Change, underestimated?

Soundsnap is a site where you can find and share free sound effects and loops- legally. For a more extensive library you can check out The Hollywood Edge which has some free samples. These are great for movies and powerpoint/keynotes.

Thanks to Paul Wilkinson for this one.

technorati tags: audio soundsnap

This from Doug Johnson

When asked “when are ever going to need this?” by his students about an algebra procedure, high school teacher Dan Sherman says:

Never. You will never use this.

It then go on to remind them that people don’t lift weights so that one day they will be prepared should one day, someone knock them over on the street and lay a barbell across their chests. You lift weights so that you can knock over a defensive lineman, or carry your groceries or lift your grandchildren without being sore the next day. You do math exercises so that you can improve your ability to think logically . so that you can be a better lawyer, doctor, architect, prison warden or parent.

MATH IS MENTAL WEIGHT TRAINING. It is a means to and end (for most people) and not an end in itself.

I like it and although it’s a feeling I’m sure most teachers share with their students already the weights analogy would I’m sure appeal to an element within our classes.

Yes the title of this post came to me from Go dog go which I am reading to my daughter, slightly better than Hop on pop. But I digress. The English faculty at Katikati college are doing some great work between the class blogs and wikis it’s awesome to see what is being produced. Of particular note is fun with fruit which has had 1600+ views on slideshare.
[slideshare id=65163&doc=bananaslide1102&w=425]

For a quick look at some of these sites check out

Lana’s class blog, Nat’s class blog, and Emma’s Wiki this is just the beginning I’m sure of some great work. For any help setting up your own blog/wiki either send me an email or I’m sure these guys could tell you how easy it was.

Came across this presentation thanks to the cool cat teacher blog and feel it sums up some of the changes that the working world is having. I am always interested when speaking to family overseas how their working week is structured on different times with schools open later and earlier but teachers doing shifts, wonder how that would go down here

[slideshare id=42907&doc=meet-charlie-what-is-enterprise20-29751&w=425]

technorati tags : work school2.0

Cartoon by Dave Walker. Find more cartoons you can freely re-use on your blog at We Blog Cartoons.Technorati Tags:blogging, work

Well after the two weeks of the school holidays I have switched on my computer. While during the holidays I used the desktop for skype, email and chat my laptop has sat redundant. Largely this has been due to us moving house but also because you need a break. So with 835 blog articles to read at some point I guess there is a bit of catching up to do on what’s been going on.

It has been good to have this break I feel and not add anything to my Del.icio.us or find anything new and rather give some thought to the things that we can be trying this next term.

I did however still use the computer which I guess shows how much a part of our life it has become. We now have some people we only talk to through skype/ichat and whenever I don’t know the answer to something wikipedia is never far away.

I did do some reading however and this article from the independent generated a bit of discussion in our house about school closures in Knowsley.

The new centres will open from 7am until 10pm in both term-time and what used to be known as the school holidays. At weekends, they will open from 9am to 8pm.
Youngsters will not be taught in formal classes, nor will they stick to a rigid timetable; instead they will work online at their own speeds on programmes that are tailor-made to match their interests.

Children will be able to study haircare, beauty therapy, leisure and tourism, and engineering as well as the more traditional academic subjects.

They will be given their day’s assignments in groups of 120 in the morning before dispersing to internet cafe-style zones in the learning centres to carry them out.

The 21,000 youngsters of secondary education age in Knowsley will also be able to access their learning programmes from home.

There was also some discussion on Derek’s blog which is always worth a look at. But I couldn’t help thinking why do they keep trying these things in schools where there is more chance of it failing than succeeding, I know they have nothing to lose but surely someone needs to take an opportunity with a succeeding school. I know “if it ain’t broke don’t fix it” but what if school could actually be memorable for most kids rather that just another gateway.

On less of a high horse note check out visuwords it’s an online graphical dictionary and pretty amazing in how it works.

Technorati Tags:
education, dictionary, newschools