Week 4: Graphing made fun!

This is an example of what you could do with your students to make the graphing tasks a little more fun. Students love to choose pictures from Google images and creating something that is individual. Allowing students to choose a graph style and the other graphing options makes it more exciting for them too.

Week 4: Graph Task

It is possible to teach maths with food. In this case smarties. You could have the students make predictions about what they expect they will find in a package of smarties. They could simply graph their findings. They could also survey other students about their 'Smartie' preferences. You could teach them how to color their graph to make it relevant to what the graph is about. Simply, right click on a column and choose 'format data series'. Then, select 'fill' and then choose the color.

Week 4: Student Comprehension Task

These images were taken from Dust Echoes: Ancient Stories, New Voices web site. It is a great website with a variety of Aboriginal stories to choose from. Some of the stories may be too scary for some students and this needs to be considered.

You are able to get the background information on the traditional story and you are able to watch a picture animation of the story as well. This is a great example of a task you could ask your students to do, which would be educational and fun.

Ask the students to become knowledgeable about the story and then create a story summary using the images and the Inspiration program.

This requires the students to press the control and the print screen buttons at the same time. Then they will past the image in the paint program. Next, the students cut the content of the image they want. Next, they paste it on a new paint page. Finally, they save it as a JPEG and open it up in the Inspiration program. This example, was places in a circular formation because the story it was based on "Morning Star" is based on the circle of life. The pictures were number as well to clarify the order. More text could easily be added.

This type of task requires students to choose the important parts of a story and use computers. This task will help with story comprehension. Doing it, is a lot for fun than putting random sentences in order to reflect the proper sequence of events. I will use this in my future classroom.

Week 3: Fun Online Quizzes

Week 3: Fun Online Quizzes

Today, we also learned about a great program which allows you (i.e. the teacher) or the students to make fun quizzes. The types range from flash cards to a variety of other games. One is called "from rags to riches." They are fun and relatively easy to create.
1) Go to www.quia.com/web
2) Subscribe to the 30 day trial offer
3) Create a user name and password
4) Go to "create a new quiz"
5) Choose the quiz type and create the title, questions and indicate the answers.

Week 3: Images from the Technology Design Brief

Week 3: Technoology Design Brief

August 10, 2010

Today, we did a great activity called a design brief. it was based on making a little picture of a frog jump. We were given a small piece of cardboard, a rubber band, and a limited amount of sticky tape. We were required to work in partners.
The method is based on:
1) Investigate/Design
2) Produce
3) Analysis/Evaluation

These headings can be placed on a page and the students are encouraged to fill out the sections. In the Investigate/Design section- students write their thought processes. E.g. "We thought of folding the cardboard in the middle and then we decided to fold it at the end."

In the produce section- The students write what they actually did. E.g. "I folded the paper into 3." The students write the stages of what they tried to their final product.

In the final section, the students analyse their creation. This could be done after everyone shares their ideas. This is an opportunity for students to practice some higher order thinking. They could describe how they could have made their "jumping frog better" or why their design was effective.

An important component is sharing and reflecting on what they did. The students should be given a couple days to complete their final draft. The final products are great to use to decorate the classroom. Incorporating design briefs into your regular teaching routine makes learning more fun, especially if the problem is presented as a surprise. This could be achieved by using "secret envelopes" with the problem. Using this teaching strategy helps to improve student speaking skill and other related topics could be liked to these problems. In this situation, it could be used to initiate a discussion or lessons on energy because rubber bands have energy potential.

Other skills also required in this type of lesson include, writing skills, eye coordination, team work, problem solving skills etc., Thus, it is a very good lesson format to use in my regular classroom.

Week 2: Brochure

Here is what I completed in Microsoft Publisher today. It is a great program and can be used in the class for class activities. For example, if the class is studying the solar system, they could choose one planet and make a brochure to promote vacationing on that planet. It is also useful for making eportfolios. An eportfolio is a useful tool to bring to an interview. As, it will help the panel better understand my abilities and whether or not I am the best person for the job.

An eportfolio can also be used by a teacher to document a students work. However, the teacher must choose carefully because the purpose it to see the development in the student's work over the year. Thus, if you include too much work, that development will be more difficult to observe.


For the eportfolio the best layout is the web page and then modify it to suit your needs.