Posted by Adrian on Nov-12-06
I’ve wanted to include jigsaw puzzles on my site for a long time but haven’t had any jigsaw puzzle software to do it with. Today I found the software, learnt how to make jigsaw puzzles and have just uploaded the first one to my website for the world to play with on their computer screens.
I took one of my most popular posters and dropped it into Jigs@w Puzzle 2 and began to have a play. I then saved it as an exe file and let my son have a play with it. He enjoyed the challenge and especially liked the way the program tells you how long you took to complete the puzzle.
Feel free to download it and send it on to as many of your friends who need it. (This will save me a little bandwidth hehehe)
Cheers
Adrian
PS You can download the software and make your own puzzles very, very easily via the link on my site 
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Posted by Adrian on Nov-10-06
In the Web 1 world, before the ‘Read and Write’ web I did a lot of web design projects with my students. One of the biggest problems we had during this time was finding free webpage backgrounds quickly. The students (and sometimes the teachers doing professional development) would spend ages looking for the ‘perfect’ webpage background.
This ‘inefficient use of time’ prompted me to put together this collection of free webpage backgrounds that the participants had to choose from. This collection has saved me heaps of class time as well as time in professional development sessions. Feel free to use any resources that will save you time.
cheers
Adrian
PS How might you use these in a ‘Web 2′ world?
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Posted by Adrian on Nov-8-06
Last weekend I finished 5 new printable reading games. These games will make great additions to any Kindergarten or Special Needs class. All you have to do is print them out on thin cardboard, laminate them (optional) and play.
Feel free to pass these resources on to any teacher, parent, student, tutor, etc that may need them.
Thanks again to Superbill in Northern Ireland for all his hard work in helping this games page come together.
cheers
Adrian
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Posted by Adrian on Nov-7-06
Here are some excellent free educational reading games that you can use when teaching early grades. When I taught Kinder in my first and second years of teaching I really wish I had access to games like these. Well done Kelly and keep up the great work!
BTW - for the kinder teachers that I did some professional development with yesterday… aren’t you glad you subscribed to my blog. I’m sure this site will save you a couple of hours preparation time and a fair few dollars. Might even cause a little learnin’
cheers
Adrian
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Posted by Adrian on Nov-5-06
This is a free math game availible from my site.
The kids love it and it is a great thinking tool.
Download it here.
If you master this have a go at some of these shapes.
cheers
Adrian Bruce
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Posted by Adrian on Nov-4-06
primaryschool.com.au is one of the educational websites that I use often and I look forward to the site’s newsletter arriving in my Inbox each week.
Whenever I’m planning some classwork I always do a bit of research on this site to see if Charlie has already compiled a list of the resources I’m after.
The site is well organised with links to all the major Key Learning Areas / Curriculum Areas / Subjects and there are some very useful teaching resources on the site. Hey he must have taste, he has links to my work hehehehe
Check it out and make sure you sign up for his free newsletter.
cheers
Adrian
PS Primary school in Oz is the same as Elementary School in the US.
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Posted by Adrian on Oct-31-06
This email list management software is fantastic. These days my email list is up over 2 000 subscribers which is rather time consuming to manage by cutting and pasting from my email program. Not to mention the spam problems and people signing up their friends to my newsletter unbeknown to them.
Now I think I’ve found an excellent way to manage my email list. Zookoda. I was playing with it last weekend and think I’ve got it sorted. It is free and it has many features - the main ones I need are: that it verifies if you really want to receive email from my blog or website - it is customisable ie I can have it send out a bulk email each time I reach a certain number of new blog or website posts. Best of all are the anti-spam features. It includes all my contact details in each email and the option to unsubscribe at the bottom of each email. There is also an automatic way to report abuse in the system.
www.zookoda.com
I’m thinking that for a lot of my readers who are literacy consultants, teachers, homeschoolers and parents who are not keen for the brave new world of rss. This is a great tool to help you keep in contact with whoever your audience are.
cheers
Adrian
Oh yeah, you can subscribe to my webpage update newsletter here
http://www.adrianbruce.com/subscribe.htm
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Posted by Adrian on Oct-25-06
On this Web 2 application you can mash up your Gmail, Blog Feeds, Latest Flickr Photo tag Feeds, Podcast Feeds, Sends free SMS PLUS over 106 other things. I’ve spent ages playing with Pageflakes.com and I’m hooked.
I feel like I’m creating the perfect homepage just for me. You just log in and begin customizing straight away. You can pretty much pull in all your favourite parts of the web to a few pages.
To name but a few…
* keep up to date with your latest blogs feeds - teachers check out the Librarians Page
* have del.ic.ious (latest bookmarks on favourite topics) delivered
* listen to podcasts
* watch You Tube video
* add your favourite search engines
* add a clock or lava lamp - only if you really want to
* have Flickr photos import straight into the page on any topic you want
* add a dictionary and a language translator
* access your g-mail from this page (but not your free Yahoo mail yet),
* subscribe to already existing templates (right at the bottom of the page) eg The Librarians’ Feed has heaps of stuff for the modern librarian to keep up to date with info tech. The Student template has tools that might be of use to high school kids.
When you click Add Pageflage, make sure you check out the 160 options and the templates at the bottom.
Oh…. and then you can share your page with everyone else.
Check out what I’m talking about at this page I just set up.
http://www.pageflakes.com/hey_ad.ashx
Have fun with it!
Adrian B
http://www.adrianbruce.com
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Posted by Adrian on Oct-24-06
My New Phonics Poster
As my son and I read we often collect words and sounds from his books that he is focusing on. Here is our ‘th’word family poster for anyone to use that needs it.
On another note, this is my first go at producing my own graphics with my new wacom tablet. I bought the wacom tablet with money that has been donated to my website by people who are thankful for the free resources. I hope to continue creating my own graphics. In fact, I enrolled in a 6 week cartooning course that starts next Saturday.
cheers
Adrian
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Posted by Adrian on Oct-22-06
Here is a piece of free Crossword Creation Software that I’ve been using for a few years now.
You will find if you put the children together in pairs and then have them work on creating their own crossword for their friends there is a lot of engagement and discussion about language features.
I have included a link to the software and a few tips and tricks over at my website.
Go on. Give it a go.
cheers
Adrian
PS You might even find some children downloading it for themselves at home.
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I’ve wanted to include jigsaw puzzles on my site for a long time but haven’t had any jigsaw puzzle software to do it with. Today I found the software, learnt how to make jigsaw puzzles and have just uploaded the first one to my website for the world to play with on their computer screens.
