use we discussed the importance of ear protection, and on sandy ground, or when going right down to the ground, the importance of a heavy apron.
Each student then had a turn starting the strimmer, using the pull cord to manually ignite the full. This is not an easy process, and every student in the group underestimated the force required. After starting, students used the kill switch to stop the machine, which we also discussed in terms of safety. Once all of the students had a go starting the machine, three students were selected to whack some weeds. I worked individually with each of them to make sure they machine was handled correctly. I helped them load the started machine onto their backs (not as easy as it sounds), and then worked to direct them to safely operate it (form a safe distance of course). All three students clearly enjoyed the process, but came away a little shaky at the power and heat of the machine.
All too often, schools attempt to keep students safe by banning supposedly risky activities. However, this is a very short-term fix, as students are shielded from potential danger, and so never learn how to judge, mitigate and handle danger. I love this activity precisely because it exposes students to danger in a well managed, safe way. They learn to appreciate the danger of powerful machines, but also that this power can be harvested and used wisely.
Next lesson? Power drills, working up to hammer action.
Image Credit: Strimmer image by David R. Yeo on Wikipedia, shared under CC BY.
Visual Assessment Guide
What started last year as a Self Assessment Guide, has been reworked into a more general tool for assessment. This new guide is suitable for teacher, peer or self assessment and also offers a visual map of what we want students to learn (with highlighting of which concepts are most important). Although still ICT specific, this guide could be adapted to any subject by changing the attributes and keywords.
Printable Version (PDF)
So, what’s changed? Well, after a year of experience with student self assessment using the original guide, I have come to the following conclusions.
- Self assessment is great, and students really learn a lot by revisiting concepts learned, and writing about them. However, students get bored of self assessment, so using it more than 3 times a year with one group is not so great. The assessment tool should thus by more general, useful for teachers and peers to use.
- The old guide was based around “strands”, which were essentially high level learning outcomes. The new guide focuses on “attributes”, as I really want to be centered around the kind of students I want leaving my course after three years. The two schools I am involved in (ICHK Secondary and ICHK HLY) include formal ICT learning from Years 1 to 9, and we have tentatively decided to use these attributes across the entire age range. Hopefully this will lend consistency to what we are doing, allowing us to be more effective.
- In the original guide there was mapping from the ways of learning (a Bloomsian set from knowing through creating), allowing these to be turned into numeric scores. This was never ideal, as it is too reductionist and focuses attention on the grade, not what has been learned. The new version dispenses with the levels, and just focuses on the ways of learning. It has been tentatively agreed that next year I can experiment with reporting the top way of learning achieved in a particular piece of work. Hopefully this will help
- The old category of “becoming” connotes a moral element to what is being taught, and means assigning levels based on my own world view. Whilst I might find this appropriate, others may not. This point was raised by Toby Newton, and whilst I was initially hesitant, I can see the value of his point that we need students to be more critical of what we say, not just accepting and applying everything automatically.
I am really keen to get feedback on this style of assessment, and on the ICT content included and omitted from the guide. I don’t doubt that collaboration will make this idea more useful and usable.
It’s Complicated
danah boyd‘s It’s Complicated (full PDF) is a book which seeks to change the way we view teenagers and their use of digital technology. Viewed as a vulnerable demographic, teens, it is commonly believed, need our protection to thrive. At the same time, many adults feel threatened by the boisterous, physical confidence that teens often exude. These forces combine to make many adults nervous of how, why, when and where teens use Internet-connected technology.
boyd, working from primary research, presents a very different and compelling view of teen technology consumption and use. Cleverly, she points to the many social and structural factors which lead teens to do what they do. For example, she argues that teens find social media so compelling because they have relatively few opportunities to socialise with peers face-to-face. In her view, the highly structured, timetabled and restricted lives of modern teens (think school, tuition, organise sports, lack of free play time, fear of strange danger, etc), dictated by adults, pigeon hole them into behaving in a way adults dislike .
Over the course of the book, boyd returns often to the theme that generally “the kids are alright”, whilst also highlighting some of the positives that come from teen engagement in social media. She astutely notes that often the kids who struggle with misuse of technology are those that struggle with other areas of their lives. This is much the same as adults who struggle with, say, gambling, suffering from some other difficulties from which gambling is simply a release. Ergo, technology is not the problem, but simply a symptom. The question then, is why overreact to the symptom, when we should be looking at the underlying human condition.
The book has certainly reinforced my existing beliefs in terms of not blocking technology use, but rather helping students to learn from their mistakes. I would certainly recommend this book to anyone who works with, or has to parent, teenagers.
The book is broken down into the following chapters, which gives a good idea of the range of ideas covered:
- Identity
- Privacy
- Addition
- Danger
- Bullying
- Inequality
- Literacy
- Search For A Public Of Their Own
The following are two passages which really stood out in terms of capturing the spirit of the book:
Epic Wallpers
In Year 7, my students undertake a short unit of work called Epic Wallpaper, in which they attempt to make a glossy wallpaper using Acorn and some graphic design techniques. This is the first year I have run this unit, and it went very well, with the students really enjoying the creativity of image editing. The 9 best designs are shown below. All are under Creative Commons licenses, so feel to download and use them as your wallpaper.
Download all 9 wallpapers (ZIP)
All images are 1680 x 1050px and so should work on most commons screen sizes. Well done to Alex, Alvin, Emi, Jamie, Lily, Nicolle, Ruby, Sammi and Serena for their fantastic design work.
Inebriation
I saw these photos on Neatorama, and thought, that combined in to a series, they would make an amazing resource for students to discuss alcohol, prohibition and cultural shifts over time. From my point of view, any time we take a black and white view of things (e.g. alcohol equals bad) we run the risk of marginalising people whilst reducing issues to a point where realistic and profitable discussion is impossible.
Wiring A Plug
Looking back on my own time in secondary school I remember, in terms of useful practical outcomes, precisely one lesson. Of course there are many more which influenced and shaped me, but only one that I regularly and knowingly draw on. It was Year 9 Science, and for reasons I did not understand at the time, the wonderful Dr. Myatt taught us how to wire an electrical plug. Nothing earth shattering, but something that I have needed to do many times, and which really taught me a lot about electrical safety.
With a lesson in hand for two of my Year 9 ICT classes this week, I decided to take a leaf out of Dr. Myatt’s book and teaching plug wiring as a one-off lesson. Hopefully they will take away as much from this experience as I did from the lesson that inspired it.
Resources
In planning the lesson I needed to obtain the following:
- 20x fused, replacement 3-prong plugs
- 15x medium size Philips head screwdrivers
- 5x flat head screw drivers (which I did not use in the end)
- 10x scissors (good quality is key, more would be useful. I chose not to use wire strippers as I wanted kids to use simple household tools for the job)
- 1x roll of electrical tape
- 1x 10m length of electrical wire
- 1x square 9V battery
Some of this was scrapped from existing school supplies, other items were purchased new. In the end, we spent a meagre HKD $260, which I thought was very good value for money. Before the lessons began I cut the cable into 50cm lengths, and the electrical tape into 9cm segments. I arranged the tools and equipment at a table that the whole class could gather around.
Why Bother?
I try to start all lessons and units with what I call “The Pitch”: one or more reasons for students to be interested in the lesson. In this case, I mentioned that students will most likely end up buying devices in different countries, and that this skill will help them avoid having to constantly find travel adapters in order to their various appliances. I also mentioned the joy of being able to solve such household problems independently, and the time and money this can save.
Safety
In approaching this subject my primary concern was that of safety: making sure the students took the activity seriously, understood the risks and would not come to any harm. To get the point across I asked for a brave volunteer to press a 9v battery against their tongue. With a new battery this can be quite a shock, so I used an older one, with a little less juice in it. The students were apprehensive, but eventually a brave volunteer came forward. He took a risk, experienced some discomfort, and entertained his classmates. I then explained that this 9v battery was less than 5% of the strength in our 220v sockets. To really get the attention of the students I showed the first 30 seconds of the macabre video below (warning, people die, it is unpleasant):
A few kids laughed, which I quickly put a stop to. Most appreciated the awesome power that we were dealing with, and it was a good chance to discuss that fact that you never touch someone being electrocuted without insulation, in order to avoid becoming a victim yourself. From here we looked at the new plugs, and I asked them to consider why the earth pin is the longest (so that the plug is earthed before any power enters the system). We also discussed the purposes of fuses, and I showed them the location of the fuse within their MacBook chargers.
The Process
I then gave the class a quick demonstration of the process involved in rewiring a plug (watch this video if you want more detail, or don’t want to risk a live demo):
- Unscrew the top case.
- Remove the cuff/cable clamp (which holds the electrical cord in place)
- Strip around 3-4 cm (depending on the plug design) from the end of the outer layer of the cord.
- Cut the earth wire (green and yellow) to fit the available space, and then strip away 5mm of insulation from the end of the earth wire.
- Attach the earth wire to the earth pin.
- Fix the electrical cord to the plug using the cuff.
- Repeat Step 5. for the remaining wires (remember, the BLue cable goes in the Bottom Left, and the BRown cable in the Bottom Right).
- Make sure there are no lose wires, and the case fits snuggling on top.
- Screw the case into place
As a final safety precaution, I had students insulate one end of their cables with electrical tape, before starting. The idea being that if anyone did plug in their finished product (which I explicitly forbade), the risk of electrocution would be greatly reduced.
Hands On
All of this had taken around 15 minutes, and the students were keen to get started. They almost all seemed to enjoy the process, and those who generally do not enjoy ICT seemed more motivated than usual. Many found it hard, tiring and frustrating, which I was secretly thrilled with: nothing like struggling through things to appreciate what you have. The class was active, with a lot of questions from students, and plenty of quality control on the teacher’s part. After 50 minutes working time, about a third of students had finished, whilst the rest were very close. This gave us 5 minutes for students to tidy up, leaving me to disassemble the work before the next class came in (this did take a while). Some students opted to stay behind during break to finish up their work, which was great to see.
Final Thoughts
Ideally, with more time, I would have had all students finish the assembly, and then disassemble someone else’s work (for informal peer assessment purposes). I would also have liked to have some power packs and light bulb, so we could have tested the plugs. However, this was beyond what I had time and budget to arrange. Overall, both lessons went very well, the kids enjoyed themselves, and I will definitely add this to the curriculum for future years.
Credits: British Plug image by Secretlondon on Wikipeida
The Importance Of Design
Often I feel that I teach students all sorts of tricks and techniques to make their work look better, but that they fail to apply them to their work. Some of this is inexperience, but sometimes I think students just believe that it does not make a real different. To try and convince students that this stuff really does make a difference, I asked a class to come up with a fictitious company name (‘Bannnana’) and industry (‘fixing ears’). I then wrote these in Acorn, projected on the white board. With all the students watching I went through a 3 minute example of how to use font controls (font face, font size, kerning, line height, alignment) and colour (drop shadow, font colour, colour gradient) to make a design that has some impact. The resulting change is shown below. I think they now know that design does matter in terms of how people respond to their work: does it look like they just threw something on the page, or does it look considered?
Credits: the font is Grobold from dafont.com. My students chose the yellow colour, which I missed entirely, going for white. Inspired!