The Teacher Toolbox

Today a friend asked me, ‘Who should I follow on Twitter?’ to which I replied…

” Find someone you admire  http://twitter.com/adrianbruce and someone who challenges you http://twitter.com/garystager and then check out the people they follow, and then the people they follow, and then the people they follow, and then the people they follow, and then the people they follow, and then the people they follow, and then the people they follow, and then the people they follow, and then the people they follow, and then the people they follow, and then the people they follow, and then the people they follow, and then the people they follow, and then the people they follow, and then the people they follow, and then the people they follow, and then the people they follow, and then the people they follow, and then the people they follow, and then the people they follow, and then the people they follow, and then the people they follow, and then the people they follow, and then the people they follow, and then the people they follow, and then the people they follow, and then the people they follow, and then the people they follow, and then the people they follow, and then the people they follow, and then the people they follow, and then the people they follow, and then the people they follow, and then the people they follow, and then the people they follow, and then the people they follow, and then the people they follow, and then the people they follow, and then the people they follow, and then the people they follow, and then the people they follow, and then the people they follow, and then the people they follow, and then the people they follow, and then the people they follow, and then the people they follow, and then the people they follow, and then the people they follow, and then the people they follow, and then the people they follow, and then the people they follow, and then the people they follow, and then the people they follow, and then the people they follow, and then the people they follow, and then the people they follow, and then the people they follow, and then the people they follow, and then the people they follow, and then the people they follow, and then the people they follow, and then the people they follow, and then the people they follow, and then the people they follow, and then the people they follow, and then the people they follow, and then the people they follow, and then the people they follow, and then the people they follow, and then the people they follow, and then the people they follow, and then the people they follow, and then the people they follow, and then the people they follow, and then the people they follow, and then the people they follow, and then the people they follow, and then the people they follow, and then the people they follow etc

(I do so love my keyboard shortcut prompt card)

Adrian

I’d just like thank David Warlick for the opportunity to Skype into his keynote in New York to discuss the benefits of blogging with students.

I hope the delegates received a little food for thought and enjoyed my Aussie accent

Here are the dot points I made for the guest spot. I hope they made sense as the clock approached midnight here in Oz.

Chatting with Dave in NY

- increased motivation to want to write because of ‘audience’

- biggest ‘movers’ = special needs students – exposed to models of writing – motivated to finish pieces – love the feedback via comments

- draft process = winner – peers conferencing- discussion of writing – ‘How best to say something’

- real purpose – authentic audience

- teacher models problem solving – ‘If we are going to advocate producing lifelong learners then surely we need to demonstrate being one ourselves’ – ie How do you use this new technology? – uploading   plays, podcasts, inserting pictures etc.

- Give this stuff a go – don’t be afraid to fail but fail forward.

cheers

Adrian

(Note to self – learn how to record Skypecasts hehehehe)

Thomas Friedman is currently giving away copies of his book, ‘The World is Flat‘ as an audio file on his website until August 11, 2008.

I believe that this is an excellent opportunity for all teachers to at least familiarise themselves with the ideas Friedman presents. His ideas have many implications to how and what we teach.

The crux of the book can be found on the Wikipedia but there is nothing like hearing it from the horse’s mouth.

I listened to this book last year on my Ipod at one of my son’s all day soccer carnivals. Some people see this a good use of time… others just think it is plain scary. hehehehe

cheers

Adrian

PS Once you listen to the book you might be able to answer the question, ‘Why do educationalists take so much credence from a person writing primarily for a business audience?’

Today I’ve put together a scaffold for people wishing to experiment and be a little more creative in the publishing of poetry.

The poetry scaffold is a step by step guide to creating a verbal collage about each student. It encourages reflection and experimentation.

My son added a Wordle to his blog based on his blog tags and I made mine by ‘Pasting a heap of text’ into Wordle. We enjoyed playing with this tool and I think your students will also.

Have fun with Wordle

Adrian

PS Try performing this poem by readng it with a different volume and intonation for each word. Maybe even with a soundtrack behind it of Miles Davis

In the last couple of days a lot of the messages I’ve received relate to getting ready to go back to school in the US.

So in response here is an activity that I find works well in the first couple of days to get to know a bit more about the kids. NB I also do a ‘teacher version’ so they get to know just a little about me. I also find it helps the parents know which presents to buy at the end of the year. hehehehe

NB The second line is an anagram of my name from this anagram generator

BIG HINT – do this yourself without kids – I once had a child come out as ‘Romance Gel’

Adrian B
Cured in a Bar
Greenish eyes
Black hair
Two sisters
One brother… (who is no longer with us)
Loves skydiving
Abhors sardines
Adores the three toed sloth
Dislikes PE
Worships cricket
Fancies baklava
Loathes reality TV
Enjoys Radiohead
Detests Country Music
Needs the surf
Fears burning
Giggles occassionally
Sniggers seldomly
Reads Artemis Fowl
Watches Myth Busters
Loves ICTs
Hangs with Mr White
Wears jeans and a T-shirt
Drinks Wild Turkey & Dry
Plays Real Time Strategy Games
Dreams of a fulfilling career
Guitar playing freak!

You can find the full scaffold of this poem which is ready to ‘copy & paste’ to a word processor or blog article in the poetry section of my website in the self-esteem area.

Have fun with this one.

Adrian

Each year Hiroshima Day (August 6) just tends to slip under the radar in most schools. But I feel this day is so important that I spend the whole day on it in order to teach a little empathy.

One of the activities I do during the day is introduce ‘ecphrastic poetry’. This is a very powerful form that offers many opportunities to – ask questions, observe, interpret, infer, synthesize, hypothisise and, in this case, empathize.

Tonight I’ve put together a webpage of scaffolds that I’ve collected over the years that will help you on your way to adding ecphrastic poetry to your tool-box. I’ve also added a couple of teaching ideas and resources for Hiroshima Day.  NB I’ve added a .bmp file of the parchment and Peace Park Dome from the poem above for you to download, drop into an image editor and publish the poetry you create.

Adrian

Every now and then I get really bored with what I can do and want to branch out in a completely different direction. Recently I’ve been doing a bit of cartooning & I’ve been using the web to learn skills.  I’ve read tutorials, asked questions on forums, I attended a workshop through adult education, read a few books, toyed with software and emailed my workshop tutor for opinions and advice.

This week I’ve discovered a cartoonist who has his own rather popular webcomic called ‘Blank-It’. One of the interesting things that Lemmo (the artist) does is to broadcast himself creating the panels of the cartoon using his Ustream TV channel.

In this broadcast Lemmo discusses his design decisions and techniques. He also answers questions from the audience and gives advice. It is so cool to be able to interact with an artist who is in the process of producing an artwork. This has to have implications to those who teach art in schools.

During this stream I asked Lemmo several ‘newbie’ questions and he gave great advice.

Firstly I asked about the software he was using to broadcast his screen and his webcam = Webcam max

Next I asked about the production of shadows in comics as I’d been using the dodge tool in Photoshop and was not particularly happy with the results. Lemmo suggested creating a new layer and then with the pencil tool set on black with the layer opacity set to 15%. This allows you can make shadows with a much harder edge. Then if when printed out the shadows are not to your liking you can head back into the Photoshop file and adjust the opacity on the whole layer which will improve all the shadows. Great advice on so many levels!

In this screen dump you can actually see Lemmo taking a little time off his work to offer me a bit of advice on mine. This was greatly appreciated and I then implemented the advice in my next cartoon. Have a look at the shadows in Byte Club.

So what is my point?

There are many people out there using the interactive web in all different fields. How are you going to use these tools to improve and extend your learning? How are you going to make your students aware of these tools in order that they extend their own learning beyond the constrictions of a narrow curriculum?

Adrian

Hey All,

If you only go to one conference this year in Australia it has to be Expanding Learning Horizons (ELH) in Lorne Victoria Australia. Watch out for the flyers as they hit your school.

This conference has great cutting edge speakers, an excellent variety of workshops to suit your interests, great food, it’s close to the beach, it has excellent after parties and best of all… it is small enough that you get one on one time over breakfast, lunch or dinner with the presenters.

Last year I managed to stalk/network with Will Richardson

and the year before that I mangaged to get a couple of straight answers out of Gary Stager hehehehe. Funny that

The one hassle I find with conferences like this is that I have to present at the same time as some of my Yodas.

So over the next few days I really must put together my proposals for this year’s conference and see if I’ll be accepted 3 years in a row.

cheers

Adrian

Look, I’m sure I’m leaving myself open to many, many comments about ‘purpose’ and ‘motivation’ BUT one of the hardest things I find to teach is respect and value for the draft process.

Above is my first conceptualisation sketch for my ‘pyro’ cartoon. I drew it on the lounge while my daughter was watching The Wiggles. There is crossing out… speeling mistakes… experimentation with words and a little help from Miss 2.5. IN many of my other drafts there are arrows, a couple of pointers where to find models for the characters, alternative text and notes on software to use.

So in a nutshell, my point is that writers ‘DRAFT’! and that it might be a worthwhile exercise to print this draft and place it next to my final product to show that writers go through a process in order to see, ‘Just how it is in their mind’s eye’.

cheers

Adrian

Oh… and the point of the post is that as teachers we should use the term ‘first draft’ implying that there may be many more drafts to come as opposed to ‘rough draft’ which implies lack of care and something that just has to be done.

This morning over at Bud the Teacher’s Blog he put out a request for some graphics. So using Xara Webstyle 3 I knocked these up for him. Don’t you love the connected world!

Feel free to use these graphics on your blog… just add a link to my blog to acknowledge the author

cheers

Adrian