Over the last week or so I’ve been reading a book by Matt Groening (The Simpsons Handbook: Secret Tips from the Pros
After a long day I was just having a little play with my Oddfellows , my new Digital Camera & Comic Life
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!
Today I’ve been working on a poster for a friend of mine to give a simple ‘tag’ to help kids remember the properties of prisms. Feel free to download this prisms poster if you need it.
cheers
Adrian
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
The computer is the most powerful learning tool ever created. So why are the majority of my professional dialogues centred around strategies for getting teachers to turn them on? 
Teachers should be the epitome of what it is to be a learner. They should model self directed learning. They should model life long learning, critical thinking and insight. Teachers should possess insight that extends far beyond the capabilities of the hardware into the realm of learning & creativity. It is not a matter of ‘making the time to learn this stuff’, it is what we do by definition!
Embrace these disruptive tools people and use them to transform and educate!
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.
Mr 10 (Samuel) will be co-presenting with me at Expanding Learning Horizons next week and today he has been working flat out on his parts of the workshop. Amongst other things he will be taking a group of teachers outside with their laptops, a flip video and a couple of puppets.
Last week one of his mates came over and they filmed this little gem. Do drop by Samuel’s blog and leave him a little ‘comment love’ – Hints, tips & tricks appreciated.
cheers
Adrian
I believe that there are only a few things that are certain in the lives of people and one of those things is that they will have to solve problems.
In this activity the students could only animate their solutions once they had solved the tangram puzzles.
