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Blog Post: 10 Ideas for Creating Web-Safe Avatars With Your Students

Danny Nicholson — Tue, 07 Feb 2012 16:12:00 GMT

If you are looking at ways to get your students involved with social media, such as class blogging, then for e-safety reasons it's highly recommended that you don't use real photographs of the students. This also applies to the small image used on their user profile, often called an avatar. A safer and fun alternative is to create a cartoon avatar instead. This lets the students have a visual representation of themselves, but without using their real image.

Here are 10 of my favourite websites that you can use to create fun avatars. Some allow you to save the finished creation as a JPEG for free. If not, then use the print screen button to copy the screen, paste into a paint program, crop and save as a JPEG (.jpg). You can also use the ActivInspire desktop camera tools to capture these images.

Before you use any of these sites with your students, I recommend you review them for suitability.

1. BuiLD YouR WiLD SeLF: Create an avatar out of bits and pieces of humans and other animals: head, arms, legs, clothes, eyes, mouth, tail, wings, shells and more. Just pick the parts you like and assemble them together. A great resource for science lessons too.

2. SP-Studio: Turn yourself into a South Park character.

3. The Hero Factory: Turn yourself into a superhero. This would also be great as part of a digital storytelling resource or story starter. Create a superhero and write about their adventures!

4. Ultimate Flash Face v0.42b: This is a bit like a police photo fit. Choose from various different facial features to build up your face.

5. The Mini-Mizer: Produce a LEGO®-style character that looks like you. Or turn yourself into a Stormtrooper wizard. It's totally up to you!

6. The Simpsons Movie: Ever wanted to be a Simpsons character? Now you can create your own yellow-skinned doppelganger in the style of the Simpsons.

7. Online Mii Creator: This website lets you create a Mii in the style of the characters found on the Wii games console.

8. Picassohead: Become an abstract piece of work in the style of Picasso. Put your eyes and ears wherever you want!

9. WeeWorld: Create a mini version of yourself and add accessories. There's plenty of scope for customisation of your avatar. It's possible to build an avatar without signing up to the site, then use the desktop capture to grab the finished image.

10. Grabba Beast: Grabba Beast lets you build your own monster from a large library of body parts – some scary, some cute. Plenty of weird and strange designs are possible. This would also be great for creating characters for digital storytelling.

You don't just have to use these images as avatars. They can also be used as characters in your lesson resources – add them to your interactive whiteboard presentations with speech bubbles to give lesson objectives, ask questions or set problems.

Got any others you'd like to add? Add a comment and tell me about it!

Enjoyed this? You may also like Miis and Avatars – Fun Ideas and Tools 4 Ur Lessons!, by Lisa Dubernard.

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Blog Post: Creative Lesson Ideas: Green Screen and Six Year Olds

Shannon Wentworth — Mon, 06 Feb 2012 16:26:00 GMT

My favorite project every year is the animal unit I do with my 1st grade students. We begin by learning about different classifications of animals: mammals, birds, fish, insects, reptiles, and amphibians. Then students each pick an animal they want to learn more about. To prevent 25 students from all picking the same animal, I usually create a list of animals from all classifications and then let students pick an animal out of a hat.

Generating Questions

As a class, we generate a list of 4–6 questions to ask about our animals. I then put those questions together in Microsoft PowerPoint with one question per slide. I also add a picture to help my second language students and beginning readers remember what they need to find for each page. The PowerPoint file then gets printed out as a handout with three slides per page (see left). The benefit of the handout is that students who are capable may write their answers directly on the lines. Struggling readers and second language learners can draw the answers as they find them.

Researching Answers

The next stage is to learn about research. I read over every question with my students several times first to make sure they know exactly what they are looking for. Then we get a lesson on the research tool of the day. I try to tailor the research tool to the ability level of my students. Classes with high populations of low ability readers will usually get to watch videos of their animals from Discovery Education or Teachers' Domain. I download the videos ahead of time and place them in a folder on the desktop of every student computer. Then students can put on their headphones and watch the video as many times as they need to find the answers for their project.

Other classes have used a search engine called netTrekker. netTrekker is a paid service, but I think it is terrific for elementary schools. First, it provides students with a safer search area than the standard search engines do, since all sites are evaluated for their appropriateness. Second, it provides a read-aloud feature that will read any highlighted text for students. Third, I can create bookmarked lists ahead of time for students to access that are based on "animal".

I help out students who are having trouble finding answers. I also designate students who finish quickly as "Teacher Helpers" who get to help other students. Generally, we do get all of our answers found in one 50-minute period, although I do designate two days for this just in case.

Finding Pictures

The next step is for students to find pictures of their animals. Sometimes I also have the students draw a picture of their animal on the computer using the available drawing program. Our picture search always comes from one place: Pics4Learning.com. Pics4Learning.com is a free image library for education that provides teachers and students with thousands of copyright-friendly photos and images for classroom projects. I teach students how to download the images by clicking the "Download Image" button. For simplicity, students just save to the desktop of their computers. I can quickly move them later to the school server for faster access.

Chroma Key

Afterward, I photograph each student standing in front of a green backdrop. The green will be replaced by the images students downloaded earlier. This technique is called "chroma key" (chroma key compositing or chroma keying). It can be done very easily with a simple green background (or any other solid color that students are not wearing). I do enough green screen projects that I have spray painted an old projection screen green. I also keep a cardigan or lab coat on hand for those students who are wearing green so their clothes don't disappear.

To do the chroma key magic, I use a program called Frames, by Tech4Learning. I start by importing a picture of the student's animal and a picture of the student. These get imported on to the same page or frame. Then, I remove the green background from the student photo using the chroma key feature on the toolbar. This reveals the animal photo behind it and makes it look like the student is part of the animal photo. The same can be done with video as well as still images.

Don't worry if you can't afford to buy new software; you can do the same chroma key magic with Windows Movie Maker and iMovie. There are dozens of video tutorials on YouTube that will walk you through the entire process.

Writing Scripts and Recording

The final step is to prepare a script for the students. I help them rewrite the answers from their PowerPoint-created planning sheets into the scripts. Finally, I connect a microphone to the computer and record students reading what they learned about their animals. This can take some time, so I prepare an independent activity for students to complete while they wait their turn. When I can, I'll recruit a few 5th grade students to come do the recording just to make it go faster. 5th graders can be a teacher's best resource sometimes.

Red Carpet Premiere

The best part of the entire project is Premiere Day. After all the projects are complete, I roll out a red carpet and we watch everyone's finished movies. Every time, without fail, students get embarrassed when their movie is playing and then they giggle with excitement during everyone else's movies. They applaud for each other and help build each others' self-esteem and confidence. They become so proud of these movies, which I love. I love that I can give them a project they become excited about and that they want to share. Those are the days that I love being a teacher.

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Blog Post: My BETT 2012 Highlights: Mathematics Games and the ActivTable

serge.tasic — Wed, 01 Feb 2012 17:07:00 GMT

If you're someone who loves technology in the classroom, then you probably do not miss the large IT fairs. BETT in London is one of the largest international fairs, which every year gathers all the people who support the use of IT in everyday education.

I personally make sure that every year at BETT I get a feel for the whole shift in the thinking of the companies present, and visit my favourite companies and their exhibitions.

One of the themes that I've noticed is the urge from most of the companies to make their software-type products available for all popular platforms.

Mangahigh.com: Game-Based Learning

If you're like me, convinced that gaming is the future of tackling students' engagement in learning and developing mathematical skills beyond the subject specific, then I recommend you visit Mangahigh.com. This is a company that I have been following from day one. The problem is, whenever I get to speak to the guys from Mangahigh, I always find that they're taking a step further and doing more to engage as many students as possible in doing mathematics. It's so hard to keep the pace with them that I feel almost out of touch if I have not played for some time!

Two pieces of information that I picked up from Mangahigh really excited me. First is a new game called Wrecks Factor and I have been playing it since I came home. You probably guessed it: the game is based around the factorisation of quadratic equations. I can tell you the challenge is there even for the old maths teacher who has been doing this stuff for a number of years. Keeping up with the time and being able to apply the factorisation quickly is extremely hard!!! Not to mention that the equations increase in their difficulty. But there is one thing that Mangahigh does very clearly: their support mechanism – in the form of a presentation of the mathematical model – is absolutely spot on. If you have seen Mangahigh before you have probably noticed that they are trying their best to incorporate accurate modelling in all of their games.

The second game I discovered at BETT is the Tangled Web; this one is about the properties of angles. In order to get little Itzi to complete the goal, you need to make sure all the calculations are accurate for him to move and reach the next level. But, there is one very clever thing: you need to turn the maze clockwise in order for him to slide along the 'web' angle sides. So, the whole representation confirms the definition that the angle is the amount of turn. But all of this is not presented as a definition; it's just a game!

I'm not affiliated with Mangahigh, so there is no hidden agenda in my recommendation, but considering that the games are free to try and free for schools in UK and US, there should be no excuse for you not to give them a go!

Promethean ActivTable: A Game Changer

Back to BETT, where I then visited Promethean's stand. Well, I know you are going to say that I have to mention Promethean, as I am blogging on Promethean Planet. Let me reassure you that my friends from Promethean over the years have heard some very strong and constructive criticisms as well as compliments from me.

So, what happened? I fell in love with the piece of interactive furniture!!!

Arriving at the Promethean stand, visitors took a journey through a cleverly designed display that demonstrated aspects of products with the focus on engagement and interaction. We were, in the nicest possible way, directed through the stand to try, get involved and work with a range of Promethean products.

In the middle of the journey, there was an interactive table. I know that tables of this kind are not new on the market, but this one is designed with schools in mind!

The screen is the largest I have seen (46-inch full HD LCD display). It gives the opportunity for six students to work together at the same time, exchange, develop ideas and communicate to the teacher and the rest of the class individually or as a group.

Apart from the keyboard and the web browsing, the tools library contains maths tools that I think will bring collaboration in mathematics to a whole new level. I presume that there are many other tools, but time was limited. Students are able to change, move and share their work by just moving the items around with their fingers.

One of the greatest features, I think, is the ability of the students at the table to put all the work together and pass it to the teacher and the rest of the class to look at.

Searching the Web for interactive tables, you will see many stylish designs available. What you are not going to find is one like this, which allows students to sit properly at the table in order to have full access and work together at the same time!

You can see the ActivTable in action by watching the following video I found on YouTube. I hope that more will be added in time.

[View:http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PwGDBtrLu74&list=UUo5E5KqZSeD6XAAU0tNBpJg&index=1&feature=plcp]

If you have read any of my previous blog posts, you're probably asking yourself 'Is he going to buy one?' Well, maybe not right now ... perhaps in a few years' time, but I will make sure I try it again as soon as possible.

Oh, and thank you all for replies to my articles. It is very nice to get your feedback and comments.

Regards,
Serge

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Blog Post: Active Mathematics: Teaching Perimeter and Area

Pat Verhoeven — Fri, 27 Jan 2012 20:16:00 GMT

Teaching mathematics has changed a great deal since I began teaching at the junior high level in 1968. When I started my classroom had blackboards on each wall. Students sat in rows, and I had 38-40 students for 5 periods a day. Instruction was done primarily using the lecture method and using an overhead. A few videos were shown each quarter, and homework was assigned daily. I found the students were quite bored and many were tuned out to what was being taught.

After I got my feet on the ground during my first year of teaching I began to move away from using only the accepted lecture method of instruction. I began grouping students in pairs and in small groups to collect data, solve problems and present conclusions for many things I taught. What I found was amazing! The students actually liked what they were doing. That started me on an Active Learning Path. I began to develop activities and projects in many areas of mathematics for both the elementary and middle school. As I walked around the room asking probing questions, watching how problems were solved, and listening to students speak using math language, I found that I learned as much as the students.

Today’s blog focuses on measurement, perimeter, area and volume using activities that can bring that ZING to your classroom as students work interactively on projects they enjoy.

I have provided you with a group of excellent resource sites and sample activities. Space is limited so I was only able to show you a portion of my favorites, but I am sure you will find many of your own.

Gr. K-1: Dinosaur Train
This activity practices measuring dinosaurs in nonstandard units. After finishing the activity, try the Even Bigger Than T. Rex in the list of lessons. Mark off and layout a grid, and have the students walk across and then run back across the grid to understand their size. Back in the classroom you can compare other dinosaur sizes and collect other information.

Gr. 3: Shape Investigations
In this activity from Mathwire, called Shape Investigations students develop the concept that two figures that have the same perimeter do not necessarily have the same area and vice versa.

Gr. 3-6: Building a Fence by PBS LearningMedia, Video by Cyberchase
Harley convinced his brother to help put up a fence in the backyard where their grandmother wanted a fenced rectangular area with a gate (3’ wide) for a vegetable garden. The pieces of fence he had to put together were 8 ft., 6 ft., 4 ft., 3 ft., and 3 ft. long. Harry‘s fence was missing the gate. After watching the video, students need to strategize and correctly rebuild the fence. Have students make a diagram of the completed fence and gate on grid paper.

Gr. 4-6: “Mavericks and Measurement” by Rhonda Bailey
Math Can Take You Places Video
Lesson Plan
This project is about the special needs of professional basketball players in hotel rooms while on the road as told by the Head Trainer of the Mavericks. The standard size bed in a hotel is 5’ wide X 6’ 2/3’’. In this project the student creates a room arrangement and bed (60 sq. ft. or less in area) for a 7’ 6” player. In addition, they will arrange the bed, dresser, and night stand in the hotel room effectively. Use grid paper to layout the design and include three 3’ doorways into the room.

Gr. 6-8: PBSLearningMedia: Math Project
Million Dollar Giveaway © 1997
The video shows the teacher rushing into her classroom telling the students she has just won a million dollars given away by a local radio station. All she had to do was take a suitcase to the station and they would fill it with whatever number of dollar bills that would fit in the suitcase. The students were asked to help her figure out how much money she could win. It comes with a lesson plan and any necessary materials.

Gr. 2-12: Middle School Portal Discover Resources
This links you to 31 perimeter resources including area resources, volume resources, and length resources. This is an excellent site (especially for manipulatives) and the activities range from second grade through high school.

I hope you have found this information helpful and please let me know if there are others should be included. I would love to hear how you use active learning in your classroom.

This article is from Planet's educator-penned blogging series: the Planet Teachers' Lounge.

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Blog Post: Flipped Classroom/Professional Development: Week 21 Summary

Planet Editorial Team — Wed, 25 Jan 2012 16:45:00 GMT

Over the past few months, we've been following the progress of two initiatives coordinated by Planet member Wayne Feller. Both initiatives—Flipped Math Classroom and Flipped Professional Development (PD)—are based on the Flipped Classroom model, as pioneered by the Khan Academy, among others.

We set up the Flipped group on Planet in which Wayne has been keeping a 100-day diary in the form of a blog that describes the processes, highlights and developments throughout the trial phases of his two initiatives. We're now coming to the end of that 100-day period and both projects have proven to be extremely popular with the educators involved. The Flipped PD project has already moved into Phase 2 and now the Flipped Math Classroom project has reached a critical stage, with a decision imminent as to whether or not to continue beyond the pilot.

Below, Wayne summarizes last week's entries in the Flipped blog.

The Flipped blog post for Day 95 was a transcription of the question/answer part of the Session 2 presentation on the Flipped Math Classroom at the Minnesota School Board Association Conference on Thursday, January 12, 2012. Questions from the attending standing-room-only audience asked about:

the specifics of the Math Expressions curriculum
the advantages of choosing math as a target content area for the pilot project
support from parents
expectations for homework assignments
how to deal with students who do not view the movies at home
tracking how and when students view the instructional movies
trusting the delivery styles of other teachers who make videos
the pacing of individual students.

The blog post for Day 96 shared current thinking about the workflow for creating an instructional movie. Preparation for the lesson includes preparing flipcharts with interactive components. iMovie is used to capture the teacher's direct "comments to the student." The instruction centering around the concepts of the lesson are captured in a video created by the ActivInspire Area Screen Recorder. This movie clip is added to iMovie and is combined with the teacher comments in a "picture in picture" style. After exporting this movie to Vimeo, the embed HTML code is used to place the movie back into the same flipchart created for the lesson.

Day 97's blog entry discussed what a sustainable model of expansion of the Flipped Math Classroom would look like. Will the Flipped Math Classroom be continued or expanded? A decision will be made very soon. If expansion is chosen, a number of factors need to be considered:

What will be the scope (content areas, grade levels)?
From the standpoint of timing, will it be better to do it immediately or wait until the beginning of the school year?
How will the issue of training be addressed for teachers and students?
Where will the resources come from in a climate of significant budget reductions?

There are three blog posts remaining in the 100-day Flipped blog:

Day 98: "The Future of Flipped Professional Development"
Day 99: "The Future of Flipped Math Classroom"
Day 100: "Flipped Math Classroom/Flipped PD: Recap and Reflections."

These final blog posts will be added to the Flipped blog within the next few days. If you've been following either of the initiatives, particularly with a view of implementing similar projects in your own district or school, we hope you'll find these closing articles an interesting climax to what has been a very exciting and innovative period for all the educators and students involved.

To keep up to date with all the progress from these Flipped Math Classroom and Flipped Professional Development initiatives, join the Flipped group on Planet.

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Blog Post: Promethean Planet in 2012: The Best Teachers and the Best Resources

Planet Editorial Team — Mon, 23 Jan 2012 17:11:00 GMT

Looking back over the past year, I feel very privileged to say that 2011 was a great year for Promethean Planet. Not content to rest on our laurels, we've got even higher expectations for 2012!

When we reflect on our achievements in 2011, the milestone that stands out the most is the Planet community passing a million members. The more educators there are on Planet and the more active they are, the more worthwhile a contribution Planet makes. This website really is the sum of its community contributions, and the Planet team is well aware that the awards it has received from CODiE, World Didac and the education press are in large part reflected glories from the community's own efforts. We are inspired by the hard work and ingenuity of our members every day. Thank you!

The Planet team here at Promethean is a facilitator, sometime animator and, in all cases, trustee of and for the community. The most visible efforts are in partnering to source innovative, free, digital content from truly world class arts, science and education organizations such as NIA/NASA, the National Theatre, Georgia Aquarium and the Royal Geographic Society. We are very privileged, and proud, to work with these organizations, and are excited by the new partnerships we'll launch into the community in 2012.

On the site itself, we have been expanding our editorial features with guest bloggers on a range of subjects, from managing classroom conflict, to QR Codes in Education and the Flipped Classroom Model. We're always looking for new authors who would like to share their own classroom experiences about what has worked well and what hasn't, so if you fancy a byline on the Planet blog please get in touch by leaving a comment on this article!

Operationally, we're still catching up with the site's growth. Last January, we swapped our hosting arrangements, which helped enormously with providing you more reliable access to Planet. We're still not where we would like to be and we know site performance remains a concern for members, especially during busy hours. The next steps for improvement require some "application re-architecting" (re-designing to you and me!) and this will happen during 2012.

Engagement

Our theme for 2012 is engagement. For the Planet community that means:

More resources: Last year, we opened up Planet's resource library to all file types and it now contains thousands of non-Promethean format resources. In 2012, we're especially looking to increase our stock of lesson plans, worksheets and other resource types, so if you've got great resources please share them with the community. We'll also be launching new aids to help you find relevant resources more quickly.
More support: In February, we're launching the Planet "Super Users" program. This is a specially selected group of people who we're recognizing for their experience and influence on Planet and in the wider education community. The Super Users will connect with other community members to share experiences, resources and generally offer moral and practical support. The program will start on the US and UK sites, and eventually cover all our main territories/languages.
More partners: We will be continuing to partner with top-notch organizations to bring free resources to Planet that you won't find anywhere else.
More recognition: In 2011, we recognized and rewarded our most active resource contributors. You may have also noticed that our home page now includes a "Top Member" leaderboard. This year we will be significantly increasing our recognition programs, so expect some surprises and keep contributing!

A Balancing Act

Perhaps a last word about commercialization. We know having features like a store and advertisements on Planet doesn't always sit easy with all our members.

Here's where we stand on the issue: Promethean is a public, listed education technology company and, while it is fully committed to supporting Planet as a free community, Planet is a major annual investment for the company. Therefore, any revenues that we can generate directly through advertising or services beyond the free community and resources will increase the funds available to put back into the site.

Our publisher created resources are one such revenue stream, with titles from Collins, Dorling Kindersley, National Geographic and others all available in the Planet Store. These resources differ from the typical free digital content offerings; they are professionally produced and informed by our own instructional design experts working with the publishers' curriculum experts. This is an area we will continue to expand, with the launch in 2012 of our joint Common Core Math K-12 product with Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, and our Channel One News and Channel One News Interactiv Junior services.

It is a balancing act and we feel the tension between our mission to build the world's best online education community, and the commercial requirements to fund this expansion in members, resources and services. We may not always get it right and please feedback if you ever think this is the case, as we rely on Planet members to help us strike the right balance. Although I can assure you that the ex-teachers who make up more than a quarter of Promethean staff are often the first to let us know!

I'll sign off by saying how excited we are about our plans for 2012 and that we look forward to delivering "more and better" to the Planet community. Our long-term objective, working with you all, is to make Planet the go-to place for online education resources, and the place to find great teachers. All the best for 2012!

Brent Taggart
President, Community & Content Division

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Blog Post: Creative Lesson Ideas: Measuring with Young Children

Lorraine Munro — Wed, 18 Jan 2012 18:00:00 GMT

I am an Early Years (pre-school) Practitioner working alongside two Primary One teachers in a city school in Dundee, Scotland. We work closely together to meet the needs of our young people.

One of the experiences and outcomes within mathematics that we work towards within our Scottish Curriculum for Excellence is measure:

"I have experimented with everyday items as units of measure to investigate and compare sizes and amounts in my environment, sharing my findings with others." (MNU 0-11a)

This is our experiences of learning measure in Primary One. At the time of these activities, it was Halloween. As with lots of our learning, it is contextualized. Most of these activities, although based around Halloween, can be adapted for any context.

We began by sharing the Sesame Street "Measure Yeah Measure" clip with the children.

[View:http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ol2ZhswtMhY]

Although it does mention feet and inches and we teach metres and centimetres, our intention was to help the children remember the word 'measure'. This definitely worked. Although we found we all sang the song!

We talked to the children about what they knew about measuring already and showed them different things we use for measuring.

Here are some of the activities that our classes experienced during our introduction of measure.

Height Chart

We downloaded a printable height chart and set this up as an activity. The children were supported in measuring their height on the chart and they each recorded this by writing their name on a slip of paper and I wrote down their height. They attached this to the height chart and compared their height to others in the class. They used phrase like 'smaller than', 'taller than', and 'the same size as'.

Scales

We had printed cards available for the children to copy from. We provided them with 'compare bears' (these are big, middle-sized and small bears in primary colours), as well as a set of scales. This activity was a free activity in that there was no directed activity or outcome. The children were given the opportunity to explore with their peers. We found that they experimented with different bears, different amounts of bears and they used lots of measuring language. We observed discussions around 'heavy', 'light', 'heavier than', 'lighter than', 'balanced', 'balancing', 'more' and 'less'.

Sorting

We introduced this activity with a bag of items that we explained to the children had got all muddled. We asked them to sort them into two circles: long things and short things. There was lots of discussion around 'long', 'short', 'longer', 'shorter', 'longer than' and 'shorter than'.

Witches and Broomsticks

Another activity that was contextualised was 'Witches and Broomsticks'. We asked the children to draw pictures of tall witches and short witches, which we sorted into sets of tall and short. Then we drew long broomsticks and short broomsticks and sorted those too.

Apples

As it was autumn at the time, we bought lots of apples and organised some of the lessons around them. One of the activities we did was measuring each other using the apples. This introduced using non-standard units of measurement to the children. They all lay down on the floor as they laid the apples alongside each other. We counted and recorded the length for each child.

Cubes

The cubes activity was another method of encouraging the children to use items as non-standard units of measure. This activity was one the children did without support. They measured using cubes, wrote their name on the laminated sheet and then took a photograph of it to keep as a record.

Pumpkins

We had lots of pumpkins around the classroom. Plastic ones, soft and cuddly ones, and, of course, real ones. The teachers and I introduced measuring around things by using a tape measure and introducing the words 'centimetres' and 'circumference'. Lots of the children were already aware of numbers up to 100 and they confidently recorded their findings in their sheet. For those who needed support, they completed theirs sheet with a learning partner. A follow-on activity from this was a free choice activity for which the children had decided which items they would like to measure around. Those who completed this had their record sheet added to our Numeracy Learning Wall.

Assessment

A finish off activity for this was an assessment flipchart created to use with ActivExpression voting devices, which the children are already confident in using. The answers created using this flipchart, our observations and the activities that we carried out helped us determine our next steps as they showed us what measure words the children understood so far.

Download Assessment Flipchart

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Blog Post: Flipped Classroom/Professional Development: Week 20 Summary

Planet Editorial Team — Tue, 17 Jan 2012 17:58:00 GMT

The Flipped group on Planet follows the progress of two initiatives—Flipped Math Classroom and Flipped Professional Development (PD)—run by Planet member Wayne Feller and based on the Flipped Classroom model.

Below, Wayne provides a summary of last week's entries in the Flipped blog, a daily diary that charts the progress of both projects.

The Flipped blog entry for Day 90 outlined an idea for combining instructional videos with interactive flipcharts. When sections of an instructional video are created, they are uploaded to Vimeo. The embed code for each of these video sections is copied and inserted into a flipchart using Insert > File > embed HTML. Between the pages that contain these embedded videos are interactive pages for students. By downloading the Personal Edition of ActivInspire software at home, students can use these kinds of charts to view the instructional videos and work on interactive components. Links are also added to the flipcharts that bring the student to their Moodle login page, where they can take an online quiz about those instructional videos. Teachers can also use the same flipcharts in class the next day.

The Day 91 blog post recalled the series of Flipped Professional Development meetings at Withrow elementary school last week. Although the content of these sessions varied from teacher to teacher, the overall theme explored was "empowerment". Teachers become empowered when they:

learn how to implement self-sustaining techniques for communication
develop the confidence for completing a project with multiple steps
understand the connected relationships of various techniques and tools
know when (as well as how) to use tools
understand the context for applications and techniques
achieve the goal of producing a meaningful project.

The "Wax Museum" project was the focus for the blog post for Day 92. Sometimes the inspiration for a professional development project comes from teachers who can use the success of one project to propel them into a vision for extending or elaborating that project in the future. The Wax Museum project will eventually include a flipchart with an interactive timeline and embedded HTML videos, as well as Google doc journals and live performances.

Student ideas are also a source of inspiration for Flipped Professional Development projects. This idea was explored in the blog post for Day 93. Inspired by student ideas, a project called "QR Code Scavenger Hunt" uses the technique for creating and reading QR codes to explore the culture strands of ancient civilizations and communicate the results in a digital school newspaper.

The blog post for Day 94 was a transcription of a question/answer session that followed a presentation at the Minnesota school board association conference on January 12, 2012. Two back-to-back presentations were given at this conference. This blog post communicated the questions and answers from the first of these sessions.

To keep up to date with all the progress from these Flipped Math Classroom and Flipped Professional Development initiatives, join the Flipped group on Planet.

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Blog Post: Fixing Education: The State of the US Education System

Adrienne Phillips — Fri, 13 Jan 2012 17:21:00 GMT

I might be a little late and perhaps behind the eight ball on this topic, but there seems to be a lot of interest in the performance of the US education system lately. This could be because it's an election year, but I like to think that the reason for the emphasis is because there is finally some proof or, at the very least, some acknowledgment that the education system in America is "broken". I know, I know. I can see all of you nodding your heads as you read as if you are saying, "I told you so," but for the sake of argument and complete honestly, let's take a look at what is being said.

Recently, I watched a re-airing of Restoring America's Dream: Fixing Education on CNN. I am not going to say I was alarmed or even shocked at what was being said about the American education system and how it compares to the top performing systems in the world, Finland and South Korea, but I will say it was, eye opening. Here are some of the statistics that were shared:

The United States ranks 15th in reading, 23rd in science and 31st in math in the world.
In 2007, over $10,000 was being spent per student in the US.
Out of 100 students entering high school in the US, 25 won't graduate and 50 will move on to college. More disappointing than that is of the 50 that move on to college, only 22 will graduate college within six years!

Sure I am not in the classroom anymore, but I am still an educator, and all I can say is: Wow. Again, I can't say I am alarmed, but surely these numbers did not happen overnight, right?

Numbers Don't Lie, Or Do They?

Where is education going wrong? This is a hot button with a lot of us. Blame is being put on the system, on the teachers, on parents, on teacher unions, on government ... you name it, blame is being thrown in every direction. It makes my head spin.

Who are the victims? Don't the students suffer as a result of all this blame being tossed around?

According to this broadcast, South Korea has what is considered one of the top performing education systems in the world. Their teachers are known as nation builders, and parents tend to place more emphasis on their child's performance in education, spending around 20% of their income on tutoring. Students are in school roughly 8 hours a day for 205 days a year. If you crunch the numbers, this works out to the average South Korean student spending roughly two more years in school than American students. Education seems to be embedded in their culture.

Is there a downside to all this emphasis and pressure? Sure there is. South Korea has a much higher student suicide rate. So alarming is the suicide rate that there is a movement to lower the emphasis being put on the college entrance exams, thus lessening the stress placed on students.

Maybe the way South Korea has structured their education system isn't your cup of tea. If you go to the far opposite end of the spectrum, you will find Finland. This report referred to Finland as being "on the surface the education world's ultimate slacker."

Why? In Finland, teachers are required to have a master’s degree, but assign less homework. In fact, students log fewer hours in the classroom, but surpass most of the world in academics. It's that whole quality over quantity mentality, and perhaps it's something to be considered. According to this report, Finland is ranked first in the world for science and second in the world for math. Finland does not place an emphasis on standardized tests; actually, there are no standardized tests! Furthermore, the national curriculum is used as a framework guide, and teachers are empowered to teach their students how they want and encouraged to collaborate not compete with each other.

Can you give me an "Amen!"

Think for a moment ... are we really comparing apples to apples?

The United States has a higher percentage of poverty and is more diverse culturally when compared to South Korea and Finland. Is this an excuse? I think most would agree these are valid challenges US educators face, but is this why the United States education system is failing? Is this why the system faces such an uphill battle in the race for the title of best education system in the world?

At this point you might be thinking, “Ok Adrienne, what’s your take on it all then?”

I think most teachers, including me, would agree that standardized tests are not the best way to measure or gauge student learning. It’s how a student applies a concept. Performance should be considered when deciding whether a skill is learned or not.

I also think student engagement plays a huge factor in whether a concept is understood or not. If students are not invested in what is going on in the class, then chances are they aren’t going to retain any of what is going on in the class.

Another thing that is upsetting as a teacher and a parent are the cutbacks in art, music, foreign language and physical education classes in school. Aren't we supposed to foster and nurture creativity? Hasn't it been proven that these types of programs benefit students’ overall well-being and increase learning? Or am I mistaken?

So I ask myself, what are top performing education systems doing differently? How do their standards differ from the standards in the United States?

Do I think the answer to fixing the education system is simple and straightforward? No, but with all the reports I have read, the documentaries I have seen and through my own personal experiences as an educator, I think we are pointing blame in the wrong place. I think we need to start examining why the US education system is in a rut. Why are educators feeling the pressure so much that they resort to cheating on standardized tests? Why are some students able to attend a brand new school where teachers fight to work there, and other students are forced to attend a rundown facility struggling to find teachers to fill their classrooms?

My question to you is: Do we need to improve our standards by pursuing education excellence or equality? Is it possible to strive for both?

You tell me...

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Blog Post: Digit Cards Flipchart – Mathematics Resource to Download and Adapt

Liz Gibbs — Thu, 12 Jan 2012 11:40:00 GMT

Note: This article and the associated flipchart are particularly useful for the teachers of borderline Level 3/4 Year 6 children (UK curriculum). For those readers outside of the UK, Year 6 covers ages 9–10; the ideas and flipchart can easily be adapted to suit the ability of your students around this age.

I've been working with borderline Level 3/4 Year 6 children for the last few years, supporting teachers, teaching classes, groups and individuals across the UK and in my home county of Suffolk. Year 6 teachers or subject leaders will not need reminding that the spring term is the last full term of teaching for Year 6 before the children sit their statutory tests in May.

In my next two or three blogs, I'd like to address some key areas that children could easily answer but usually perform badly in. Borderline children have very little confidence in their mathematical ability. If the SATs paper question appears overly wordy or tricky, they will assume that they cannot possibly answer it.

Borderline children usually read a question only once and without thinking or re-reading the question; they will then do one of two things:

guess at an answer without thinking, sometimes not even using the digits offered in the question
leave the answer box blank and move onto the next question.

Digit card questions appear throughout the Level 3 to 5 test papers. Some of the early digit card questions are Level 3 standard, so in essence, the children are throwing early marks away by guessing or not attempting to answer them.

We presume that the children will find these early questions straightforward and, therefore, concentrate on other areas of mathematics. By being given some support in the mathematics lesson, children can be given the confidence to read and re-read questions, think, retrieve properties of number facts, reason and attempt an answer.

I've recently used the approach in the flipchart that accompanies this article, alongside concrete materials such as digit cards, student whiteboards pens and erasers. The flipchart can be used in any part of the daily mathematics lesson.

Download Digit Cards Flipchart

Children need:

to see questions answered and modelled by the teacher
to be given some time to practise answering questions on their own
to be encouraged to slow down and think about what the question is asking
to be given time to use their reasoning skills and knowledge of numbers to answer the question correctly.

Prior learning:

Understand the properties of numbers, such as odd, even, multiple, etc.
Understand key vocabulary
Have a secure knowledge of place value

You may decide to add a few additional pages to the flipchart for assessment purposes. This would provide an ideal opportunity to use your voting system (e.g. ActiVote/ActivExpression).

Can the children identify:

an odd number
an even number
a multiple of 10
a square number
a prime number, etc.?

The flipchart contains the following information.

Page 1

On page 1, you will find instructions.

Page 2

On page 2, you will see a number-based problem. There are several possible answers. Encourage the children to work in pairs. Provide them with digit cards or place value cards. After a short while, ask the children to write the problem out in full on a mini whiteboard. Encourage pairs of children to explain their choice of cards for the tens and units position. Check that the children's two two-digit numbers total 100.

Page 3

On page 3, you will see the same question; however, this time, one of the digits has been placed in the units position of one of the two-digit numbers. Again, ask the children to work in pairs using digit cards or place value cards to solve the problem.

Pages 4–6

On pages 4, 5 and 6, you will see a similar problem, but this time two digits have been added and on pages 5 and 6 the total has been changed. Ask the children to work in pairs using the digit cards or place value cards to solve the problem.

Page 7

On page 7, you will see a similar problem, but this time there are only a few digit cards available.

Page 8

On this page, you will see two possible answers to the previous page.

Pages 9–10

On page 9, you will find a vertical addition problem and the answer on page 10.

Pages 11–12

On page 11, you will find a multiplication problem for the children to solve. This is quite tricky, as there are several two-digit numbers that when doubled will make a three-digit number, but only one combination that will use all five digit cards. The answer is on page 12.

Extending the Exercise

Encourage children to make up some questions of their own for the class or set to solve. Check the questions first before asking the class to solve them. The children enjoy watching others solve their number problems.

Feedback

It would be lovely to have some feedback from Year 6 teachers (or your country's equivalent) as to whether you found this contribution helpful.

This article is from Planet's educator-penned blogging series: the Planet Teachers' Lounge.

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Blog Post: Flipped Classroom/Professional Development: Week 19 Summary

Planet Editorial Team — Tue, 10 Jan 2012 15:55:00 GMT

Last week, we updated you on the Flipped blog posts from the end of 2011. These covered summaries of the Flipped Math Classroom and Flipped Professional Development (PD) initiatives run by Planet member Wayne Feller, from conception to implementation. If you're at all intrigued by the Flipped Classroom model and haven't yet read these entries, they've been particularly popular so we urge you to take a look.

Now that schools in Wayne's district (Stillwater, Minnesota) are back in session following the holidays, Wayne's picked up the Flipped diary blog for 2012. Below, he offers an overview of last week's entries.

The final Flipped blog entry of 2011 (Day 85) gave a detailed summary of the various blog posts between Day 1 and Day 85. A decision time is near for the pilot phase of the Flipped Math Classroom. From the beginning, the middle of January was targeted as a time to make a decision about the future of Flipped Math in Stillwater. Two of the original options, discontinuing or contracting, do not seem feasible at this point. The participating Flipped Math teachers have already indicated that they want to continue no matter what. The two best options remaining are continuing with the Flipped group or expanding the project for others.

The blog post for Day 86 featured the description of a project for classroom music teachers called "Compose Yourself". A companion flipchart was prepared for this project and was uploaded to the Promethean Planet resource library. This project uses a collaboration technique to employ GarageBand for a classroom music composition project.

On Day 87, the blog entry featured an idea for Flipped Professional Development called "Teacher Guide for Google Docs". An instructional movie was prepared for teachers. This instructional video shows teachers how to use inserted comments, Google collections, and revision history to interact and guide students in appropriate ways with Google Docs.

The blog post for Day 88 illustrated ideas for a social studies journaling project for fifth grade students. After students create online journals in the first-person narrative of a historical person or event, the teacher has several options for publishing these journals. These options include:

producing an ebook
producing classroom linked renditions
producing audio podcasts
using a flipchart for collaborative editing.

The blog entry for Day 89 was a recap of the Flipped PD experience over the past few months. This blog post summarized how each elementary school at Stillwater implements this project. There are several variations of Flipped Professional Development. One type is an all-school variation where all of the teaching staff is included. In two schools, the entire staff participates all year in six total sessions. In another school, half of the staff participates in semester one while the other half participates in semester two. The voluntary variation is one where teachers can choose to participate either during the entire year or for one semester. In some schools, nearly every teacher volunteers. A third variation is an "emerging" model where participation is informal. These teachers have access to all of the resources, but they use the services of a technology integration specialist in less structured ways.

To keep up to date with all the progress from these Flipped Math Classroom and Flipped Professional Development initiatives, join the Flipped group on Planet.

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Blog Post: An iPad for Christmas? Learning through Apps

serge.tasic — Mon, 09 Jan 2012 17:30:00 GMT

Being someone who loves gadgets and IT stuff, most of my money goes on buying the latest and most desired gadgets.

For this purpose, I have to say that I am Apple addict. And this is not just referring to the famous company that has redefined many aspects of our everyday communication and, dare I say, life. No, my fridge has to have a good supply of apples, as I cannot go through the day without having one. I do not know if there is a connection between the two?!?

Whenever I travel and wherever I go, my iPhone and iPad have to come with me. Yes, I know, I am completely dependent on them and cannot imagine how I would organise my life if I had to be without them.

This Christmas, I visited my brother and his family. The main focus of my stay was my little nephew, Peter, who has just turned three and is increasingly interested in exploration of the world around him. Most of the time this ends up with many broken toys and disjointed dinosaurs, but little Peter is not fazed by this. Finding out what is inside and how it works seems to be the focus of any new toy.

At one point during my stay, I had to switch on my iPad to check what was happening in the world outside. Without a delay, Peter was next to me trying to see what was going on with that funny looking toy in my hand. He sat next to me and observed in absolute silence while I was sliding the pages of the newspaper on the screen and reading particular articles.

He was observing me quietly and not making a sound. This was strange for his parents who observed this and they made a comment, 'Maybe we should get him one ...' followed by 'if we could afford it ...' and 'I wonder how long it would be before he'd want to see what is inside.'

That stopped me in my tracks and I immediately thought: let's see what Peter will do with the iPad. You can imagine the faces of my family when they realised that I was about to give a three-year-old one of the most expensive gadgets around!

iPads and Apps: Child's Play?

Peter took the iPad in his hands and first had a good look around.

I started for him Tesla Toy, a simple interactive app, which creates active particles that group around the touch on the screen.

Peter looked at the starting screen and enjoyed the little particles moving around.

Then he looked at me and pointed his index finger to the screen getting ready to touch it.

His face just lit up with excitement and joy, followed by a giggle and laughter.

Peter removed his finger, looked at me and I asked him 'What would you like to do next?' He stopped for a millisecond, looked at the screen and pointed both of his index fingers towards the screen.

Now, at this point I have to mention to you that I had this app from the first day it was released and I always used one finger. I know that iPad is a multi-touch screen but, for some reason, my brain did not prompt me to try something more than just making a picture with one finger.

Going back to Peter, he was excited again, and laughed at the outcome. And then something interesting happened. He stood up, holding the iPad firmly in his hands, put it on a coffee table in front of him and started to put, one by one, his fingers on to the screen. He would make a small break each time to observe the change on the screen and then continue. He stopped communicating with us and absolutely focused on the exploration.

After finishing the observation of the five-finger image, he stopped again.

Then he decided to put his whole hand onto the screen ...

I have to say, Peter was not impressed, as he could not clearly see what was beneath his hand!

At this point, he looked at us with a smile, stood back from the coffee table and looked at the iPad, and then ... he started walking away. He picked up a little truck he got for Christmas and sat down to play with it.

A Step Too Far?

The family continued with their conversation and everything went back to normal. Until my sister in law gasped: 'NO!'

Peter, having returned to the iPad, had placed it on the floor, removed his shoe and sock, and was pressing his foot on to the screen to see what would happen.

He looked at his horrified mother and said 'Not working,' referring to the fact that he couldn't see the picture due to his food being over it.

He took his foot off the screen, put his sock and shoe back on and walked away, not to touch the iPad again.

Personally, I was a bit sad that Peter did not want to play more with the app, as his parents played with it much longer than he did.

Peter had explored the app, tried all possibilities, found out what it does and doesn't do and then moved on to exploring a much more complicated truck, which had many more parts to pull apart. He managed to learn all there was to learn about this application and moved on to a more complex task of dismantling the truck and putting it together again. I wondered if I could get him an app with a virtual truck that he could dismantle and put together without danger of injuring himself and destroying the toy.

I called Peter back and took captures of the screen while he was repeating the actions from before – these are the pictures you can see above.

In order to give more options to Peter, I downloaded a whole set of similar apps and gave them to him, one by one, to explore. With each app, Peter spent less and less time playing with them, as they were all coming to the same outcome.

You are probably wondering if I will be buying Peter his first iPad for next Christmas. I have to say I am tempted, but I do not think that he can wait another year!

So, How Does This Relate to Education?

iPad or not, this experience confirmed my previous conviction that children can explore and learn using ICT independently from an early stage. You might ask 'What did Peter learn?' Well, he explored and learnt that this particular app responded to not just the touch of one finger, compared to his uncle and parents who were still finding one-finger motions fascinating.

The question is this: are there enough apps on the market that will cover the range of interests of all learners and satisfy different exploratory minds?

I would appreciate if you would let me know your experiences and suggest a range of apps I can get onto Peter's iPad ... when he gets it.

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Many thanks to pdj apps for granting permission to include the screen captures of Tesla Toy.
Apple, iPhone and iPad are trademarks of Apple Inc., registered in the U.S. and other countries.

Blog Post: Flipped Classroom/Professional Development: Weeks 17 and 18 Summary

Planet Editorial Team — Thu, 05 Jan 2012 15:00:00 GMT

One of the big talking points in education last year was the Flipped Classroom model. Here on Planet, we set up the Flipped group to follow the progress of two initiatives in Stillwater, Minnesota, elementary schools inspired by the Flipped Classroom:

Flipped Mathematics Classroom
Flipped Professional Development (PD)

Both initiatives are being coordinated by Planet member, Wayne Feller, who is keeping a daily diary (the Flipped Blog) detailing developments in the projects. Below, Wayne summarizes the final diary entries of 2011 – if you only read a few of the entries in the Flipped Blog, we recommend making them these. Follow the links to read the blog posts in full.

Week 17: Focus on the Flipped Math Classroom

A couple of weeks before the school district closed for the winter holidays, the Flipped Blog continued into week 17 of the initiatives, with an interview with teacher Denise Cote. The Day 76 blog post shared answers to several questions about the way in which Denise manages her Flipped Math classroom, including:

How is your classroom structured?
What is the experience like for students?
How do you know how well they are doing?
How do the students like this process?
What are the areas that need improvement?

The Day 77 blog post shared ideas about overcoming challenges to innovation, particularly those that relate to Flipped PD:

Relationship challenges focus on mutual understanding and personalizing the approach.
Ideology challenges are encountered when new patterns of thinking are needed to replace old ones.
Methodology challenges occur when some sort of ordered process is required.
Resource challenges can present themselves when particular tools are needed to complete a project.
Leadership challenges are present when thoughtful decisions need to be made or fostered.
Technical challenges present themselves whenever the content or the processes become complex.
Timing challenges occur when different individuals require different pacing.
Motivational challenges often are associated with self-confidence and undergird the energy for any successful project.
Imagination challenges need to be overcome to produce meaningful innovation.

The Day 78, Day 79, and Day 80 blog posts are transcriptions from a Flipped Math Classroom presentation given at the TIES 2011 Education Technology Conference the previous week. The content of this presentation covered topics such as:

defining the Flipped Classroom
setting up a pilot project with control groups
selecting the pilot teachers
operating a training session through a summer institute
using Moodle to manage resources
creating instructional videos
parent communications
formative assessments
screen casting techniques
solving technical problems
home environments
classroom procedures
assessments
options following the end of the pilot phase.

The question and answer session at the end of this presentation surfaced a number of interesting issues, for example:

Have you considered having students make videos?
Have you considered alternative methods for making screen casts?
Can QuickTime be used as a method for making screen casts?
What about students who do not watch the videos at home?
How do you deal with file size?
What is the cost of the program?

Week 18: Focus on Flipped PD and Decision Time for the Flipped Math Classroom

The Flipped Blog continued into week 18 of the initiatives, with the blog posts for Day 81, Day 82 and Day 83 featuring transcriptions from a presentation given at the TIES conference on the Flipped PD project. The content of this presentation covered topics such as:

the origins of the Flipped PD pilot project
the problems with traditional technology professional development
rotating substitute teachers
tools to include
goals: technology, coaching and community
organizing the program into four strands: communication, collaboration, creative media, presentation
logistics
instruction movies
personalization and tracking progress.

Interesting questions were covered in the question and answer session at the end of this presentation, including:

Are all the resources you have put into Moodle your own resources?
Why have you implemented Flipped PD in the elementary schools rather than the secondary schools?
If a school wanted to adopt this plan, how would they get started?
What tools do you use for video production?

The blog entry for Day 84 highlighted the comments of participants at the TIES Key Instructional Contact meeting, held on December 20. The structure of this presentation/workshop was divided into four sections. Each of the four sections dealt with a thematic area of concern with flipped classrooms:

video production and management
classroom structure and resources
teacher training and system support
student access and experience.

The final blog entry of 2011, Day 85, offered a project summary for the Flipped Math Classroom, together with an indication of what the district's decision might be for the future. If you've been following the progress of this initiative, either causally or in detail, this post is a must-read as it brings attention to the imminent decision and summarizes the events leading to this decision.

To keep up to date with all the progress from these Flipped Math Classroom and Flipped Professional Development initiatives, join the Flipped group on Planet.

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Blog Post: Best of 2011: Top Teaching Resources

Planet Editorial Team — Tue, 03 Jan 2012 17:29:00 GMT

Wow! It is hard to believe another year has passed. We started 2011 with around 26,000 resources being shared on Planet and ended the year with more than 50,000 lesson plans, videos and interactive lessons! This is remarkable evidence that the Planet community is hard at work creating and sharing resources with each other.

To kick off the new year, let's take a trip back in time and look at the most downloaded resources of 2011.

Top 10 Most Downloaded Lessons

Place Value Hotel submitted by Kelly Gilchrist
Telling Time submitted by Kelly Gilchrist
Unidades de capacidad submitted by Maria Florenzano
Geometría del círculo submitted by Maria Florenzano
Comparing Fractions and Equivalent Fractions submitted by Anita Chen
Fact and Opinion submitted by Kelly Gilchrist
Main Idea and Supporting Details submitted by Stephanie Delaune
Word Problems submitted by Kelly Gilchrist
Understanding Fractions submitted by Carolyn Northup
The Compass Rose submitted by Kelly Gilchrist

Top 10 Most Downloaded Resource Packs

Even though we all love free, we can't forget the fantastic publisher created resources in the Planet Store. Here are the top publisher resources for 2011.

Top 5 Publisher Resources

Flipchart Templates & Activities ActivPack(US UK International)
Ladybird: Read it Yourself – Gingerbread Man (US UK International)
National Geographic: Young Explorer – Explore the Night Sky (US UK International)
Greenlight Learning Tools: Identifying Text Structure (US UK International)
Ladybird: Read It Yourself – Goldilocks and the Three Bears (US UK International)

Have a favorite resource of your own? Please feel free to share the resource title and where to find it on Planet in the comments section.

Here's to another year of sharing!

Enjoyed this? You may also like Best of 2011: Top Ten Edublog Articles.

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Blog Post: Best of 2011: Top Ten Edublog Articles

Planet Editorial Team — Fri, 30 Dec 2011 13:48:00 GMT

With the end of the year almost upon us, we thought we'd take a look back at some of the most popular content on Promethean Planet in 2011.

This past year has seen Planet members pen a huge range of articles for the Planet blog, covering everything from lesson ideas and creative teaching suggestions, to technology advice and discussion pieces.

So, we've examined the stats and here are the top ten most-viewed blog articles published over the past 12 months.

1. What Can I Do with an iPad in an ActivClassroom? (Part 1), by Lisa Dubernard

Taking the top spot this year is the first of four articles in the top ten by regular Planet blogger Lisa Dubernard. Written back in August, the blog post covers one of 2011's hottest pieces of tech: the iPad. What marked the article out from the many other pieces on the Web about iPads in education is that Lisa specifically looked at how an iPad can be used to control flipcharts created in Promethean's ActivInspire software. If you've not yet read it, it's well worth taking a look.

2. QR Codes in the Classroom: Cool Idea or Not?, by Lisa Dubernard

In a double-whammy, Lisa Dubernard also takes second place in this end-of-year countdown! Covering another innovative classroom idea, in October, Lisa turned her attention to QR codes, which can be read by a range of mobile devices. This article went down a storm on Twitter, read it yourself to see why.

3. Teaching the Scientific Method, by Sarah Ratelis

Posted in June 2011, this is the first article from Planet's educator-penned blogging series, the Planet Teachers' Lounge, to appear in the top ten. In it, high school science teacher Sarah Ratelis shared how she walks her students through the process of writing a proper hypothesis and then drawing conclusions.

4. 5 Great Websites to Support Your Language Arts Instruction, by Kelly Gilchrist

Another post from the Planet Teachers' Lounge, this one published in March by elementary (primary) teacher Kelly Gilchrist. The article's title is self-explanatory, with Kelly suggesting some great sites for English Language Arts teachers to explore.

5. Teaching Inferences in the Elementary Classroom, by Kelly Gilchrist

Double congratulations are in order for Planet member Kelly Gilchrist, as she claims not only the fourth most popular article of 2011, but also the fifth! In this post, Kelly offers three activities that can help with the difficult task of teaching young learners how to make inferences.

6. Venn Diagrams – Fun Activities for the Maths Classroom, by Kathryn Scott

Back in April, popular UK-based mathematics writer Kathryn Scott blogged about Venn diagrams for the Planet Teachers' Lounge. Often viewed as a dry topic to teach, Kathryn described ways of introducing Venn diagrams that familiarize students with the concept but let them have fun at the same time. Kathryn also created a flipchart, which can be downloaded for free, to accompany this article.

7. Creativity in Teaching: Ideas for Comic Strips (Part 1), by Lisa Dubernard

It's another entry for Lisa Dubernard at number seven, this time with the first of two posts on using comic strips to spice up your lessons. In this piece, Lisa offered a range of ideas for incorporating comics into your classes, as well as introduced a number of the tools available on the Web for creating your own masterpieces.

8. Creativity in Teaching: Ideas for Comic Strips (Part 2: You Can Toon, Too!), by Lisa Dubernard

A couple of months later, Lisa Dubernard followed the success of her first post about comic strips with another great piece on the same topic. This time, Lisa focused on one comic-creation tool and offered a tutorial on how to use it. The Planet Team was so captivated by this idea that we even used it to create our own comic strip for a business meeting!

9. Teaching Elementary Math and the Tricks Up My Sleeve, by Pat Verhoeven

It's another mathematics article at number nine, this one written by US educator Pat Verhoeven. Now retired from teaching, Pat's still very much active in the Planet community and, in her first post for the Planet Teachers' Lounge, she imparted some of the vast knowledge that can only come from years spent in the classroom.

10. Mathematics Hints: Ways to Remember, by Marie Darwin

Rounding out the top ten is Marie Darwin's mathematics article, which she posted in February 2011. We all know that a good acronym or 'silly' phrase can be a great memory aid to help students remember the huge number of concepts that come their way. In this post, Marie shared some great ways to remember rules about angles, shapes, averages and more!

Although that's the 'official' top ten for 2011, we feel special mention should also be made for Planet member Marcella McCarthy, whose article Behaviour Management – My Top Ten Resolutions was posted on December 29, 2010. An extremely popular piece, it narrowly missed out on being included in this countdown by just three days! If you didn't read it at the time, it's a lovely read to see you into the new year.

We hope you've enjoyed all of the articles posted in the Planet blog during 2011 and we're raising a festive glass of mulled wine to more great reads in 2012!

Enjoyed this? You may also like Best of 2011: Top Teaching Resources.

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Blog Post: “Blending” the Benefits of Online and Face-to-Face Learning

Kristin Giron — Mon, 26 Dec 2011 13:00:00 GMT

You know the statistics. You may have bookmarked the sites on delicious or Diigo or, better yet, read about it on Twitter. Online learning is becoming increasingly popular and is now a viable option for today's high school students. But, can online education match traditional courses in content and rigor? Can students learn as much online as they can in a face-to-face classroom?

We pondered these very questions a few years ago as we began to explore the addition of online classes in our high school. According to the United States Department of Education, "students who took all or part of their classes online performed better than those students taking the same course face-to-face. But students who mix online learning with traditional coursework do even better."

Hybrid Classes

So that's why we decided to offer hybrid classes first, a combination of face-to-face and online learning. In hybrid classes, a significant amount of the course learning is moved online, making it possible to reduce the amount of time spent in the classroom. Traditional face-to-face instruction is reduced, but not eliminated. Class lectures, notes and presentations, which are traditionally done in class, are videotaped and placed online for the student to watch at their own pace. To me, it is the best of both educational worlds.

I agreed to pilot the first hybrid class - Creative Writing - three years ago. Although it was certainly a pedagogical shift in thinking, it was one of the best decisions I have made as an educator. Why? This process made me a better teacher.

Teaching a hybrid class challenged me to think of things differently and opened the door to more creativity and collaboration in my classroom. I moved from being a teacher to a facilitator, allowing my students more freedom to control what happened in the class, which increased student involvement and learning. It allowed me to connect with my students on a different level, developing the teacher-student relationship even further. It garnered better discussions about course material and allowed students to communicate effectively online.

Learning through Experience

The first year of the piloted course was certainly a life lesson for me. I learned a lot about online education, both good and bad. It didn't take long for me to realize that many of these students still needed a "face" to go to if they had problems or questions. The beauty of the hybrid is that face-to-face instruction is still required. Hybrid classes allow the students to be independent, but still have comfort in knowing their classroom teacher is visible and approachable.

When I posted all the online content to Moodle, an online course management system, it took about two weeks for students to tell me that some of the material was hard to find. With their feedback, they helped me set up my course with fluency and organization. They became involved in the learning process, and for the most part, we were all facilitators that first year.

Three years later, we have added an additional hybrid course and two full online courses at the high school. I see the powerful change that online/blended learning has on students, and teachers. It is a challenge, but it is a good one. It develops the important skills needed in the job market today - collaboration, creativity and connectedness to the world around us. For teachers, it is adapting to a new approach in educating students. For some, this may seem daunting, but I truly believe the challenge is worth it.

Benefits of Online and Hybrid Courses

Although many might argue that face-to-face education is more beneficial, I would have to disagree. Much time was spent preparing my online and hybrid courses in comparison to my face-to-face class. Because they work at a faster pace online, I can get through more of the curriculum and push the students toward enrichment activities and collaborative projects. Sometimes that can't be done in a traditional classroom.

What can an online education offer students?

Communication skills: Students taking class online are posting to discussion boards and chats daily. Students, who rarely take part in class discussions in traditional classes, are more likely to participate online because all students have to be involved. Online discussions also extend beyond the 42-minute class. Sometimes a great discussion picks up a week later. It is always open.
Student learning: Students develop higher-order skills of critical thinking and problem-solving in an online class. In many cases, online classes are student-driven, which allows for flexibility. When a student can have access to the course at any time, they can work freely. The traditional, 40-minute structured period is no longer needed as students can do the work wherever they want.
Rigor: Online classes are a great way to offer enrichment and remediation through webquests, podcasts and online activities. When students have completed the first assignment, they can continue to move at their own pace.

With many colleges and universities offering online programs, it is imperative for high schools to start preparing students for the 21^st century. Online coursework allows that to happen. As schools begin to change curriculum and move toward Common Core standards, it is important to consider adding some online options. Not only will students be more prepared for life after high school, but teachers will become experts in a growing field.

If you want to follow the discussion on online learning, check out #onlinelearning on Twitter.

This article is from Planet's educator-penned blogging series: the Planet Teachers' Lounge.

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Blog Post: Supporting Instruction through the Use of Other Resources

Pat Verhoeven — Thu, 22 Dec 2011 13:00:00 GMT

It has been a fun summer this year. I have explored tons of math sites looking for good ones to share with you. The authors of the sites I am using this month are allowing me to link my blog to their sites so you can try out their activities.

I have also had time to experiment with ActivInspire and to develop some good flipcharts on a variety of topics to share with the Promethean family. I have written two additional "How Did You Do That?" flipcharts (Part 3 and Part 4). The tips and ideas from those flipcharts should help you save time and do some things you could not do before.

Well, let's get started with exploring the math sites. I want to give you an overview of each site so that your visit will be more productive.

Mathwire

The first site we will explore is called Mathwire. The site was designed by Terry Kawas who was previously a teacher, math consultant and math coach. Terry has worked hard to provide activities that support the constructivist approach to learning and supports the NCTM Standards. The site is full of activities that have been developed and field-tested for students in grades K-Middle School. Her Terms of Use state "Teachers are welcome to download any of the activities for free use in their classrooms. No activities may be copied for use on other websites or included in commercial products without permission in writing from Terry Kawas, webmaster."

At the time of writing, all of the resources on the Mathwire homepage are themed for Fall 2011, but the site does have a variety of pages on other themes. Each page/collection provides directions for the activities and includes appropriate worksheets and accompanying PDFs for teachers to use in their classrooms to support students using the activities. I would suggest you examine several of Mathwire's pages below, I am sure you will enjoy them.

MathTools

The second website I would like to highlight is called MathTools and is a project of the Math Forum @ Drexel that is funded in part by the National Science Foundation. I know you have used material from the Math Forum before and recognize how valuable it is. The average teacher would use the parts of this site that deal with selecting good interactive tools by grade level and topic. Ratings are given and you can investigate activities that might be appropriate for your classroom. To use this part, select Math Topics and choose a grade level, then select a math topic for that grade. You will be shown a list of tools that fit your choices. You can examine the program's attributes and then click on it to try it out. I found some very good tools to use with students in which they must think as they work. The program also allows you take part in the testing of tools if you wish. It is written to include the following grades and subjects:

Johnnie's Math Page

The third site I would like to highlight, Johnnie's Math Pages, has several pages of outstanding math games and activities. In fact, Johnnie has approximately 700 links to math activities and tools on his pages! Categories include:

Best Primary Math
Best Intermediate Math
Primary Whiteboard
Intermediate Whiteboard

For the last ten years, Johnnie has worked as a mentor teacher in mathematics for elementary school teachers. Currently, he is working as a teacher in a school in Europe and continues to support other teachers who teach mathematics.

Besides the games that fill the pages, there are other games you can click on in the menus at the top and side of the page. It is wonderful to have so many choices that allow you to select from so many topics.

ActivInspire

ActivInspire is really fun to work with, but, as with using any tool for the first time, it has a few quirks to master before you really maximize its potential. I learn something new each time I use it.

Today, I want to start with sharing some ideas on using the Hidden command in ActivInspire. At first, I couldn't see how it would be valuable to me, but boy, was I wrong. Here's a flipchart that includes several pages of tips on using the Hidden action, using the frames to align objects, using connectors in container activities, and an assortment of tips.

In the first part of the flipchart, each of the examples has directions on how to use the Hidden command to make it work. It covers:

hiding from student view a message like the one on the left below; you can show it whenever you wish
adding one or more checkboxes to a flipchart so the student can put a check in the box when finished with an activity or question
using the Hidden command to make a simple horizontal or vertical bar graph.

Besides the Hidden command, I have included in the flipchart a number of pages about other topics and directions for making them. The two below are of a penguin hiding numbers for students to sort and a connect page that asks students to alphabetize words and then find their synonym. Directions accompany each page. There are three pages of tips to help you as well. If you want to see some of my other flipcharts, do a search for Pat Verhoeven in the Promethean Planet search box below the main navigation bar.

In my next blog post, we will explore teaching perimeter and area. I will also share some websites that will provide you with new tools and activities you can use. I hope you enjoyed the flipchart and hope you picked up some information. Please leave me a note to tell me what you think or what topics you would like to see in the future.

This article is from Planet's educator-penned blogging series: the Planet Teachers' Lounge.

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Blog Post: Being Stuck with Your Intelligence: How Does Intelligence Grow?

serge.tasic — Tue, 20 Dec 2011 12:21:00 GMT

A visitor walks into a classroom in a primary school and sits at a table to observe students doing their work. An inquisitive nine-year-old looks at the visitor and asks, 'Are you good at fractions?' The visitor answers, 'I suppose I am, I should be able to figure it out.' 'Then you should sit at the other table,' replies the child, pointing at the table on the other side of the room, 'That's where the clever kids are.'

A mathematics teacher gets introduced to a group of people at a party. After the generic introduction and chat, one of the people from the group asks the teacher, 'And what do you do?' The teacher answers, 'I am a maths teacher.' Within a nanosecond, comments start flying, 'You must be very intelligent,' '...I could never understand algebra, fractions I was ok... but algebra ... for the life of me I could not get it! I reached my limit in primary school when I was 11 and that was it, all that stuff from secondary school went straight over my head... it seems that my kids have inherited the same non-maths brain from me.'

At a parents' evening in secondary school, a teacher is briefing the parents of a high-achieving student: 'I am very happy with Peter's achievement and I can tell you that he is a very intelligent young man who is going to reach his potential this year. He is always achieving 100% correct answers in his tests and never produces incorrect answers in his book. I am very pleased with him. He is on our gifted and talented student register and we hope that this success continues in the future.'

What is wrong with these situations?

Well, everything!

The nine-year-old has decided that she is not good at fractions and therefore not clever, so she is already inferior to the rest of the class.

The adults at the party, who have lived all their lives believing that they were not born to understand mathematics, are convinced that that is an inherent condition.

The teacher, who is praising a high achievement of the student, is purely basing the praise on the student's intelligence and not necessarily considering hard work or perseverance. Not to mention that the student always achieves 100% correct answers ... is this student challenged? (This is a question for a different blog all together!)

One of the personal determiners for me to investigate and invest more time in this area was the discovery at the age of 19 that my IQ score is higher than 'normal'. This test and report ruined my reputation as a hard-working learner who is willing to get stuck with a problem and does not let go until it is solved. From that day on, there was no recognition of my perseverance and ability to evaluate failure and learn from it ... and yes, I failed many, many times. People around me would simply brush any achievement under the banner of intelligence: 'Well, it's easy for you with your IQ.'

I have to admit it is the first time in 15 years that I am mentioning this in public.

By now you have probably realised that I belong to the group of people who do not believe that intelligence is something fixed and not changeable. Also, that IQ is not the only reason for my achievement and the achievement of many people around me.

Professionally, I am focusing on the achievement of young people in mathematics education, but this does not necessarily mean academically. It is well known that having high grades on a maths test does not automatically mean that the young person has developed 'mathematical habits of mind,' or that they were able to solve the problems and faced uncertainty when solving them.

The IQ Scale

The first IQ test was developed by French Psychologist, Alfred Binet. He categorically stated that an IQ scale is not meant to measure the level of intelligence:

'The scale, properly speaking, does not permit the measure of intelligence, because intellectual qualities are not superposable, and therefore cannot be measured as linear surfaces are measured.' (Binet, 1905)

The IQ scale was developed to identify students who need help in coping with school curriculum.

Binet was, in my opinion, arguing 'achievement for all' and modification of curriculum to suit individual learners. The point he was expressing was that with proper intervention programmes, most, if not all students regardless of the background could catch-up and perform well in school.

Binet never agreed that intelligence is a fixed measurable entity!

So, why is there such a wide spread belief that we are born with a fixed IQ and we have to give up at a certain point when we 'reach our potential?'

Growth Mindset

I then came across the research of Dr Carol Dweck, from Stanford University, and her research and experience with changing the perception of this 'fixed mindset' in something she calls Growth Mindset. Furthermore, her research is supported by the latest developments in neuroscience research.

Dr Dweck's Brainology® Program in the US and internationally is already changing the perception of educators, parents and public in general that intelligence is changeable and malleable.

She advocates that learners' view of intelligence affects the way they learn. If a learner believes that intelligence is a fixed trait then:

they pursue performance goals
this belief makes them vulnerable as failure/difficulty implies low intelligence
they go for easy tasks that confirm their 'intelligence'
they demonstrate low effort and give up easily, as failure/difficulty challenges their level of intelligence.

In contrast to the fixed mindset, learners with the growth mindset:

pursue learning goals
are empowered to learn and overcome difficulties; failure/difficulty suggests to change effort or strategy
are more willing to take risks, as failure/difficulty provides a challenge to be taken on
demonstrate more effort; they see success and difficulty in terms of personal effort and learning strategy
learn, since intelligence can be improved!

These are just few points that I have used and applied as a teacher with students, and as a trainer/coach with teachers. These views seem very simple, but the devil is in the detail of how we are relating to learners and people around us. How are we communicating with them and addressing failure and success?

One of the key strategies used to develop growth mindset concerns the way we provide feedback to students.

I personally believe that we learn best from personal experience. We all know that the younger the learners are, the less fear they have from failure and lack of success.

However, if we say to someone who has not achieved a desired outcome in a task, 'That's ok, you have tried your best,' we are implying that there is nothing else they can do about it. They have reached the end of their learning journey and we can only praise the effort that has not produced the desired positive outcome. Instead, a specific discussion about the learner's approach and the strategy applied needs to take place; the learner needs to be given the opportunity to evaluate the approach and try a different one.

On the other hand, when learners achieve the goal, make sure that we do not relate the success to ability. This is going to leave them more vulnerable to feeling failure when presented with a challenge. Instead, guide them in identifying the strategies they have used to overcome the problem and come to the desired outcome. Students should be praised for managing to develop the strategy for learning from mistakes and exploring different options if previous ones did not work.

This is just a short intro to changing views about intelligence; I could go on, but I'll leave it at this point and let you investigate more on your own. All I can say is that our brains are like muscles – they can grow and develop!

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Blog Post: Integrating Technology in Your Classroom, Bring Your Own?

Peter Lambert — Fri, 16 Dec 2011 08:30:00 GMT

Several districts in the USA, as well as schools in other countries, are piloting Bring Your Own Technology (BYOT)-also known as Bring Your Own Device (BYOD) -in which students are allowed to use their own devices, such as smartphones or tablets, in the classroom. All that is required is for the students' devices to have Wi-Fi Internet connection capability.

Including technology in the classroom forms a powerful bridge from academics to the real world. The flexibility of the Internet provides rich and varied learning options for students. Interactive whiteboards, blogs, e-mails, tablets (such as iPads), software programs, educational apps and Internet searches are among the many means to enhance learning experiences.

Technology gives students access to an extraordinary range of sources and learning opportunities that they may never discover otherwise. In today's world, electronic mentoring, for example, can enable a talented science student to find a researcher with expertise on the Kilauea volcano in Hawaii and read updates on the most recent findings. The Internet also provides ways for students to collaborate with peers from other states, regions or countries who share the same interests. Apart from offering a significant enhancement to their academic and creative lives, technology also helps learners feel more connected and engaged with the learning process. As Jill Hobson from Forsyth County, GA says, "Students become information producers rather than information consumers." This to my mind is a higher order skill. Even higher, are the skills required to process that information once acquired.

This is just one compelling reason to consider implementing BYOT. Today, student response devices are proving to be beneficial in order to achieve a response to questions from everyone in a group. Some devices even allow tests or pop quizzes to be conducted at the students' own pace, with the added bonus that these are graded automatically and instantly. In this way, teachers may see if intervention or remediation may be required for an individual or entire group.

Providing for the increasing movement to BYOT, Promethean has introduced ActivEngage for mobile devices, complimenting existing ActivEngage for PCs and Macs. Student response can now take place on all Apple iOS4 and iOS5 devices, which includes iPod Touch, iPhone and iPads. An Android app additionally enables all Android phones and tablets. Both student (client) apps are available for download, free of charge, from the iTunes App store, Android Market and Amazon app store for Android.

These devices can be used alongside Promethean's ActivExpression handheld devices in the same response session, with the purchase of the ActivEngage Server software. A trial of ActivEngage server is available on Planet, allowing three clients to connect.

So, that's two compelling reasons to consider BYOT. If you wish to purchase your own hardware for student use, perhaps consider these devices on carts for ultimate flexibility. Many districts and school boards will not be willing to entertain the notion of students bringing in their own devices, with some educators regarding them as a bigger nuisance than bubblegum!

Further reasons for considering BYOT may be for use of educational apps for re-enforcement, no hardware costs, no maintenance costs and, of course, student motivation and engagement.

Blog Post: Creative Lesson Ideas: Digital Draftbook Project Follow-Up

Shannon Wentworth — Wed, 14 Dec 2011 15:54:00 GMT

Last month, I blogged about a digital draftbook project I piloted using Microsoft® OneNote®. In the article, I explained how the project was carried out and now I'll turn my attention to the results.

It has taken us just over a month to complete this project. What I have witnessed from it so far is a testament to the power of properly integrated technology. In one class, I saw 25 reluctant 5th grade writers actually enjoy writing. This particular class has not done well on past writing assignments and assessments. 48% of them scored Partially Proficient on the state writing assessment, 20% scored Unsatisfactory, and another 20% have no score because they were not living in state at the time. So that leaves only 20%, or three students who are currently identified as Proficient writers.

Improved Performance

I was completely blown away by how attentive the students were to the digital draftbook. Every one of them was focused on their writing. They asked good questions about how to complete each organizer and were able to successfully complete the entire assignment in three to four visits to the Computer Lab. In the end, 15 wrote Proficient pieces and no one scored Unsatisfactory.

Student Feedback

I polled my students about the digital draftbooks once the project was complete. Overall, they had very good things to say.

The first comments did point out a typo from my end that I promised to fix later. (Good way to point out that even a teacher makes mistakes!)

Here are a few quotes directly from my 5th graders...

"It helps me be a better writer." Russell
"I learn to put facts and opinions in my story." Kobe
"It's helping me write more better." Jessica (Ok, we still need to work on some grammar lessons here.)
"It's helping me write more and write longer sentences." Alexis
"I can learn new words." Krystal

I am proud of what this, and my other groups of 5th graders produced. Quality technology integration and guided instruction can have amazing results when you can take the time to prepare and implement these lessons. My students, their literacy teachers, and I can't wait to begin the next digital draftbook project.

If any readers feel inspired to carry out similar projects, I'd love to hear how you get on!

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