Beyond a Blackboard

After many failed attempts (and a lot of learning), I have completed my MDTA interview.  It was certainly a challenge, but I feel far better prepared to film a video with my learners after creating this video and I have learnt a thing or two about filming. 1) Watch out when filming outside I thought I had found a quiet spot when filming my first take of this video,  but my microphone still picked up an awful lot of ambient noise; I did not realise how distracting a slight breeze and a couple of birds could be! There was also issues with the sun and other people entering the shot. In the end we had to change location because removal trucks parked next to the field that we were in! 2)  Sort out your technology  I had a number of technical issues; at one point I re-filmed the interview on a school camera only to discover that it had saved onto my computer without any sound and that the original footage was deleted.  In the end, I invested in a camera and...

At Glenbrae, maths is taught through problem solving and mathematical investigations. As my learners are looking at time and temperature at the moment, I thought a problem involving the weather would be very fitting. After showing my learners a video of a weatherman, this was the problem that they were posed with: They had to decode a number of clues to determine the temperature at various locations. These clues required the students to add and subtract positive and negative integers. To support this, we provided the children with number lines. These cards could be cut up and presented as cards Once they had completed this, they entered the temperature at each destination on a Google my map so that it could be used for a weather . The learners made a copy of this map, entered their findings and were then tasked to video a short clip of themselves presenting the weather in part of their map. This would then be shared through their blogs. I was really pleased with the...

I never thought that I would be camera shy, coming from a background in drama and the arts. In fact, I could not have secured my first job at 16 if I had not been able to act confidently in front of the camera. It seems that I had forgotten all of this when I stepped out to film my interview for the MDTA this Friday. The aim of this session was to plan and film a response to a number of questions about our experiences with the MDTA. We were encouraged to think quite deeply about these questions and I spent some time deciding how I might respond. Clarelle and I had decided to interview each other and went on a walk around the University Campus to decide where to film. We eventually settled on a picnic bench outside and I began to film Clarelle. I was feeling quite proud of the angles I had captured, but this confidence faded completely as soon as I stepped in front of the camera. I became extremely nervous and found it difficult to simply introduce myself! After a while I b...

After beginning my teaching career with a class site,  I cannot imagine teaching without one.  I have especially enjoyed watching my students engage in their learning outside of the classroom. There is so much that can be done with a google site and it can be a really engaging way of accessing ones learning. Over the past term and a half our class site has changed heaps; I am constantly finding new ways to display activities and will continue to do so. Ultimately, it is most important that the site is easy to navigate and that it makes learning accessible. My Class Site At this weeks MDTA PLG, we were learning about making screencasts. These could be used in the classroom as a way of recording part of the lesson - like a virtual modelling book. Apps like Educreations and Scree ncastify would best utilise screencasts in the classroom, as they allow the user to draw and write while recording.  However, our intention today was to simply create a screencast ...

It takes some time to get used to being observed in the classroom. I'll never forget how anxious I was as a student teacher being observed by my visiting lecturers. If I found this daunting, I cannot imagine how I would feel putting recordings of my lessons up on Youtube for the world to see. Yet this is exactly what five teachers across the Manaiakalani cluster are doing. On Friday we were visited by Matt Goodwin, who is one of the educators involved in Manaiakalani Google Class OnAir . He gave us the low down on the filming process and filmed part of our session using his filming equipment.  I could not believe that his lessons are uploaded directly from Google Hangouts to Youtube - particularly as the Youtube editor is quite simplistic. It must take a lot of courage to be part of this program! As we experimented with the option to upload a video taken on Google Hangouts to Youtube, it became clear that this could be used as a teaching tool. We are always discussing the p...