The Teacher Toolbox

Expanding Learning Horizons is one of my favourite Australian conferences. There are heaps of great ideas, heaps of people with their heads screwed on the right way and it is sooooo good to catch up with old friends as well as meet people in the flesh I know virtually.

This year my son and I will be presenting a four and a half hour workshop we’ve called, ‘Doing it Different’. The crux of the session is how we can use ICTs to learn, to do things not previously possible in classrooms and to create ‘beautiful things’ (thanks Dr Jim)

Here is the blurb of our session.

Our workshop is a combination ‘Hands On, Minds On’ experience. It is based on software and processes we have used over time and know work. The session begins with a brief motivational talk that outlines our ICT journeys, our everyday uses of ICTs and our projects. We then move into a series of explorations that will give delegates ‘a brief feel’ of the variety and power of free educational software and web tools. We aim to equip teachers with the necessary skills to ‘work smarter not harder’ when adding to their digital teaching toolbox. Throughout the course of the day Adrian will explore co-learning & creative processes using a variety of software. He will also touch on organisational strategies which enable teachers to implement Information and Communication Technologies in highly creative, effective and engaging ways. Samuel will take several mini-sessions throughout the workshop. He will focus on software he is currently using and digital learning strategies he uses. He will be available throughout the session to answer questions and to offer assistance with tasks. Course participants will leave this session with a plethora of great teaching ideas, an incredible amount of inspiration and realistic goals to implement back in their schools and classrooms.

Software and Areas of Focus – Video game creation – Atmosphir, Kodu & Unity 3d, Digital Story Telling – Audacity, Soundsnap, Comic Life, Movie Maker, HarvestSounds – Machinima – Spore, FRAPPS & Photostory. Digital Art – Artrage, online art tools, Paint.NET, Wacom tablets, Inkscape, Google Sketchup. Digital Music Making – online tools, Ejay, Sonar  – Microsoft’s Worldwide Telescope & Fractalus – Online Personal Learning Network Tools & Collaborative Web Project tools.

Feel free to check out the entire 3 day program for ELH and consider registering. It really is worth it!

Oh, and here is a lovely letter one of the delegates who attended our session last year wrote about Samuel’s presentation. Makes a geek dad proud

A few years back after giving a keynote to a rather large group of educators, one of the ‘invited officials’ beckoned me over.

“I like you & I especially like your quote,  ‘Subversion is a major part of innovation and it is our job to subvert’. Come sit by me.”

This conversation has always reminded me of Dorothy Parker’s, ‘If you don’t have anything nice to say, come sit by me.’

.

.

.

.

When it comes to Farmville sheep wandering across my Facebook news feeds I’m starting to believe catharsis is so much more fun than rationality

Feel free to send this to anyone who you think needs to see it. hehehehe

I recently took my son to a ICT in Education Conference where he led a group of
teachers through three half hour workshops on video game making, stop motion
animation & movie making using a Flip video.

Whilst I had a few reservations about this the experience turned out to be a
wonderful learning opportunity. Real audience, sense of purpose, connection,
planning, rehearsal, networking, value of his talents and soooooo much more.



He received some great feedback from those that attended his session and here is an email
a delegate sent to his school and to me.

Good Morning

I attended a National Computer Conference ( ELH ) in Lorne over the weekend. I am from a
school in Perth Western Australia. There were 250 professional teachers and technicians
attending from around the country. The conference is a well known and very highly regarded
by professionals in the area on Education and IT. One of your students Samuel Bruce was
co-presenting with his father Adrian. The presentation went all day from 9.30 - 5 pm
and he was inspirational. Samuel demonstrated programs and assisted IT teachers in many
of the applications he has used and mastered. I was in awe as this young boy spoke with
authority and passion about his presentations. He and his father's presentation was one
of the best at the conference sessions and I would love it if you could commend Samuel
with a merit award or commendation in front of his peers.

It made me reflect on my own teaching and how I can accommodate children like Samuel
in my class sessions when they have far better skills than I have and can teach us
all so much.

Thank you for allowing him to attend. 

Mrs Jo P

Last month when the rug rats were snug in their beds I had the pleasure of chatting via Skype with the Ed Tech Crew lads Darrel Branson & Tony Richards for their podcast.

We had a great chat and covered all sorts of stuff including  the growth & nature of my website, personal learning goals, creative process and a few pieces of software

Feel free to download the podcast from The Ed Tech Crew website and leave a few thoughts like this kind listener.

Who hoo, my son and I have just had our proposal for a 4 hour workshop accepted by the good people at ELH 09. This makes the 4th year in a row that I have been accepted for this conference and I’m pretty stoked to be asked back again. So for all those who missed out last year it might be time to hit your principal up for some funding to head to Lorne Victoria in August

Last year I wrote an article for the Australian education journal EQ Magazine entitled ‘Keys to the Virtual World’ and now the time has come upload it to my website.

Beyond the school gate exists an awe-inspiring virtual place where a person can take almost complete control of their own professional development. It is a place devoid of filters that allow you to purchase a Russian bride but block the evils of lego.com. A place where staff politics, ill conceived arguments and small mindedness fall by the wayside to the pursuit of evidence based ‘best practice’. A world inhabited by passionate educators & ‘switched on’ learning communities. The world I speak of is that of the modern digital Personal Learning Network or PLN.

Read more about Personal Learning Networks

The company that was looking after my email newsletter has decided not to continue offering their free service & as a result I’ve been looking for new options.

Last night I sent out my first newsletter with a piece of software hosted on my website and so far it seems to have worked fine.

Tonight I’m sorting out all the broken links to the subscription service and should have it all fixed in an hour or two. Do let me know if you find a broken link.

Secondly, I’ve noticed with the end of the school year here in Oz many people have moved on and will need to resubscribe if you have used your school account. Please pass this info around your collegues.

Cheers

Adrian

PS I’m going to get the new email subscription page working well first and then make it look pretty

Tomorrow I’m running some workshops in Kingscliff which is a beautiful part of our country.

The sessions are all about raising awareness of just some of the freely available software that is out there and how teachers might use it creatively. We cover a lot of possibilities in a very short time and teachers always come away with a plethora of practical ideas, a lot of inspiration and some realistic goals.

After tomorrow I’m then hoping to have a quiet Xmas with the family, work on the website throughout January and then get back into the workshops at the end of January.

October was another HUGE month for adrianbruce.com. 82 979 individuals made 124 869 visits to my site viewing 480 456 pages. They downloaded 46 973 Word resources and 16 953 Acrobat files. Widen those doors people, it’s time to truck my head through. hehehehe

The most popular downloads were -

1. Printable Snakes & Ladders – this is a blank template for making reading games.
2. Change 3 - a printable word card game for learning about long vowel sounds.
3. 4 in a Row - a printable word game that kids love. Includes a blank template.
4. 3d Shape Game - a printable concentration game that focuses on the properties of 3d shapes.
5. Reciprocal Reading Cue Cards – my modifed teaching prompt cards for this powerful comprehension strategy.
6. ‘Here’ Question stems – for the 3 Level Guide Reading Strategy
7. Place Value Charts - (I really should finish the decimals charts)
8. The T Puzzle - a problem solving activity but please stop asking for the answer. I’d hate to rob you of the ‘A-ha’ feeling
9. Square Pyramid Net – I’m sure this was all the Uni students out on prac
10. Phonics Posters – A Few Things for Word Walls
11. Symmetry Webquest – A Visual Reference for Learning About Symmetry

I’m thinking that this translates to a lot of time saved by teachers and a fair amount of learning of skills on the part of students.