During the opening speech at the 2012 ICTEV conference, the speaker Alan November briefly discussed the benefits of using Skype in classrooms. This made me realise that during my placements, I am yet to see teachers or students utilising this tool and it made me wonder why? Thus, I decided to find out how other educators use this tool in their classroom, with the aim of understanding how I could use Skype with my future students.
After doing a little research, the benefits of using such a tool were obvious. Skype allows for students to be connected to others while still being in their own classrooms. Students can meet meet other students, introduce overseas relatives to their peers, share their work with others, thus creating a global community. It is also an fantastic resource for teachers, as it allows you to interact with fellow educators, talk to experts, share ideas and create amazing learning experiences with others from around the world. The most important feature (I believe) is linking classes together, allowing for students to discover new cultures and undertake their learning together.
Skype also allows for students who study online to connect to their teachers or gain access to resources which would otherwise be unavailable to them. An example of this is Teach The World Online (TWOL) who are currently establishing English language programs and curriculum to teach students in Haiti, Nepal, Cambodia,Colombia, Russia, Turkey, Tunisia, Pakistan & Brazil through using Skype. TWOL brings students around the world who want to learn English face-to-face with American university students who want teaching experience. Click here to read more.
Also, Karl Prunell has written a very interesting blog about visual learning and skype, which I highly recommend.
I could go on forever about this, and will write more about this topic in the future.
For more information, you can:
Follow Skype in the classroom on twitter
Visit this website to connect to fellow educators and students
Get updates on facebook, through 'liking' their page here
Also, you can click here to view Alan Novembers Skype instructions for the classroom.
I would love to hear about others experiences with Skype in the classroom, please leave a comment :)
Kellie
Twinkl is your one stop shop for fantastic free primary resources, across all curriculum areas. All of the resources are downloadable, colourful and engaging, with the focus being on hands-on learning for students. It is also fantastic for visual learners and students with autism.
Click here to view a YouTube video, made by the website creators explaining its features.
This is an example of a kit I downloaded from this website to use for my phonological awareness intervention mentioned below. I printed these using a colour printer and laminated them, and lastly separated into two piles. When playing with the students, spread the smaller cards over the table, then students need to find two words that make a compound word. When they are able to explain the components of their word to you, then they can be given the large card (the compound word). The aim is for students to collect as many words as possible, and then share them with their peers. When doing this, encourage the students to explain the components of their words (showing the two cards) and then put it into a sentence. This game is also fantastic for vocabulary development.
Here is a picture of the cards:
You can download them here or you can order them through the website and they will print/deliver them for you! :)
You can also suggest resources, upgrade to premium to download restricted resources and multiple files.
They also have a facebook and a twitter account to keep you up to date with the latest downloads.
Also, they have uploaded a bunch of Olympic Resources, which will be very useful in the upcoming months. For example, Olympic symbols and display posters and themed numeracy activities
Click here to view other olympic downloads.
Kellie.
Just wanted to add a quick note to thank everyone for visiting my blog. Over the last day and a half I have had 86 views, with people from Australia, New Zealand, America, England, Germany and South Korea reading my entries. Thank you very very much :)
Remember if you would like to keep reading my blog, you can sign up to email subscription or join as a member.
Kellie xx.
For any educators who use Edmodo, they know of the fantastic benefits for students, parents and teacher alike. For those who use Edmodo, or simply would like to learn about how to use this online resource in there classroom, EdmodoCon 2012 is currently open for registration.
On Wednesday, August 8th 2012, Edmodo educators across the globe will gather online and in person for a one-day professional development extravaganza. Throughout the day, teachers will share, inspire and showcase the creative ways they are using Edmodo and other digital tools in the classroom. It’s a great day to celebrate being a teacher – and an event not to be missed! Check out the 2011 archives to learn more and stay tuned in the coming weeks for further details.
Last year, 2000 teachers from all 50 US states and 51 countries joined EdmodoCon.
Registration is free and events will occur from 8am to 9pm so for teachers who are working during the day you can still involve themselves before and after school.
Click here if your interested :)
Kellie
During my placement this semester, one of my assessment tasks was to plan, implement, reflect upon and evaluate an intervention for a group of students in my grade one classroom. The aim of the intervention was to assist the student/s to go beyond their current level of knowledge and/or skill.
After discussions with my mentor, and also through doing my own pre-assessment I found that two students had particular issues with their phonological awareness. Over a two week period, I conducted a series of tasks for these students during their normal reading groups, moving them from their current level of understanding to the next step on the phonological awareness continuum (ZPD, Vygotsky). A majority of these tasks were obtained from the book seen above, 'A Sound Way' by Elizabeth Love. I cannot emphasis enough about the benefits of using this text. It contains some fantastic hands-on activities to increase students phonological awareness. The activities are playful and engaging, with the grade ones loving the activities. They were always very excited to be working with me, and I am sure it was due to the activities from this text.
Here is a picture of one of the tasks, called syllable sorting. The students had to identify what the picture was of, use their strategies that we had practiced to figure out the words syllables (jaw drops, clapping) and then put the picture into the appropriate syllable group. This activity encouraged students to reflect on their choices, deliberate with others and work together as a team, while also learning about syllables. I used this activity many times, and would highly recommend it
By the end of the two week period that students had made fantastic progress (I used my assessment to establish this 'for,as and of learning'), with one student moving from a level 8 text to a level 11 and the second student moving from a level 8 to a level 14 text. Both were extremely proud of their achievements and were able to experience success. By the end of this intervention they felt that they were readers, which they didn't at the start. I couldn't have been more proud of them.
I will most definitely be purchasing this book in the future :) You can purchase it here if you are interested.
Also, there is another edition with an interactive whiteboard CD which looks amazing.
Kellie.
Erica Bohrer's First Grade: Getting Students to Listen
This fantastic resource was created by Erica Bohrer, she explains that: Teaching students to listen is no easy task. Sometimes, I feel like I am trying to herd a bunch of cats!
I use a “Whole Body Listening” poster in my classroom. The speech pathologists and ABA teachers at my school inspired the Whole Body Listening posters. They use a Whole Body Listening Social Story they created through Boardmaker to give the students an idea of what whole body listening looks like. As you know, many students on the spectrum struggle with eye contact while speaking. I have found that through my years of mainstreaming, the social story worked well for all of my students. So I decided to make a poster instead of social story to remind them. When I need students to listen, I simply say “Whole Body Listening.”
Click on the link to her blog here and you can download some of these resources for free.
Here is an example of one of the posters:
I am looking forward to using this next semester with the grade ones, using this links in with Bill Rogers model for behaviour management, by having simple rule reminders to reduce the amount of interruption to the rest of the students.
Kellie
Some of the best resources that I have found online are made by teachers themselves.
This wonderful website TeachersPayTeachers is an online marketplace where teachers buy and sell original downloadable educational materials, hard goods and used educational resources.
The resources themselves are fairly priced, and the teachers who create the items receive the money from the sale. I guess it would be described as an teachers ebay. Also, there are 1,000's of free resources that are fantastic.
Here are some excellent shops to follow:
Nyla's Crafty Teaching
Laura Candler
Amy Lemons
Miss Nelson
Let me know of any other great teachers to follow :)
Kellie
Since attending the ICTEV 2012 conference in Melbourne, I have come across some FANTASTIC blogs and teaching ideas(especially from teacherspayteachers.com) and have started building up a great collection of resources for my first year of teaching.
However, it is sometimes very hard to keep track of all the blogs that I am following. To solve this problem and keep up to date with everything that's going on, I have added all of these blogs to my account on BlogLovin.
I highly recommend this site. Every day they send me a summary of all the new posts of the day and it keeps track of what I have and haven't read. Such a fantastic tool! :)
Kellie
