Presentation by Tom Barrett May 30, 2007
Posted by Joseph Papaleo in AGQTP/AISV, Class Activities, Google Earth, PhotoStory, Tom Barrett, blogs, classroom, k12online06.2 comments
Several months ago, I got in touch with Tom Barrett after we had both started blogging about Google Earth in the classroom. Tom is a Primary teacher in Grade 6 and he has a fantastic blog and his classes are using blogs as well.
I liked what Tom was doing in the classroom and I used his work in my presentation to the k12online conference last year. Then I asked Tom to do a presentation for our Primary teachers as part of the Australian Government Quality Teachers Program. It was 10 months in the making as we couldn’t find a date that we could get all our Primary teachers together. In the end, we thought we’d do one campus at a time.
Tom presented from London last week to semi-rural Melbourne. It was 7:30 am here and 10:30 pm there. Many thanks must go to our Primary staff for actually turning up (in their dressing gowns), but more importantly, Karen Griffiths who supported me throughout this activity.
Most importantly, Tom talked about how he uses Google Earth, blogs, wikis, PhotoStory and Turning Point in his class. It was enthralling to watch and listen to him as well as his captivated audience. I’ve had several comments from our staff, who were quite impressed with his presentation and several have already asked about how they can do some of the same things.
Thanks Tom.
Little Tackers and an invitation April 23, 2007
Posted by Joseph Papaleo in Class Activities.2 comments
I recently created an assignment for our Year 8 students and I passed it onto my colleagues to use. The teachers and students have loved it and they will be presenting their finished work to our Prep to Year 2 students soon.
For the task, the Year 8 students were asked to:
- do some research on the Mr. Men and Little Miss series written by Roger Hargreaves and explore the style of the books
- write a book for 3 - 7 year old children where they had to create a character
- once they finished the book, they had to produce an electronic version of their story for the children
- produce a CD with cover art to give to the Prep - Grade 2 students
- share their book and computer program with the students.
We are currently in the last phase of the project and the Year 8 students have been very keen on the project. The Prep to Grade 2 teachers seem to be keen to have the Year 8’s do some reading and sharing with the students, so that will be great.
The invitation: Are there other any teachers out there interested in looking at this project to see if a worldwide project can be implemented around”Little Tackers”? Older students can participate by writing, editing, illustrating, producing animations, podcasts, etc while younger students can be the real audience. Let me know if you are interested.
The assignment task is attached here (Little Tackers) for anyone to look at. I’ll be posting an example of one of the stories soon (after getting permission from the student and parent).
Uniforms of the Future - Pt 3 March 24, 2007
Posted by Joseph Papaleo in Class Activities.comments closed
As promised recently, I wrote an assignment on this topic. It covers gadgets used by Dick Tracy and Maxwell Smart, then looks at Nike+ runners, Levi Jeans and the Kenpo jacket, all having gadgets embedded into them. With all of these free plugs, you’d think I would get something from them, but alas no.
Students then design their own uniform for the year 2017. I’ve tried to write it so anyone can use without too much ediditing, so please feel free to use it. (except I’m trying to force our students to use Photoshop).
Anyway, here it is - let me know if you use it and the student results.
