The Teacher Toolbox

One of the big hits in my recent workshops has been CoolIris. Teachers like the way that it strips away all the text from around images giving a ‘gallery like’ feel to the images being explored.

I recently used the software successfully with a group of 5 year olds as we explored the work of Franz Marc together. My plan was to use Voicethread to record their responses but alas the computer had other ideas.

I’m currently putting together a collection of reflection questions for art. I’ve included many of my favourites and am working on some new ones. I’ve placed the draft of this document online and left it free for anyone to add to. Feel free to add your favourite art reflection questions to it.

Edit the Google Document Here NB no log in is necessary (I hope)

cheers

Adrian

In the coming weeks I’m flying off to Mackay to run a whole day Gifted & Talented workshop on machinima.

I’ve been working on ideas for this workshop for the last few months and am just about to launch an online image bank that will not be blocked by school filters.  (If you know what I mean hehehe).

I’ve already completed a collection of Dawn of War, Second Life and, thanks to JoKay, World of Warcraft images. I anticipate that these collections will go live in the next few days.

Call for Help - If you can help out with PG rated images from your favourite video game feel free to email them to me so anyone can have a go at this type of story telling.

Built into Google Earth is Google Mars. It works exactly the same as Google Earth ie you can zoom in, zoom out, fly over, explore and do tours. This software offers a beautiful opportunity to explore Mars in the classroom as never before possible. Wow!

Now as an architect of the children’s learning I believe the power of the software would come after you had the students explore the most interesting facts and features of the planet.  Try having the students write a readers’ theatre play where they are taking a tourist group to Mars and have them incorporate their new knowlegde into the play. This play would then be performed as a virtual tour of the planet for other classses around the school.

Tonight I’ve added a few teaching ideas for using Google Mars in the classroom to my website. Feel free to check out Google Mars in the Classroom.

I have so, so, SO! been in love with the World Wide Telescope since it was announced at TED last year. You simply must download this magnificent software and get your students to explore it. So many discussions to be had! So much exploration to be done and so much ‘awe and wonder’ to be exploited. + I’ve just added a few creative teaching ideas to you might like to explore. Check out the World Wide Telescope!

Fractals is an aspect of maths that can inspire awe and wonder in the students. This is a piece of ecphrastic poetry (where you ask questions of artwork) based on fractal geometry. The students had to ‘combine’ Fractalus, Photostory 3, Ejay and poetry. See what you think.

Adrian

PS My Twitter Network sent me a collection of ideas for using Photostory 3. See if any of these ideas work for you and your class.

Over the last few years I’ve become very interested in creative process. What is it that enables some people to have an amazing output of creative ideas? How can we teach ‘creativity’? Can we truly teach creativity? Am I creative or am I doing what creative people do?

One of my favourite creativity tools is the SCAMPER Process. I particularly like to play around with the ‘Substitute’ & ‘Combine’ part of the process to produce ‘creative’ pieces of work.

In my ‘Dora Meets Sigmund’ comic I’ve ‘Substituted’: Comic Life for paper, digital photographs for drawings as well as ‘Combining’ Dora from my daughter’s doll house & Freud from my workspace. The dialog comes from ‘Combining’ aspects of a joke my cousin and I had via email. Thanks cuz!!!

Try a little SCAMPER yourself, you’ll be amazed with what you come up with.

A friend of mine recently asked for a few ideas on using ’synchronous communication tools’ for her personal professional development. (Ok, it’s a Uni assignment rather than a general inquiry)

Firstly she cooked up a nice lunch and poured out some wine. (Always a good start to any professional development session!!!) We signed up for Twitter as CINDY BURGE,  installed Twitterfox and threw it out to the Twitterverse to welcome her. Which they did. Thanks all!

Next we installed Second Life and I took her around the ISTE Island to check it out and do a few screen dumps. She had a little trouble sitting on the chair (not the wine) & I hooked her up with the ISTE website. We then headed off to the Discovery Educator’s Network Second Life blog for a bit of a look around. After that I mentioned Jokaydia as an excellent resource to explore on her own time.

Lastly we dropped all the screen dumps from our session into Comic Life as a creative way to demonstrate a little of her learning.

Now her challenge as a second year uni student is to build her personal learning network to a point where online tools become a natural part of her learning. AND… the same goes for ALL teachers who don’t laminate their lesson plans

Tonight I’ve added a few new software tools to my mind mapping page that you might like to explore and compare to your traditional software of choice… or coloured pencils.

When Dr Jim and I were working together in Melbourne last year he recommended the online mind mapping tool Mindomo to the punters that attended our sessions. I’ve since found that the beauty of this tool is that you can embed multimedia into the mind maps. Nice!

Recently Mindomo has added a new desktop version of the software to the site so you can work offline. This is a nice feature as oh so often a lesson can go ‘belly up’ if the internet goes down while relying on Web 2.0 tools.

The crux of my mind mapping page is still the conventions of mind mapping. At the bottom of the page I’ve included my ‘mindmap on mind mapping’. This resource outlines the most of the conventions of mind mapping and I find that the quality of the mind maps produced by people after exploring this scaffold greatly increases.

I have also included a link to a mind mapping rubric that I have found useful. I hand out the rubric and explore with the students before setting them off to work.

I’ve also included a Youtube video from the man himself, Tony Buzan as well as a few links to books he has written on the topic that I have found extemely useful.

Feel free to experiment with my mind map on mind mapping and the mind mapping rubric

Adrian

In my workshops I often expose the punters (eg Happy Steve) to Andrea Photomosaic as a simple way of introducing alternative digital photography to their students.

Today I’ve stumbled across an online version that those of you with despotic systems administrators might like to try.

These images look great when you get them printed out on photographic paper. They are a great fundraiser if you and your students make them into calendars for the parent community.

Personally I prefer the stand alone software as you can build images using your own library of photos. But this online mosaic creator site is a nice introduction.

Have fun with it.

Adrian

I’ve been looking for an interesting immersive world for a while to get my son involved in and I think I might have finally found it is Quest Atlantis.

Quest Atlantis is a multi-user 3d learning environment for students. In the environment students participate in quests. These quests appear to be organised around the themes of: Social Responsibility, Compassionate Wisdom, Creative Expression, Diversity Affirmation, Environmental Awareness, Healthy Communities & Personal Agency.

Before a teacher can implement QA in their classrooms they have to participate in 4 professional development sessions. I’ve signed up for the training and installed the software. The training takes place via Skype and starts Tuesday night.

I’ll let you know how it goes. I’ve heard that it is heaps of fun. Maybe you could sign up & join in.

Cheers

Adrian