Group items tagged

a list of the top ten sites visited by those interested in ipads and education

Looking at the New Directions for school leadership and the teaching profession discussion paper, the only evidence presented to support the assertion that Victoria's education outcomes are not improving is the report "Challenges in Australian Education: results from PISA 2009: the PISA 2009 assessment of students' reading, mathematical and scientific literacy" Specifically the New Directions paper focuses on reading literacy, where in 2009, 14,251 students were given a two-hour pen and paper comprehension test. To get an idea of what types of competencies the reading test is assessing we can look at the sample test , with questions range from comprehension about a letter in a newspaper, the ability to interpret a receipt, comprehension around a short story, an informational text, and interpreting a table. While it doesn't seem unreasonable to want our students to be able to accurately perform these kind of tasks, these tests are not a true or accurate representation of the skills and competencies our students need in today's technology driven world.

A+ Click is a free site full of online mathematics games for students at all grade levels. You can find games on A+ Click by selecting a grade level then selecting a topic. Alternatively, you select just a topic or just a grade level and browse through all of the games. Students do not need to register in order to play the games.

For years, almost no-one wanted to talk about education policy. Suddenly everyone is. Of course, just because you can invoke the name of "Gonski" doesn't mean you've read the Sydney businessman's talismanic report on schools funding reform, much less understood it. Schools funding is a complex topic. There's an alphabet soup of abstract acronyms (SES, AGSRC) and a spaghetti diagram of administrative structures. Funding for a particular school could include money from parents, from a major church, from a state or territory, and from Canberra. The formula is set with a bewildering array of equations, fed by the demographic chance of Census data.

Lately I have been thinking a lot about thinking. More specifically, I have been thinking hard about the absence of thought in education. The absence of thought in students, teachers, administrators and policy-makers. This year's political discourse is a wider-world reminder of the ubiquitous lack of thought on the part of otherwise educated adults. We know more but are oddly - increasingly? - thoughtless. Why? Thinking, in the sense in which I am interested, is not mere mental work (or idle mental noodling). There is certainly lots of that going on everywhere. Thinking in the educational sense is not about doing one's work. Little thought need go into a typical course pacing guide or by a student in filling in a Venn diagram. Those are mental tasks. Such work cannot by itself yield a truly thinking person.

Wow what a cool idea. You could do this in the Lab. Would be great if we had a 1:1 program. Independent self-analysis of visual, audio or written text. Very easy to create a google form. All students who have access to our email system can do this

Great post on Assessment in UK schools. Ties in with stuff about their national testing that they have had in place for more than a decade. This could be our crystal ball are we looking at our curriculum becoming narrower because we are all jumping through hoops? Assessment for learning? I dont think so. I would rather spend time planning great engaging lessons rather than lessons that are going to meet the National Testing criteria.

The Literacy Shed is home to a wealth of visual resources that I have collected over my 10 year career as a primary school teacher.   I trawl youtube, vimeo and other sites looking for suitable resources to use in the sheds. The sheds are broadly thematic but sometimes a resource could go in 2 or more sheds, I slot it in where I think it works best. 

This is great. A huge #stopmotionanimation made using a 8Mp smartphone camera mounted on a cherry picker and a bank of Apple Macs. The making http://vimeo.com/27019750 and the finished product http://vimeo.com/26877221

great overview of different approaches to integrated  Curriculum

Interesting post from a prolific Ed blogger who has always written about Ed and the "bleeding edge" worth following and very readable. This post posits that if we are to introduce a non Americanised version of PBL then we should expect systematic change over a long period of time so that it becomes ingrained in the learning culture of the school. I particularly like this position because it takes into account the longevity of the teachers capacity not only to with stand the change but also to be part of the new paradigm.

Great post covering the basics of google maps. Segue...I had a great session with grade 2 integrating their map reading and story writing. Planned out a map and dropped markers on various landmarks around melb. Students in pairs were then allocated a marker with corresponding landmark and then had to write their part of the story. Best explained here http://2bornot2b.global2.vic.edu.au/2012/03/23/a-google-map-journey/.

Critical thinking explained in six kid-friendly animations If you've been looking for a crash course in basic logic - or just want to explain to a friend exactly what a logical fallacy is - turn your attention to these simple, easy-to-understand videos, which lay out the basics of critical thinking. Creative solutions agency Bridge 8 created these animations to offer a basic overview of critical thinking. The videos were designed for an audience of kids (Edit: Australian grades, not ages) 8-10, but they're handy for anyone who wants to brush up on their logic. The first video (up top), provides an introduction to critical thinking and how we form judgments and opinions.

You will probably need virtual box or parrallels installed for this one to be effective on a Mac. If you have a PC then you will need Word 07 to take advantage of all the features. Not a big fan of maths worksheets but a generator can be handy for that spontaneous diagnostic test.

The Diigo app for android for some reason doesn't let you share links to a specific group. But you can share to a particular list. This is a list for NFPS I created so can eventually have the stuff transfered to the NFPS Group. You might want to subscribe to it in your reader for updates of cool stuff. 

I did this today bought the iphone app when it should have been the ipad app. Duh! So here might be a solution. I am just waiting on the receipt so I can make a claim. It was worth a cuppa coffee but hey if you buy 10 that starts to add up. 

a test url for sit team