blog852learning

Using my iPhone and iPad When I got my 3G iPhone in 2009 I was so excited that I downloaded loads of apps - of course being a spendthrift everything was for free, and the camera took pictures of everything and everywhere and emailed and shared them. I read via Kindle on it and Google maps with the GSP on it has saved me loads of times both on foot and in the car whilst navigating my way round Hong Kong.  I am always using it to record photographically students work, I have over a 1000 photos of students working or their final products, visits and trips and since downloading Instagram, and linking it to Facebook I have been able to publish my photos instantly.  Infact I have just upgraded this last month onto a second hand model iPhone 4.  Last Christmas I also  received  an iPad and it is my constant accessory. As a mother, wife, and educator I am constantly using it.  For example: I decided to decluttered and environmentally recy...

"Tell me and I forget, show me and I remember,  involve me and I understand" Chinese Proverb  This is fundamental to inquiry based learning - but are the school's curriculum taking this into account, are the education authorities considering this approach to learning when re-shaping our education systems http://tokenteach.wordpress.com/tag/reflective-learning/ For a really good insight into inquiry based learning check out the following site: http://www.thirteen.org/edonline/concept2class/inquiry/index.html Why do I have to be reminded that this is the best way to teach? I am after all a kinestetic visual learner

Digital Abyss Still thinking about a new Blog title.......... However in my quest for a new title, I have been eFlipping through the top 100 educational blogs and came across this one : Information abyss – in the era of global education Are we as educators balancing on the edge?  I spend many an hour at home just going through the web finding resources, ideas, and internet hyper-activity, to enhance the teaching and learning experience of my classes, through Moodle, Wikispace, Google Sites, etc. I do wonder though sometimes, when I look at my students, they look at me and wish for a chalk-and-talk lesson....  I started my Wikispaces for my students of IB Design Technology because resources were woefully limited, and I wanted to allow the students to be able to recap and review their learning outside of the classroom. 4-5 years later I now continue updating the Wikispaces with over 100,000 hits a year, and also add new resources for our school's Moodle platform, whic...

New Blog title: Still thinking......... Updating and combining my blogs in a hope to make it more managable. So now you can check out widgets, online software the main idea is to pass on anything I think might be usefull to fellow educators, and basically are free... or nearly. Here is a chance to look at some of the free software that I come across in my weekly trawl of the widgits and freebies. Using some original examples of work created using the software, and a brief synopsis of their main features you too can become an avid digital interfacer. Want to know the top 100 Educational Blogs http://oedb.org/library/features/top-100-education-blogs Wednesday's Widgits is being overhauled Here is a site for my fellow teachers who wonder what widgits are??? No worries they don't bite, Its a way of adding interactivity to your VLEs (that's Moodles or Wikis in more normal speak) Enjoy and try them out, include them in your interactive teaching materials. Let me know ...

History, Geography, Art, Music, Science, the list is endless for the possibilities of adding, creating and using time-lines in your subject area. This would make a great homework task, even better get you students to make specific time-lines and post the best ones onto your VLE For starters all the examples below have already been created I have just located them and uploaded them here. I have also used exitsting time-lines in our D&T Wikispace. This first example I ran a search for Hong Kong http://www.timetoast.com/ The items on the time lines can be expanded for more details. Once again I ran a search for Hong Kong http://www.xtimeline.com/ There are two views possible a simple time-line and a more detailed version, click on the options on the top right of the time line. And finally another time-line for Hong Kong, interestingly you can take this one and add events as it is in the public domain: possibilities of students adding to a time line that you start. Ther...

You've created a PowerPoint and you now want to a put it onto the school VLE SMART Moodle) - but how? Even more annoying, you have accumulated over the past few years many PowerPoint presentations that you use regularly, what can you do? Host Only It is far better to host your PowerPoint presentation using one of the following hosts, you will first need to create an account with one or all of the hosts, as each have their own unique features: SlideShare - http://www.slideshare.net/ View more presentations from Jutka Czirok . Slideshare looks great on your page, and you can also create a slide presenter, One player and several Slideshows, - it also has the largest library of presentations created by other people, some of which I have used on the IB wikispace, it is worth checking out. The down side is any interactiviy or more importantly any hyperlinks you use are not active in you presentation. You can add audio tracks if you wish.  AuthorStream - http://www.authorstr...

Today when people use the word widget, in a Web 2.0 world, they are referring to piece of self-contained code — a small application actually, that opens up a doorway to a much larger application.  To this end, you can find widgets that provide the latest news,  recent weather updates, search boxes for Google, eBay and other popular search-based Web sites, and many more including clocks, counters, games, feeds etc. Adding to the confusion is the fact that widgets used on the desktop or Web are also called gadgets . In fact, in Windows Vista, Microsoft uses the word gadget, but it is still a widget. Useful place to find Widgets is:  http://cooltoolsforschools.wikispaces.com/ http://educationalsoftware.wikispaces.com/Online+tools   Web widgets work like a mini-application that you use to provide information to visitors. Web widgets are easy to use and require you only to copy and paste a snippet of code to display the widge...