TedED and why I love them

This blogpost marks the end of my second week as a fully fledged blogger. I know I still have a lot to learn. But I am excited by what has happened and the pageviews my blog has generated. Thank you so much for checking in with me.

As it it Friday I thought a short post is in order. So have you checked out TedED? I cannot put into words how amazing this resource is and how cool the videos are. Really well executed and clear, perfectly pitched for school children. While there are not a lot of Religion ones, I have found this one all about big questions one might ask and I have used it twice this week when beginning essay planning conversations with the scholars groups.

There are others in this series and they can be used to provoke some really helpful debate in philosophical lessons. I began the lesson by watching the clip then discussing with them some of the unanswered questions they had. After doing this we talked about the fact that the essays they have to answer in exams are essentially just like this; unanswered questions for them to explore and discuss. I may even allow them the chance to try and make a cool animated video to explore one issue we have been covered in class. So, so much more fun than just endlessly planning essays!

Here is a link to the other Philosophy and Religion ones.

Have you found any amazinf videos for using in RS lessons? I'd love to hear about them.

My favourite collaborative tools.

Collaboration is such a big word in education right now. I once went to a seminar which began with, and I kid you not 20 different videos or pictures of famous people in films talking about the importance of collaboration. Suffice to say, it was not a good seminar!

Despite this, collaboration in the classroom is something I really believe in. I think it is fundamentally important for pupils to be able to brainstorm ideas and share them together so they have a real chance to learn from one another. Here is a list of a few of the ways I do this in the classroom.

• Padlet and Linoit

Both of these online tools allow a class of children to share their ideas on a certain subject. You can get them to answer a question together, or share what they have learnt from the lesson as part of the plenary. If we are brainstorming we focus on what has been written and then whittle down to which we think are the best suggestions. I would then share the webpage with them so when they are completing homework later on they can refer back to what was suggested and utilise the best ideas.

• Google Docs

This can be used in a number of different ways. I can create a document which they share their ideas into, or they can complete a piece of work with another person without the hassle of sending versions back and forth. They can make slideshows, word documents or spreadsheets. Last night I found this super helpful video explaining how to use collaboration on Google drive.

• Videos

This is a new one for me but next week I am going to try creating videos with my year 7s and 8s as a revision tool. We spend a lot of time brainstorming different Common Entrance questions and talking about how they could be answered. I am planning to get them to record a point for a question and upload it to a folder. When they are all uploaded we will edit them in iMovie and each child will cut together the best points so we will get an idea of what might be written in the answer. I am so hoping it will work, I will report back and let you know!

I’d love to hear any other useful collaboration tools you use in your classroom. Thanks for reading.

I have just implemented my first action from the Google in edcuation conference from last week. As I mentioned in my earlier post I wanted to start trying to use videos in my classroom more. We were shown some very simple ones at the conference where we were taken through some quiz questions about Harry Potter. At the end of them there was an anotation with true or false which took you to a new video. What a fantastic idea for creative revision I thought.

Tonight I have made my own Channel. I have started very simply with some videos about the Fall. I plan to use them in my revision lessons next week. Each one is linked to other ones so they should hopefully take you on a little journey.

I cannot imagine what my class will think of them, they are pretty dorky. But hopefully we will have a little bit of fun together.

Here is one of my first videos.

Reflections on Google in Education Conference: October 2014

I went on a conference last week. It was the first day of my half term and I travelled all the way up to London with a heavy suitcase that I had to lug around with me. This to me is evidence that I must have thought I could get something from it! Also evidence that I was going to sunny Sicily the next day. Now I am not someone who gives up holiday easily, so do so unless it was for something really special. It was a Google in education summit. As with the summit I attended in May I got a lot from it.

A few things which I have been pondering during my holiday have been the following.

• How to start using videos more in my lessons.
• To stop telling my students to just ‘research’ on an ipad
• To work out how to start using coding in lessons.

The other great thing was to spend time chatting with other teachers and hearing their perspective on technology and what they have been doing in the classroom. I’ve been really thinking about how to improve my coding which is so basic and heard about a website called Computing at Schools that has lots of different courses I could go on. So far they mostly seem to be a very long way away, but I will keep checking back. I definitely want to understand how the Raspberry Pi works.

With videos I have set up a Youtube channel which I am going to get going this week and I will try exploring some flipped learning with some of my older students.