The Teacher Toolbox

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

Over the years my reading games site has grown to be rather large but I must admit I have concentrated on creating content rather than spending a little time on navigation.

I’ve added a search function - links to all other sections of the website - the ability to buy me a beer or 17 for a job well done - shortcuts to tag the site on social bookmarking sites - links to my blog - My Amazon Wishlist (a big thankyou to the person who is sending me David Warlick’s book on Classroom Blogging) - the ability to join my newsletter group - and the ‘tell a friend’ applet.

Over the next week I plan to work on a ‘Comprehension Strategy’ section to the site and a ‘Recommended Books’ section. I believe that phonics is only one part of a very good reading program so I’m looking at expanding the site in that direction.

cheers

Adrian

In the last 7 days the site has had 52,653 page views. Given these numbers I sometimes have to be reminded myself that each of the resources downloaded has its own story.

Here are two such stories that came through today.

SRI LANKA

Your site is incredible.I’m a teacher of English as wel as a mother of
2 kids. Your site will be very useful to me. I found your site today I
loved it from the very moment I entered it.The most important thing is
it’s free. Actually I can’t afford to spend on resources as I’m not
that rich and don’t have a credit card.I thank you very much and I hope
that you would continue your good work. May God Bless you.

& also from Sri Lanka

Dear Adrian,
I’m a teacher of English and everyday I surf internet for reading
resources. I came across your site today and it’s wonderful.I don’t know
what words I have to use to thank you.THANK YOU VERY MUCH.I hope that you
ould continue the good work.

Sort of keeps it real for us in the West

cheers

Adrian B

Kids and adults love 3d animation but the price of modern 3d software prohibits us mere mortals from experimenting with it.

Whenever I run workshop, Anim8or (a free 3d program) is often the most popular piece. It allows you to manipulate 3d shapes to create your own environments and if you wish to get a little more techo you can make small snippets of animated film.

Here is a little character my 8 year old son knocked up with the program.

Today I’ve added a very rough ‘Anim8or - QUICK START GUIDE‘ to my website to help you on your way to making the next Shrek, Happy Feet etc.

cheers

Adrian

To those members of Yr 10 who are actually doing their homework tonight, I wouldn’t be surprised to see a creation from http://www.jibjab.com/ that surpasses the portrait of me in S2.

Have Fun

Mr B

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

Hi All,

For the last few weeks the blogs have been rather quiet as the kids really got into this rather open ended task I set them…

‘You must create a 2 minute video to showcase to the world how intelligent, articulate and creative you are. The video must not be contrary to school ethos and you are only able to use puppets.. What will you do?’

Needless to say we learnt HEAPS and I’m sure we’ll up the production values and refine the process over the coming weeks.

Feel free to leave a comment for these budding poets on their blog.

cheers

Adrian

At school this week one of my classes has a puppet show due for me that we are going to upload to TeacherTube and then embed that video into our blogs.

Here is my first go. My son made this Photostory after attending his aunty’s wedding almost 2 years ago. I often show this video as an example of what children can do with a bit of help and encouragement.

I’m fond of the saying, ‘Teach them how to do it, expect them to do it and they will’.

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

On Saturday I’m flying to Melbourne (c.2000km) to present a couple of sessions at the Expanding Learning Horizons Conference. Needless to say I’m really looking forward to it. I see Will of Weblogg-ed is presenting in the room next door. I’m looking forward to having a chat with him

Last year I found the delegates really responsive to the messages, processes and applications I presented. This year I’ve got a fair few new ideas for them to take back to their schools and classrooms

Here are the outlines of the two sessions I’ll be leading.

The MONSTER 5 1/2 hour session that will give you a little something to work on.

Presentation Title: Productive AND CREATIVE uses of ICTS in the Modern Classroom Presenter - Adrian Bruce Duration - 5 1/2 hr

Presentation Description:
My course is ‘Hands On, Minds On’ and is based on software and processes that I know work in real classroom situations. The course is designed to give delegates ‘just a brief feel’ of the variety and power of modern free educational software applications and web tools.

During the course I also explore processes and organisational strategies that enable teachers to implement Information and Communication Technologies in highly creative and engaging way. 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 (Take a deep breath and brace yourself)

Machinima (2nd Life, Cam-Studio, Movie Maker), Stopmotion animation (Monkey Jam), Podcasting (Audacity and Pod-o-Matic), Digital Story Telling and Vodcasting (Photostory 3 and Teachertube.com), My Classroom Blogging Experiments (Classblogmeister.com), Functional and Creative Photography for Blogging ( Paint.Net, Imageshack.us, jacksonpollock.org), Read and Write tools for Blogging ( The resources are ever changing for this section ) Mind Mapping (C-Map), Digital Music Making (Ejay), Digital Drawing (Inkscape), Cartoon Making using Online tools, Computer Aided Design ( Google Sketchup and Lego Digital Designer), Robotics (Mindstorms NXT robot), 3D animation (Anim8or)

and here is the short one

Presentation Title: Classroom Blogging - The Most Engaging Thing I’ve Done with ICTs so Far - Presenter - Adrian Bruce Duration - 1hr

Presentation Description:
At the beginning of this year I began a project with six teachers where we gave each child in the school from Yrs 3 to 6 their own blog.

We now use the blogs as an online publishing medium for thoughts, opinions, artwork, poetry, digital cartooning, digital artwork, website reviews, book reviews, thinking skills, collaboration and a way to showcase the possibilities of ICTs in the primary classroom. By the time of the ELH Conference we will have mastered integrating many other technologies to our blogging projects such as podcasts, video, 3d animation, stop motion animation and much, much more.

Come along and check out our initial experiments. Hear a few stories of success and failure. Then get a few ideas for using blogs creatively in your own classroom to engage your students in the writing and creative processes.

So get your registrations in and drop in and see me.

cheers

Adrian Bruce