11Sci and Wallwisher

I used Wallwisher with my 11Sci class this morning to get them to use a new e-learning tool and to give me feedback on some recent learning.  Here is what they made...

Prezi - a tool for presenting work

Prezi is a tool for sharing ideas and presenting work to others. Instead of a powerpoint, you can create amazing visual pictures that show off your ideas and information. You can even import your existing powerpoint and then add to it.



Have a look at some of these examples and then get started on your own.
19th Century National History
Martin Luther King
Great Jazz Bassists

You can get to prezi at prezi.com

Asmita's poem

Asmita has kindly recorded her poem for you to listen to. You can access it here:
Asmita's poem

A great composition from Isaac

Follow this link to listen to one of Isaac Bennet's great compositions. Isaac recorded this in our own recording studio and is working on getting an album of original music together this year.

Isaac composition

A poem by one of our students

 

Just Because

Just because I don’t live with my family

Doesn’t mean they don’t want me

Doesn’t mean they don’t care

And doesn’t mean I don’t have one

Just because I lost my Dad

Doesn’t mean I’ll forget him

Doesn’t mean I’ll stop my life to grieve

And doesn’t mean I’ll end my life because his ended

Just because I haven’t been to school in a while

Doesn’t mean I’m uneducated

Doesn’t mean I’m stupid

And doesn’t mean I won’t succeed in life

Just because I’m young

Why judge people by a book?

Why put them down?

Will you regret judging me?

You don’t know my story

Just your own.

by

Kerri-Lee Elcock

A great tool for gathering resources

One thing I find annoying is when I am somewhere other than home or work and I want to show someone a great website that I have bookmarked, but can't remember it. This is a great site to solve that problem. It also means you never lose your bookmarks when you forget to save them from an old computer to a new, or when your computer dies.


With Livebinders you can gather resources together and write notes about the pages, then share them with others.


Have a look at this one on Opshop that has been put together for a music topic.
Opshop Livebinder

You can access livebinders at www.livebinders.com/login
You will need to make a login and it is really handy to download the Livebinder It tool, then while browsing the web, every time you find a link you want to save,  you just click on the "LiveBinder It" button and save the link to an existing binder or make a new one for a new topic. You can put the Livebinder link on the toolbar as well, to make it easy to go to a link that is saved.

A poem by one of our adult students

Just because- Poem 7-2-13 

Just because I am in my middle age and have gone through some challenges in life

Doesn’t mean I can’t change my life.

Doesn’t mean I can’t review my weak points

And it doesn’t mean that I stop believing in myself

Doesn’t mean I can’t study again.

Doesn’t mean people need to judge me

Doesn’t mean everyone had a great child hood.

Just because I am in my middle age and have gone through some challenges in life

Doesn’t mean I’m not giving myself a second chance

Doesn’t mean I do not go forward

Doesn’t mean I don’t fulfill my dream.

Just because I am in my middle age and have gone through some challenges in life

I hope we can all make each day another chance to blossom in the life tree.

Do think I should stop study age 21?

Do you think student must be young?

Do you have courage to sit in class with youth?

I have courage to start fresh.

I love my school, teacher and my giving me brain storm for better education.

Just because I am in my middle age and have gone through some challenges in life

Asmita Makwana

Hagley's top scholars

I wanted to congratulate Monique, Ryan, and Claire for their collective haul of 6 Scholarships from the exams in Dec 2012 !!  Monique got Classics and Chemistry and also an Outstanding in Biology - amazing job.  Ryan got Physics and Biology - superb effort.  Claire picked up a Physics Scholarship result - stunning.

The science department is very proud of all 3 of you.  :)

Easy web note tool

Now here is a great web tool - "Wallwisher". It allows you to quickly post a note, photo or link in a 'post-it' type manner.

Would be great for personal teaching/learning notes and pointers or even a class note wall where all ideas and information/thoughts could be shared. You can even gather together video resources from the web (e.g. youtube) and play them directly from your wall.

Have a quick look at the wall I have already created at http://wallwisher.com/wall/hagleycollege1 and add your own note. You will need the password hagleycc to add your own note [1].

To make your own wall you will have to create an account (use your college email address to make things easy) and you can make a wall private, public (open to everybody) or pretty much anything in between.

[1] Your notes will only be added after Andy has approved them so don't bother with inappropriate notes !!

Great tools for the classroom

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TodaysMeet

This is an excellent site that gives you the opportunity to have an online discussion or feedback session with your students or for groups of students to have their own group discussion.

The chat room is very easy to set up and lasts for a predefined length of time and you can make comments or answer questions by others.

While you are having a discussion, people can ask questions, without having to put up their hands, or feel nervous about asking something. You don’t have to login or put your name on the posts. Once the room is closed, the discussion is gone, but you can screen shot the discussion if you want to keep it it for further use.

It is really simple to use and only takes a couple of minutes to set up a room.

You can find TodaysMeet at www.todaysmeet.com

Moodle

Moodle is an internet based system to help deliver e-learning in a classroom.

It is used by many schools and universities and is an excellent way to integrate e-learning into your classroom.

I (Sue) have used it for a variety of different exercises in class. Students can download copies of handouts that always seem to get lost from one class to the next. They can click on links to websites that are relevant to the topic.

Quizzes are a great way to test knowledge and for revision. A 10 question multichoice test only take 10 minutes to make, and Moodle marks it and gives all the data for the class.

Forums are a great way for students to discuss topics and communicate and share ideas. These can be on any topic and there can be as many as are needed.

The glossary can be edited by anyone in the course and can give students a place to look up terms as well as contribute to the meanings and add new words.

Assignments can be handed out and submitted via Moodle and teachers can set deadlines for these to be submitted.

You can access Moodle either through the learning@hagley button on the Hagley school website front page or at http://lms.hagley.school.nz:2010

If you want to know more about these tools just email sue.mclachlan@staff.hagley.school.nz

Andy's 2013 C2C effort !

Thought I'd kick this blog off with a personal account of my Coast to Coast race last weekend! Certainly not going to give a blow by blow account of the event by the way!

1. Weather= Sunny with helpful wind on first day and not so helpful headwind on second!
2. First day = painful but a run and bike time that I was pretty satisfied with (5:15 on the run which off the back of limited training and hot weather wasn't too bad)
3. Second day = painful but kayak time of about 5:15 was about what I expected on low flow. Good last cycle leg

Note to self = Try doing some cycle training so that the first and last cycle legs aren't longest done in 3 years!

Finishing a long, hard run leg

A rather nicer feeling - finished!