@gideonwilliams:
A good day today with year 7s enjoying interactive fiction TTGBITN and jamie’s letter from school.
http://twitter.com/gideonwilliams/status/164806729329160192
Sent with IFTTT
Popularity: 49% [?]
February 1st, 2012
1
Feb 12
Favoured Tweets
1
Feb 12
Textwall
This afternoon I had a very positive conversation with Lilian Soon from textwall.co.uk. In a nutshell textwall.co.uk it’s a response system where responders text, email, webpost their responses. Think Twitterfall for texting. Lilian gave me access to a sandbox account and I had a really good nose round. I was pleasantly surprised.
There are three main flavours, a single textwall £30, very useful for the individual teacher or trainer. Two versions of textwallplus, 10 textwalls @ £200 or 25 textwalls @ £400. Now, in my opinion that’s great value, considering there’s a hatful of functionality to muse over. Auto refresh control, RSS, questions, bad word filters, wordle integrations, text size, export and more.
Of course it goes without saying that you, the host, are not charged for messages you receive but it does costs the learner their standard sms charge to text the system. But with unlimited text message plans seemingly the norm in my school, the cost of a texting for learning, may be soon an issue of the past? What is it like in your school? Of course, students could choose not to response or you could choose a non-tech voting method. I am a big fan of the mini whiteboard and Caesar’s thumb. But for £30 for you, or maybe £20 for each member of the department it seems good value to me. A simple code protects from SPAM texts. Simple.
Next step – try out the sandbox with a class. I will most certainly be able to demonstrate progress in my lessons, that is for sure.
Popularity: 11% [?]
1
Feb 12
#ICT500
Let’s not walk the path well trodden. Whether here at #ICT500 or there at http://schoolstech.org.uk/about/ the discussion and debate of what and why ICT continues.
There are valued observations to take from each of these arenas; Nick Jackson has wrestled with the definition and diversion of ICT as a subject through #ICTcurr for moths, Kevin Moore has alluded to the integrity and qualification of staff (I am, as you may know a passionate PE teacher, an enthused ICT teacher and challenged English teacher) and the seemingly imbalanced expectation of being an ICT teacher, and from the beautiful island of St Helena in the South Atlantic, James Greenwood was ahead of the game, embarking on an ICT makeover in his role as Advisory Teacher of ICT.
Can we approach the task with ‘joinedupthinking’ bring the education community together? Can ‘we’ plot a route way through education with sufficient structure to provide stability yet with sufficient room for curriculum exploration and learning experiments? Can ‘we’ ensure we hear the voices of the learners? Will there be learners (others then ourselves) at #rethinkingICT to ensure we map a curriculum of relevance? If not, why not?
So not to stand accused of not pinning my colours to the mast….. I believe in a curriculum outline, drawn from early years through to learning in workplace (any ever changing workplace). I believe in a curriculum outline that can be ‘coloured in’ by the profession. Let the teachers and learners get creative with their talents and surprise us with their colour combinations, which reminds me of the Sir Ken Robinson little girl draw Santa gag –
And yes they may go over the lines, but they know that there are lines. I also believe that learners should be able evidence their skills and abilities from wherever they have developed. I suppose I do not fall far from James Greenwood’s finding, using, presenting, creating curriculum, which would very easily permit the inclusion of all that we currently offer and more, and of course allow pockets of excellence to blossom.
As for the code or not to code on the curriculum dilemma. Having spent the past 18 months learning and promoting Interactive Fiction (a hybrid of literacy and coding) I am a passionate coding (novice) convert. I am confident that there is a place for coding as both a unit of work and as a discrete discipline. So far I have only read the on or off debate, can we not have both?
Are we coming at the issue from the right directions? Rather than asking what should an ICT or Digital Studies curriculum look like, should we be asking what does an outstanding ICT or Digital student look like and how do we guide them there?
Santa gag
Teacher: What are you drawing little girl?
Child: I am drawing Santa Claus sir.
Teacher: But no one knows what Santa Claus looks like?!?
Child: They will in a minute!
Popularity: 17% [?]
Loading ...
