So Much to Learn...So Little Time

Free Your Mind and Your Class Will Follow - The Slidecast @iowconference08

Here's a slidecast version of the talk I gave at IOW Conference 08. I'm looking at why blogs and podcasts have a natural home in the MFL classroom.

Free Your Mind And Your Class Will Follow : Using Blogs And Podcasts In The MFL Classroom

View SlideShare presentation or Upload your own. (tags: iowconference08 learning)

From Vod to Pod - The Tutorial

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Wasn't very happy with the  quality of audio from the session so decided to do a wee tutorial.

Here it is. Hope it does the job.

IOW Vox Pop

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Reasons why we came to the iow conference

Why We Came to @iowconference08

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Finally, after much mucking around to get levels right, here is the vox pop I did in my Pod to Vod session @iowconference08

This video was originally shared on blip.tv by TGStv with a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike license.

Free Your Mind and Your Class Will Follow

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Taster number 2 of what awaits in the Isle of Wight.

Getting Practice Before IOW Conference

Just messing about with QT Pro before conference...also iMovie 08...HATE IT!

Bouncing "Babies"

From Pod to Vod

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Not a tutorial, more of a taster of my first session at the Isle of Wight Conference on 25th Oct 2008.

I have tried to visualise what I will be saying.

Technorati Tags: IOWconference08, IOWConference

Poverty...What Does it Mean

Everyone has a different definition of poverty. Here in the Scotland the generally accepted "threshold" is at half the national average income after housing costs. Anyone below this is "below the poverty line". According to a recent study by Barnados 430 000 children live below this line. But in the UK we have the safety net of social security to assist people in these situations.
Poverty can also be looked at in terms of necessities and luxuries. A Survey carried out by the PEW research Center in the USA  in 2006 examined how Americans viewed certain conumer goods and compared the results with figures from a decade before.

Pew Research Center: Luxury or Necessity? via kwout

The results are interesting to say the least. In every category except surprisingly that of the car the perception of these item as a necesssity has increased. 7 / 10 Americans consider home air con a necessity! What makes even more interesting reading is how these results are viewed by the different people in different income bands.

Pew Research Center: via kwout

Again these results are interesting if only to show that you cannot make assumptions about what people consider necessary in their lives based on income.

These figures and assessments all relate to highly developed countries, but what of developing countries? The World Bank adopts a threshold that is equivalent to the purchasing power of US$1 per day, which quite obviously bears no comparison to our assessments of poverty here in the UK.

In actual fact there is a constant raging controversy about how to define poverty which has created huge tomes of academic literature, so there's not really much point in little old me contributing more to this, except to say that as teachers we have to find some way of raising awareness of issues relating to poverty not only on a global scale but at home.
Poverty here in Scotland often leads to very unhealthy lifestyles and shortened lifespan, and it is no coincidence that in areas such as Easterhouse where 98% of children live in or on the brink of poverty (Barnados study) life expectancy lower than that in more affluent areas of Scotland.

To look at these issues in my school we decided to organise a special wellie themed event to Give Poverty the Boot. We joined up with the 2 feeder primary schools who are part of our Welwitschia Partnership with schools in Namibia and Ethiopia and had the kids running about all over the school field in wellies taking part in activites aimed at analysing poverty issues both here and in the developing world. We are hoping that our partners in Africa will also carry out similar events, which would the enable us to make comparisons between how poverty is viewed here and in Namibia and Ethiopia.

Anyway i have said enough. Here's the film of how The Gordon Schools, Gordon Primary and Rhynie Primary, from a tiny corner of North East Scotland Gave Poverty the Boot.

bad08 blogactionday08 poverty

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Blog Action Day 2008...Poverty

Credit crunch, fat cat bonuses, banking collapse...everybody is thinking about money at the moment. We hear lots of phrases like "fuel poverty" in the media. Now is the time to put your thoughts into words and blog about poverty in this years Blog Action Day which focusses on Poverty.
Bloggers are encouraged to publish posts that discuss this theme and how it affects them.

Blog Action Day 2008 Poverty from Blog Action Day on Vimeo.

blogactionday08 BAD08poverty

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The Isle of Wight Conference 2008

Integrating ICT into the MFL classroom:: Book now for The Isle of Wight Conference! via kwout

This years MFL feast at Nodehill Middle School, sees yours truly being asked to impart his knowledge and wisdom...

Joe's got me working hard with 2 sessions and a round table on the Saturday and one session on the Sunday. I shall firstly be examining reasons why teachers should be using blogs and podcasts in their classrooms in a session entitled Free Your Mind and Your Class Will Follow. (Those of you who like funk will maybe recognise that I have adapted a a classic Funkadelic song title here)

My other session is enttiled From Pod to Vod (no funky vibe rip off title here) and I will be looking at using Quicktime Pro to quickly edit movies and then posting them to the web using blip.tv. I am hoping to show various methods of capturing video that could all be used in class with minimal effort. If I have time I also intend to show how to create resources that kids can use on their mobile phones.

As at SLF the other week it's also going to be great fun meeting up with some colleagues I know only virtually.

IOWconference IOWconference08 joedale

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