So Much to Learn...So Little Time

Culture Club for Primary School

Although they probably don't want my pity I feel desperately sorry for primary teachers in my homeland (England).
Not only do they have to fit in literacy, numeracy, physical activity etc but now the government (bloody meddling, fiddling, dithering hare-brained (sorry hares) politicians at it again) has decided in its ultimate wisdom that primary age pupils must get 5 hours a week of high culture.

Pupils to get more access to the arts | Schools special reports | EducationGuardian.co.uk via kwout

On behalf of my colleagues down south:

Dear Mr Balls,

Where do you propose to fit in regular theatre visits etc into an already cluttered timetable. Is travel to a theatre / art gallery included in this time. What happens when results in national assessments start to drop because kids no longer have time to cover the syllabus (even though they shouldn't need to sit these assessments.)

People think teachers are always moaning about their lot..no bloody wonder. Let us get on with the job we trained for and keep your unknowing noses out of it. How are you qualified to tell teachers how things should be?

I am sure this will not be the last post on this subject in the edublogoshere, having already seen Doug's and Doug's thoughts.

Technorati Tags: teaching, learning,

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Raoul's Feelings - A Slidecast

If you follow this blog you will know that Yanick has been learning his times tables by rapping them (he got certificates for his raps BTW.)
Now his brother Raoul is here we are trying to help him learn English. Of course I have found it necessary to engage the help of the web and its wonderful 2.0ness.
Having trawled the web for resources I came across MES-English, which is a mine of EAL resources including downloadable powerpoints and flashcards. We have been using these at home to go over vocab, so I thought I could try and add to it by putting together a slidecast. As the slides are all copyright I emailed Mark at MES-English to ask his permission, which he duly granted, and for that I am very grateful.
I then recorded Yanick and Raoul going through the ppt, with Yan introducing the vocab and Raoul using it in a very simple sentence.
We then chose a beat from Garageband's loops and added the bass and guitar they liked. In then jiggled with the voice track by adding some reverb and a bit of phaser to the guitar track...et voila.
Here's the slidecast.

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Technorati Tags: slideshare, eal, english, vocabulary, learning

Technology and Sprouts

In a loose moment today (all day in other words) I decided to fiddle around with SproutBuilder again. I have discovered it's really quite fun. You can do loads of stuff with it.
I decided to try to create a widget to promote the use of technology for teachers.

First I found this image in a search for "web2.0 tool" and added the url of the image to the "sproutbuilder". So thanks to Mark Woolley for his excellent slideshow, "Web 2.0 Tools for your Classroom Right NOW!!"

On the second page I wanted some movement. Ideally I wanted the above slideshow, but although there is a slideshow botton I couldn't figure it out. So I searched YouTube and added  bcgstanley's video Web 2.0 and Language Learning again by simply uploading the video's URL. (Unfortunately only YouTube url's are accepted at the moment but you can upload your own flv files as long as they are no bigger than 15mb.)

Then I wanted some way for viewers of the widget to be able to view the second page. At first I was going to add a button but then I saw a timer which counts down and automatically turns the page. I have also set it up so that the video plays automatically.

Although I have enjoyed mucking around with this I'm not fully satisfied with my widget. I wanted more impact, but couldn't find what I wanted on the web. What I really wanted to do was to record some audio and upload but the muse wasn't with me today.

Anyway here's my Tech for Teachers widget.





Technorati Tags: sproutbuilder, youtube, grahamstanley, markwoolley, widget

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