Classroomtech.org.uk

I recently led a session introducing 20 ideas for using technology in the classroom in 20 minutes. This post is something of an index to those 20 ideas that are all expanded upon on this site.

Each idea has a post and you can find them by following the links below (in the order in which they were mentioned in the session) or by using the other navigation around the site. An alphabetical list of all the posts on this site can be found on the ‘list of posts’ page linked above.

Here are the 20 ideas:

1. Using timers in lessons
2. Wireless Keyboards
3. PowerPoint shortcuts
4. Downloading YouTube videos
5. Interactive timelines – Mnemograph
6. Easier web addresses – URL shortening
7. Paperless planning with Teachers Personal Information Manager
8. Webcams for showcasing work
9. Drag and drop in PowerPoint
10. Bubbl.us – online mind-mapping
11. Teachers TV – not just for teachers
12. Live web pages in PowerPoint
13. Create interactive games, activities & quizzes with Contentgenerator.net
14. Multiple email addresses in one
15. Temporary web pages with Google Docs
16. Delicious.com – free your bookmarks
17. Publish a homework tasks blog easily
18. Using sound effects in lessons
19. Collect data with Google forms
20. What are other teachers doing?

(Read the rest of this entry…)

As teachers we tend to be hidden away in our own classrooms doing our own thing  a lot of the time. There are loads of great things that go on in lessons that our colleagues never get to hear about.

This is especially true in the effective use of technology in the classroom. Lots of us have tools that we use and we should be looking to share our ideas, things that have work and that haven’t, with each other. Initially this should happen with our closest colleagues in the departments we are based in, then it should extend across the whole school or college.

But even if we are sharing good practice effectively within our institution, unless we are seeking dialogue with our colleagues around the country and even in other parts of the world, then we are missing out on a wealth of knowledge and experience. The aim of this website is to do a little bit of that, to draw peoples attention to some of the tools that are out there and hopefully build some connections with people who are innovating and developing wise ways of using technology to enhance teaching and learning.

There are hundreds if not thousands of teachers around the world who now record some of their ideas on blogs and websites. This is a vast (and slightly daunting) resource that we should be trying to tap into. A good place to start is with some of the best established British teacher bloggers (or edubloggers to use the term that has sprung up to describe them). Another place to look is on the blogging site edublogs.org where you will find loads of teacher authored blogs.

Here are a few places you could look to get started (after looking round this site of course)

• Dougbelshaw.com – A history and e-learning staff tutor in the UK
• edtechroundup.com – conversations about using technology in education
• joedale.typepad.com – Integrating technology into the MFL classroom

Google Docs has many uses in the classroom as a tool for creating documents and for collaboration. One of the newer features that Google have introduced is the ability to create web based forms that can collect data directly into a spreadsheet.

The idea behind Google forms is simple. In the Google Docs main page you select ‘New’ and then ‘Form’ from the menu, which takes you to the form editor. There you can enter a title and opening information for your form and begin to create your questions. Google gives you the choice of six types of question and you can mix them as you want in any form.

You continue to add questions until you have finished your form. At that point you save the form. You can embed the form in a website to be completed or you can use the link at the bottom of the form creator to share the webpage of the form. You might want to use a URL shortener to make the address easier.

Here is the address of my completed form

http://spreadsheets.google.com/viewform?key=pqWdwkQ2SenCigz8XGDgUOA

(and the shortened version is http://memurl.com/mefede)

Here is the same form embeded in the page

You can find out more about Google Docs and Google forms at the website docs.google.com

Have you ever been frustrated when a student tells come to a lesson and tells you that they have forgotten what the homework was that you set? Wouldn’t it be good if all your students could access a record of what you set for homework from home or the library even if they have lost their homework diary or were absent when it was set?

The solution is to publish your homework tasks on the Internet so that they are always accessible. I’m not talking about lots of detail or the homework itself being online, just a note similar to what you would expect a pupil to write in their diary, but maybe more accurate. Now not every teacher has, wants or could manage a full website or blog to post homework on, but every teacher should be able to use email.

With the online tool Posterous email is the only thing you need to be able to use to create a mini website with a record of the homework tasks you set.

As it says on their website you don’t need to sign up, all you do is email post@posterous.com and an account will be set up for you and they will email you straight back with details. The email you send will be converted into a post with the subject being the title and the body being the text. If you attach a word document or similar to the email it will be attached to the post and if you attach a picture it will be added.

You can then just send an email with each homework task and it will be posted, creating a mini website that your students can look at.

Have a look at the demo site I set up at classroomtechdemo.posterous.com

and have a go at starting your own by emailing post@posterous.com

Google Docs is an online office suite, like a cut down version of Microsoft Office (Word, Excel, PowerPoint, etc). It runs in your web browser and stores your documents online making them available from any computer. Google Docs makes it easy to collaborate on and share Text documents, spreadsheets and presentations.

There are lots of applications for Google Docs in the classroom and I will discuss others in future posts. One application of the word processor part of Google Docs is to create quick and temporary web pages.

Because the word processor enables you to quickly edit documents with instructions and links you can write some instructions or information for a lesson just as you would on a worksheet, except that because you can publish it as a web page it can include links to other websites.

When you have finished your page, you can publish it (go to ‘share’, ‘publish as webpage’) and you will be given a link to your new web page. Here is one I created for this post:

http://docs.google.com/Doc?id=dfbtbm3h_52c747dtgd

This is now a webpage that you can send the students to in order to guide them through an online task. You can use a URL shortener as detailed in another post to make the address easier to share with the pupils. When I ran the above address through Memurl.com I got memurl.com/duvote which is much easier.

When you have finished using the page with a class you can either leave it published or unpublish it, but save it in Google Docs. That way you can come back to it, ammend it and use it again.

For more information about Google Docs visit the website docs.google.com. I will endevour to write about Google Docs in more detail soon.

Almost all online tools and web applications not to mention blogs require you to register an account or at least give an email address before you can use them fully. This causes a problem when you want to use one of these services with pupils and they either don’t have their own email addresses or you don’t want them to use their own addresses for whatever reason.

Google Mail provides one option to work around this. If you don’t know anything about Google Mail, it is one of a number of web applications that are provided by Google and are free to use. Google Mail is an email account and webmail program (a bit like hotmail or yahoo mail). Google Mail has several advantages including a large amount of storage space (several gigabytes) and advanced search and filtering capabilities, making it easy to find messages. It is free and straightforward to sign up for a Google Mail account and you can sign up for as many different accounts as you want.

Google Mail is useful in overcoming the requirement for lots of email accounts because once you have signed up for an email address, for example mrtdolan@googlemail.com, you then get more than just the user name ‘mrtdolan’. You can add a ‘+’ to the username and then anything after it and it will be delivered to the same account. So email sent to mrtdolan@googlemail.com, mrtdolan+one@googlemail.com and mrtdolan+two@googlemail.com would all end up in the same place. Although Google Mail treats these as the same account, anywhere else they would be considered different addresses and so could be used separately to sign up for a service multiple times.

For example, say you were setting up a class blog and you wanted each student to have their own login so you could keep track of who wrote what. You could set up a new google account (e.g. mrtdolan08yr10@googlemail.com) and then use varations on that address to sign all your pupils up to the blog, e.g. mrtdolan08yr10+bob@googlemail.com, mrtdolan08yr10+jane@googlemail.com, etc.

Obviously there are always issues to consider when using online tools with students where they have to register for accounts, but by following careful procedures, only using first names, not requiring them to use their own email and having clear rules and guidelines it is possible to make the most of some of the great tools out there.

You can find out more about Google Mail and sign up for an account at mail.google.co.uk

Many people have seen or used Webcams for video calling over the internet. Applications such as Skype have made seeing people the other side of the world and talking to them very accessible.

The Webcams that make this possible are simply digital cameras that are capable of recording video and taking still pictures and at a fraction of the cost of other digital cameras.

In the classroom there could be many uses of a webcam. One possible use would be to showcase a pupils work. Instead of trying to hold a piece of work up or describe what it looks like to the class, a webcam can be used to show a live picture of the work that can be projected so that even those at the back can clearly see what you are talking about.

Almost all webcams will come with some software that will allow you to show the image live (often called the preview) on the computer. If you want to you can also capture the picture as a snapshot or as a video that could be saved and shown to the class again later.

If you are buying a webcam try to get a High resolution model of at least 1.3 megapixels. The lower resolution cameras won’t be clear enough to show a good picture when projected on a large screen. I have a basic model and it does the job ok. One of the new 5 MP cameras especially with autofocus would be even better.

You can buy many webcams from Amazon.co.uk as well as computer shops and even larger supermarkets.

I was excited when I first came across Mnemograph (I’m glad I am typing and not pronouncing that) and had a play with the demo. Mnemograph is a web based application that allows you to create visual and interactive timelines.

You add events and enter basic details like dates and locations and then more detailed information and links. The events are then organised into a timeline that you can zoom in and out of and explore. The main timeline view is nicely organised with more information available when you hover over or click on an event. You can create text labels for events or use pictures. It is possible to show two timelines simultaneously above and below the date line. The demo shows this well with a history of the Wright Brothers split into two timelines, one with text labels and the other with pictures.

Mnemograph is currently in beta (still being developed) and doesn’t have a complete feature set yet, but it is already a useful tool. The application is designed to allow easy collaboration on creating timelines and they can be shared easily too. The best way to get a feel for the application is to have a play with the demo and then sign up and try creating your own timeline on the Mnemograph website.

It’s worth looking at the instructions that explain more about the tool and how to use it. They also reveal the origin of the name Mnemograph.

As they say:

Why is it called Mnemograph?
Like many good technology companies, the origin of our name is Greek. Mnemosyne was the personification of memory in Greek mythology. She was the daughter of Gaia and Uranus and, after a nine night stand with Zeus, the mother of the Muses. To be honest, we aren’t terribly happy with the name. It doesn’t seem exactly main stream and is hard to type and pronounce. So, if you have any decent ideas, let us know!