I've just stumbled upon this excellent collection of e-safety resources on the brilliant www.shambles.net site:
- An Internet Safety Plan Blueprint with schemes of work and lesson plans, activities and hyperlinks to interesting resources.
- A series of connected videos on YouTube "Choose what happens next" where the viewer makes choices on e-safety issues to progress to the next consequence and so on.
- Smokescreen Smokescreen is a cutting-edge game about life online. We all use Facebook, MySpace, Bebo and MSN to keep up with our mates - and we've all heard the stories about parties on Facebook being mobbed, or people getting stalked on MSN. The question is, what would you do if it happened to you? check it out...
And lots more - a truly amazing and comprehensive collection of accessible and engaging resources! Thank you to the guys behind Shambles.net for putting this together!
Tuesday 7 December 2010
Tuesday 30 November 2010
How audiobooks can support slow readers
My son decided to take AS level English Literature despite his dyslexia as he's into drama and exploring and analysing stories. He finds reading long books with unknown vocab quite a challenge so we decided to download the audiobook of "Wuthering Heights" and he listened to it on his ipod while reading along - and that's the important part: he didn't want to be lazy about it, he just wanted a way of personalised support that would allow him to read at a decent pace with unusual words being managed for him without having to ask someone every couple of minutes. He was in charge, he could pause, play, go back as he liked, he could listen and read when and where he wanted, and, quite significantly, he had a precise idea of how long it would take to read a chapter (as the timings appear in the MP3 track info) which made the whole thing less daunting and more manageable for him. A PERFECT solution for a motivated student with a particular difficulty!
Here is a great FREE source for audiobooks: http://www.freeclassicaudiobooks.com/ but there are more of course.
Here is a great FREE source for audiobooks: http://www.freeclassicaudiobooks.com/ but there are more of course.
Monday 29 November 2010
Tuesday 9 November 2010
Monday 1 November 2010
The Web 2.0 classroom community
Just stumbled upon this gem of a community while doing some research on networks. Classroom 2.0 seems a thriving community of professionals interested in making the best use of what tools Web2.0 offers.
Check it out here: http://www.classroom20.com/ !
Go on, it's really worth it!
Volker
Check it out here: http://www.classroom20.com/ !
Go on, it's really worth it!
Volker
Thursday 7 October 2010
The Top 100 E-learning Tools
Exciting news: the finalised 2010 version of this comprehensive and informative list of e-learning tools will be published by The Centre for Learning Technologies on the 15th of October here.
You may want to compare it with the 2009 list available here:
http://c4lpt.co.uk/recommended/
However, you may also want to look at this alternative list from 2009: http://michaelhanley.ie/elearningcurve/e-learning-tools-list-top-10-for-2009/2009/03/06/
Have a look, it's really exciting stuff!
Volker
You may want to compare it with the 2009 list available here:
http://c4lpt.co.uk/recommended/
However, you may also want to look at this alternative list from 2009: http://michaelhanley.ie/elearningcurve/e-learning-tools-list-top-10-for-2009/2009/03/06/
Have a look, it's really exciting stuff!
Volker
Thursday 23 September 2010
Developing e-learning in the age of austerity
There won't be any single school, college or HE institution that hasn't been affected by the severe and wide-ranging budget cuts imposed by the new government. The hopes of so many school communities to rebuild or rennovate their ageing facilities through the Buidling Schools for the Future programmes have been destroyed and those that had planned to improve their ICT resources and infrastructures through the Harnessing New Technologies Fund saw their promised funding slashed in the middle of this financial year as the Gove-rnor cut this fund by 50% to divert the money to his new "free" schools.
What a lovely start to the new school year this has been!
However, schools are still under enormous pressure to deliver on innovative teaching methods, improving the use of e-learning tools in the classroom, developing students' e-literacy and competing with other schools by offering more exciting learning opportunities while equipping every child with 21st century skills for the ever faster changing world they'll have to make a living in. And all this on a shoe-string now.
Manufacturers are falling over themselves trying to sell their new products and gadgets "to innovate teaching and learning etc". More often than not these products have been made for the business market originally, only to be re-packaged as an innovative learning tool. Take, for example, the interactive whiteboard: it's still mainly used as a glorified presentation tool by most teachers. There are of course induction and training courses showing a few colleagues how to set the board up and use the tools but little regard has been given to ensuring that teachers are then able to exploit the true interactive potential of the board to involve and engage the majority of the class.
This under-use and subsequent "languishing in the cupboard" (TES July 2010) of so many expensive tools does not have to be the reality in your school! As an experienced teacher and e-learning specialist I decided to develop and deliver courses aimed at schools and educators trying to make the most of the existing resources and rolling out this training across the school in a cost-efficient way.
You may also want to invest money in new technologies and are unsure which ones can be used most effectively - contact me to discuss a way forward!
Volker Green
iNSPIRING LEARNING
What a lovely start to the new school year this has been!
However, schools are still under enormous pressure to deliver on innovative teaching methods, improving the use of e-learning tools in the classroom, developing students' e-literacy and competing with other schools by offering more exciting learning opportunities while equipping every child with 21st century skills for the ever faster changing world they'll have to make a living in. And all this on a shoe-string now.
Manufacturers are falling over themselves trying to sell their new products and gadgets "to innovate teaching and learning etc". More often than not these products have been made for the business market originally, only to be re-packaged as an innovative learning tool. Take, for example, the interactive whiteboard: it's still mainly used as a glorified presentation tool by most teachers. There are of course induction and training courses showing a few colleagues how to set the board up and use the tools but little regard has been given to ensuring that teachers are then able to exploit the true interactive potential of the board to involve and engage the majority of the class.
This under-use and subsequent "languishing in the cupboard" (TES July 2010) of so many expensive tools does not have to be the reality in your school! As an experienced teacher and e-learning specialist I decided to develop and deliver courses aimed at schools and educators trying to make the most of the existing resources and rolling out this training across the school in a cost-efficient way.
You may also want to invest money in new technologies and are unsure which ones can be used most effectively - contact me to discuss a way forward!
Volker Green
iNSPIRING LEARNING
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