The Teacher Toolbox

One of the things that is just so wonderful about playing with your kids as they grow up is that you get to challenge them in oh so many levels.

Tonight Mr 9 and I played ’soundstories’. I set the limit of 20 minutes in which we had to create a sound story entitled, ‘Dracul enters’. The only tools we were allowed to use Audacity and soundsnap.com

Here is my little effort…

Mr 9 will post his on his blog tomorrow as bedtime happens

In the end though, you’ve gotta ask, ‘What are the creative processes happening here?’

&

‘How do you challenge your students to rise above the mundane?’

cheers

Ad
PS I’ve used edublogs.tv to get the little MP3 player happening. I just need to know how not to have it start by default

In another class today we did some experiments with Podomatic. We had a few hassles but think we might just about have the process under control.

Looks like we might have to abandon embedding the player and just put a link to each show.

Let’s see if this works.

A Funny Joke - for an 8 Year Old

cheers

Adrian

My son recently had a birthday and his aunty, who is very, very pregnant, forgot his special day. She then wrote him a poem so Samuel and I had a play with the free software Audacity and then tonight I started experimenting with Podomatic as a possible way of hosting class podcasts.

Click here to get your own player.

cheers

Adrian B
NB This post was created in May but got a little lost in the draft box

Edu-bloggers Award

A couple of weeks ago I was interviewed via Skype by Chris Betcher for an Aussie podcast. Chris chats with ICT teachers from all over the world and his shows provide excellent insights into the minds of teachers who are leading the field.

Check out my chat with him - ‘Use IT Till It Breaks‘ (35 meg)
or subscribe to ‘The Virtual Staffroom’ via the Itunes Library.

You’ll love our Aussie accents and might even get a few ideas for integrating ICTs into the classroom.

Adrian

About 6 months ago I was avoiding some of my work by reading a book on time management. hehehehe. One of the strategies the book suggested to help avoid procrastinating was to make the activity ‘a little more enjoyable’. I’ve found that writing reports, programming or annotating writing samples is a little easier to face with a bit of music on in the background.

Then my Ipod died I was lost. Now courtesy of Ebay I have a new one. I bought a 30gig one for about $70 cheaper than I could in any of the shops.

Now I’m back to downloading my favourite podcasts and playing them at my son’s soccer practice and in the car on the way to work. I then pop on some music while working on my website or marking at my desk at school. The Ipod has meant that I can take some professional development anywhere.

(My Ipod playing the audio book of Freedman’s ‘The World is Flat’ whilst at my son’s all day soccer carnival - only 2 chapters to go)

My son recently had a birthday and his aunt, who is very, very pregnant, forgot his special day. She then wrote him a poem. Samuel and I had a play with the free software Audacity to create an audio file of the poem. We had heaps of fun and learnt a lot. Tonight I started experimenting with podomatic.com as a way of hosting his audio file and perhaps a way of hosting class podcasts.


Click here to get your own player.

cheers

Adrian B

Here is a book report exercise that utilises drama and play building big time as a learning strategy. Essentially two pretentious people review a book that the class might like to read. The book review has many challenges that expand the children’s awareness of vocabulary so make sure you have some dictionaries and thesauruses on hand

Discuss ‘rising to a challenge’ and enjoy the task.

Adrian
http://www.adrianbruce.com

Oh… and just for the blog readers… as an added challenge you might like to add the line, ‘ must include something clever in the use of language that will cause an adult to laugh’.