iTunesU problems UH OH

Disclaimer: Firstly I love iTunesU and it has changed the way I teach. I love creating and leading my courses there and I know the user experience is equally positive. I feel more confident in my teaching now that I have all my course units in one place. I love being able to send notifications through iTunesU and students have reminders pop up when they have deadlines and when new posts are made. I love it being on my iPad and I love how simple they are to create... However....I do have a bone to pick with iTunesU...all about sharing public courses!

I find it very disappointing that you can not create public iTunesU courses unless you institution signs up to iTunesU. Also courses shared public are for the students, why don't we share courses that can be adapted by teachers? There are a number of problems with both of these things:

-Some people don't work in tech-friendly schools, but are still creating incredible courses. 

-Some people want to retain the courses as their own. When teachers move from school to school they take their resources and lesson plans with them, so why shouldn't an iTunesU course be the same?

-When a teacher leaves an institution they can of course send the course to their new apple ID or duplicate the course, but if that course has been made public who owns it?

-When you put a lot of effort into a course you feel a certain responsibility and connection to it. By giving it to your institution you are handing over responsibility to them.

-I would love to be able to decide on teaching a particular skill, such as coding, and be able to simple search for courses made by like minded teachers!

-Similarly it would be fantastic to have template courses ready to go - courses you can manipulate as a course manager.

-I would also love to be able to share my courses not just as public, but for course managers to take and adapt themselves. 

-Information should be shared widely and freely! I don't want to hold onto my resources and information tightly, I want to spread them around for others to use! I want feedback and tips for improvement and collaboration from my peers! 

-When applying for jobs or when searching for employees, it would be fantastic be for potential employers to be able to look through courses created by an individual. To actually see all the resources they have created, as well as feedback from those who have taken them.

Possible solutions

-Let anyone create public iTunesU courses. 

Individuals working in and out of education and non-educational companies. We are missing out on a wealth of fantastic resources by restricting who can share there. Imagine YouTube without public content! Imagine a world where the only educational blogs were created by schools and not by teachers.

-Curate the main page

Why not have the main page looking a bit like the iTunes Store, where you have lots of iTunesU courses highlighted. Here you could highlight the best blogs made by prestigious institutes as well as ones made by individuals. 

-Change the function of courses available

-When I submit a course to the iTunesU catalog I would like to have two options. I would like to be able to submit it as a course that people can sign up to and take AND I would like to be able to submit it for other course managers to take and adapt to suit their needs!

I know that there have been some changes with iTunesU and we have only recently been able to send courses to other people. However I really hope more changes are made to make it a place where we can all be contributors and not just consumers!

EDIT
I also think that schools worrying about sharing courses, especially private schools, are worrying for no reason. The courses that teachers share will be very similar to the sorts of lesson plans and resources teacher share...they are nothing without the teacher to deliver them. Firstly I am a firm believer in sharing information for free anyway. Secondly downloading an iTuneU course is no substitute for being in a classroom with a teacher deliver the course.

If a school's teachers are making iTunesU courses that their students can do completely independently, with no class activities, discussions, interaction and without the aid of a teacher, then maybe they have employed the wrong sort of teachers. I would love to make some iTunesU courses that people can enrol on and do in their own time, but those would not be the courses I would deliver in school. I may make some for students who want an extension on a particular topic, so maybe a more advance coding unit - and also I have my library course, which is really just lots of resources for people to dip in and out of. My iTunesU courses that I teach are aimed to show the structure of the course and to pool all the resources students and teachers need together and to start discussions. The courses don't show everything done in class - for one, teachers adapt their lesson, depending on the achievement and needs of the class - also teachers add in activities and resources - I don't share my TED ED lessons, VoiceThreads or GoogleForms in the iTunesU courses - and I often change the activities in class based on suggestions and ideas from my students.
They need a teacher's input.

How Do We Learn?

I have been working on my iTunesU courses for next term. Grade 7 and 8 will both be doing a whole unit on coding. They will not only learn how to code, but they will teach coding. A massive part of the unit is trying to get students to use different teaching methods, to suit different learning styles and to keep the lessons interesting. I created this video to give them a very basic understanding of some of the different learning styles. 

As a class we will also discuss things like needing print outs or listed instructions, how different fonts and colours can help people with Dyslexia, and we will discuss how we know when we work well with another person! We will also look a stereotypes in learning - (mostly in relation to women in STEM/women coders).

The enrolment code for my iTunesU courses will be posted on here soon and I am doing my best to make them public. If you ever want to have access to my course as a course manager, so you can change and adapt them to suit your needs, just drop me an email or send me a tweet.

Dewey Success

My cut out stop motion animation about the Dewey Decimal System now has over 2000 views! I have a whole bunch of ideas up my sleeve for more videos and already have the cut outs for one about medical/science museums in London! Watch this space!

Fancy Pants

I now have a fancy pants domain!
OH MY!
http://www.excitededucator.com/

Changing the Assessment Format

I tend to do a wide variety of different types of work in class - from class presentations to video creation. My assessment work almost always ends up as a written piece of work, either an essay or questions and answers. Although they get to showcase a lot of the other work they have done in this, it does seem to get a bit static and seems to benefit only students with one type of preferred learning style.

SO I HAD TO MAKE A CHANGE!

For the last assessment this term I have decided to let grade 6 and 7 create videos. I gave them interview questions about their product and put them in pairs. It created a great buzz in the classroom and students were really happy about the work, even if it was an assessment piece! I  saw students who often panic about their assessments lighting up and talking excitedly about their work!

The only issue so far has been the videos being too long to upload or students not knowing how to. However I have sat with all the students who have asked for help and guided them through this process. Next time they should be able to do it easily!

For grades 8 and 9 I simple gave them a check list and told them they could either use them to write an essay or they could turn them into interview questions and interview each other. I think giving them the choice and the flexibility to write how they wanted or to ask what questions they wanted, (as long as it matched the checklist) was really crucial for engaging the older students, as it gave them a sense of ownership over their work and freedom to evaluate their work how they wanted to.

So far marking the work has been very rewarding. Often I see some students put less effort into their written evaluations, failing to promote the fantastic work they have done in class, but with my new flexible assessments I have not seen this!

For the MYP Technology course students must work on five areas their Investigation, Plan, Design, Creation and Evaluation, (and 'Attitudes to Technology' in the Next Chapter). They create folders in Google Drive for this and then pull the information into their assessment work. I thought about getting them to upload a zip of each folder, along with a short evaluation, (2/3 minute interview / page long essay) to accompany it. I will trial this with the older grades next term and will let you know how I get on!

Has anyone found any other ways to do assessed work? 

Debate Day Review

The whole school Debate Day was a fantastic success. I expected a few students to become shy and deliver very short speeches or to not help their team, but every single student participated and put in loads of effort! I have even had students asking if we can do it every week! It was supposed to be an annual thing, but I think it will not happen once a term!

Before lunch all eight teams took part in two debates each. They knew the motions in advance, but not what side they were on, who who they were against. Team captains had been sending their teams emails with news articles, YouTube videos and even ideas for team names and uniform!

Students met in the Hub in the morning where we watched the following video. We also watch a video showing the speaking order/rules, which the Debate Club created.

The first two motions:

"This house believes in one universal language."

As an international school it was very interesting to hear students debate this! One team even decided to deliver their speeches in different languages!

"This house would reintroduce national service."

This was great and some students even interviewed our security guard who did national service in Israel

After lunch only four teams made it through to the semi-final. In the morning only two teams won both debates, so I met all the judges to decided on the other two teams to go through. We looked at style, content, teamwork, manners and debate skill-it was a very tough decision as the teams were brilliant!

The semi final: "This house would replace teachers with computers."

This was my favourite debate, because they brought so much humour into it! I loved how they buttered up the judges, (teachers) and by this point the students were very confident. I thought this debate would be a little silly, so didn't chose it for the final, but regret this decision! Next term I will put a fun motion for the final!

The final took place in the hub, with all students watching, as well as board members, all teachers and parents.

The final motion was "This house would introduce a universal health care system."

They had some amazing research - even though they only had 25 minutes to prepare. Both teams were incredible, but the proposition blew everyone away, becoming Debate Champions! This was also the first debate where we allowed floor speeches -we had some incredible ones from staff, parents and students!

The winners, appropriately named 'The Best Team', received a pizza party with me after-school on Monday - we really stuffed our faces - it was brilliant!

This was a fantastic day, and showed our students working beautiful together. Teams were made of a mix of grade groups, mother tongue languages, abilities and with members of non-members of the debate club. I was also very pleased to see the captains looking after their teams!

If anyone would like the resources I shared to make this happen/shared with our teachers, (rules, tips, times, etc), then please email me or tweet me! missedutton@gmail.com and @missedutton

Hour of Code

I will be teaching coding to my grade 9s tonight for part of HourOfCode! I am very exciting. I'll be using the resources available on learn.code.org as I can track student progress. Also I think because it uses characters they are familiar with, such as Angry Birds, they will enjoy it! I will obviously start the lesson with this fantastic video:

Tomorrow we have the fabulous Kuato Studios coming in to work with our grade 7 and 8s on coding, using their app Hakitzu Elite! They will be shooting a video of our students too - because my students are the best!

Next term I will be doing a whole unit of coding with grade 7 and 8. To fulfil the design requirements for MYP IB Technology students will be designing lessons and tutorials for others. Grade 7 will teach grade 6 and grade 8 will teach teachers! We will be looking at different learning and teaching styles. I am pretty sure the grade 7s will use Hakitzu to teach grade 6, as the game is right up their street! Grade 8 might use a different kind of app to teach teachers!

ALSO I will be teaching my 7 and 11 year old brothers to do a bit of coding over Christmas - I will experiment then with Hopscotch for my youngest brother Tommy.

In the new year expect to see lots of reviews of this apps and websites!

I'm excited to hear what everyone else gets up to for HourOfCode too!

Whole School Debate

I have organised a whole school debate for December 6th.

There will be eight teams, with all students competing in the first two debates.

These will be:

"This house believes in a universal language"

and

"This house would reintroduce national service."

For the semi-final and final students will find out the topic 20-30 minutes before hand.

Those students who don't make it through will be busy interviewing each other, filming the debates and taking part in some other activities! I am very excited.
Students already know what teams they are on and have started researching. They have also started picking out their costumes/uniforms and team names!

I created these using Smore - and was even featured on their website!

Smore is a fantastic website for making beautiful flyers!

Debate Club UPDATE

Debate club has been really successful!

Recent motions include "This house would legalise cannabis" and "this house would enforce child curfews" and "This house would ban violent video games."

We now have so many members that we will have to have two debates each week and four teams!
Next week the two debate topics are "This house believes that university should be free" and "This house believes you should have to take parenting classes before you can have a baby."

I am organising a whole school debate, with eight teams. All eight teams will take part in two debates in the morning, but only half will make it through to the afternoon. In the afternoon we will have a semi-final, followed by a final, viewed by the whole school, including parents, the board and teachers. Students not involved in the semi-final will be writing up reviews and creating videos for our schools new TV channel!

Wish me luck!

Next Terms Courses

I have been working on creating my units for next term.

My plan is:
Grade 6 - BBC School Report - creating a news report
Unit Question: "What is the news and who decides it?"
Grade 7 - Coding - creating coding lessons for grade 6
Unit Question:"How do you learn?"
Grade 8 - Coding - creating coding lessons for primary school students or staff/parents
Unit Question: "How do you learn?"
Grade 9- Fantastic Feast - creating a science themed meal/event/party for the school
Unit Question: "Are you what you eat?"

I am also working on a Guerrilla Gardening unit I hope to deliver in the March-April term.

All my units will include a debate:
Grade 6 - This house would deny terrorists the oxygen of publicity
Grade 7 - This house believes coding should be taught in all schools
Grade 8 - This house believes coding should be taught in all schools
Grade 9 - This house would ban the development of genetically modified food

I have created iTunesU courses  for all of these and I am happy to share them. iTunesU now let you also share the template, so you can edit the courses yourself. Please leave a comment, send me an email or a tweet if you would like to the view the courses.

If you have done any similar courses, please share your resources with me.


Thanks
@missedutton

Product Design

My Product design module is going very well - the students seem to love it!

Students started off by researching different charities and pitching them to their class. Each grade then voted on the charities they want to raise money for. Grade 6 will be raising for Great Ormond Street, Grade 8 for Stonewall and Grade 9 for Cancer Research UK.

The next lesson students learnt about Pinterest. They first watched this video:

Students then created their own Pinterest page, using the school's email address and started pinning to get ideas. They also followed each others boards and my Product Design board. The grade 6s did a slightly different task, as they are not old enough to have a Pinterest account yet.

The next lesson students pitched their ideas to the class. They had to pitch three ideas, and had to include how many they could make for £10, how much they would sell them for, how they would make them, who would buy them, etc. The class then voted on the products, selecting what other students would make. We had some fantastic ideas ranging from plushie tacos to bath bombs with plastic dinosaurs hidden inside of them! 

The next stage will have students planning their product and creating it. We will then move on to advertising and creating campaigns to raise awareness of our three different charities. Students will also be making a few products as a class. In December we will have an open day for parents, where students set up their stalls to sell their products. There will also be a stall for the products students have made as a class - these will include dinosaur and lego brooches, hair combs and pompom headbands - I'll post some photographs once we have a few more made!

I am loving this unit before and am excited to show you some of the fantastic things students make.
Grade 7 are working on creating music videos using claymation. Currently they are designing their set and story boards. I'll post photographs as we progress!

Children in Need

We are raising money for Children in Need today. This bathrobe and slippers day has been organised by grade 7. I am enjoying wearing my jammies and doing some marking from my classroom's beanbags!

Welcome new students

As I work in an international school we have students joining all the time! This is a quick video I created for students to watch before their first day. When the join we set them up with their email account, iTunesU courses, required apps and Google Drive. We also spend time talking to them about the work students have been doing already, as well as some of the traditions and fun things we are doing!

Powtoon -Music Design Introduction

A video introducing my next grade 7 unit - music video production. I'm hoping the students make some pretty creative and weird videos! I'll post more as the unit progresses!

PowToon - Product Design Introduction

When looking at Google Teacher Academy application I saw a lot of people had used PowToon. I decided to have a quick play with it, creating a video to introduce a unit I am teaching to three grades next term. It is really simple and easy to use. The templates are great and it comes pre-loaded with lots of characters and icons. You can also import images easily. The above video took me about 15 minutes to make, so I am quite happy with it. I would never teach students to use it, but it works perfectly to make quick educational videos.

I am going to make some library skills videos using PowToon soon too!
[Watch this space]

Pinterest - Google Education

Google Presentation Timings

A quick video about Google Presentation timings, as it is not obvious how you can set slides to change automatically or to play on loop. Hopefully this very short video will clear this up for you!

Google Presentation

This morning I received a panicky phone call from my dad. He no longer had Microsoft Office and my ten year old brother needed to create a presentation for school. I quickly made this tutorial to show him a much better and free alternative - Google Presentations!

Don't Say Swag!

100 Words You Could Say Instead of Swag - Watsky

I show this video to students often when they use to much slang, especially if they use the word 'swag.' I just showed a couple of our grade 9s and they have already chosen their favourite alternatives! Thanks Watsky!

Dickens, Sherlock and Schwarma

Ms. Jones organised an amazing trip yesterday for our Grade 8s and 9s!

We got students to download the Guardian's Dickens Walk podcasts over the weekend. The podcasts takes you all around the city, explaining to you why it is was important to Dickens and also including some extracts from his text. The students really enjoyed the trip and every single one of them listened to the podcasts at each location and contributed to our discussion! I was very proud. We didn't manage to do the whole thing, but will leave more time for it if we do it again!
You can find out more about the route and the podcast here.

We also went past the Sherlock Holmes museum and our grade 9s gave the grade 8s some mini lectures about Sherlock Holmes! We then ended up going to Chipotle for burritos, instead of for Lebanese, but obviously had no complaints!

Another rad event planned by Ms. Jones!

Google Forms Staff Learning Project

I am doing a project with a colleague to see if we can use Google Forms to help increase the amount of homework students do, as well as the quality. Here is the tutorial I have made, along with the proposal.

Proposal for PLP

Staff
Ms Dutton and Ms Dance
Problem
Students are not always completing homework and are often unprepared for lessons because of this. When students do complete homework they often fail to put in adequate effort.

Solution
Once a week or whenever homework is set students will need to fill in an accompanying Google Form. The homework could be the Google Form itself. Borrowing ideas from the flipped classroom this form will also have a space where students can raise any issues or concerns. The first questions for every piece of homework will be ‘My name is’ followed by a multiple choice question with a list of the names of students from that class.
As we are using Google Forms we will have a record showing if there participation increases or not. We can also compare the quality of homework over time. Benefits

This hopefully will increase homework participation and also provide a number of other benefits:

-This will create a uniform homework format that students get into the routine of doing.
-The first question ‘my name is’ will give us a clear view of who has and hasn’t done the homework.
-This record can be used as evidence if students are continually not doing homework.
-Students will become more accountable for their own work.
-Students will be able to raise any issues before a lesson, so we know exactly who needs support. This means we can give them help before the lesson,  either in person or digitally, (through email or sending them to websites or video tutorials) or we can give them targeted support at the start of class. If a lot of the class are having the same issues, we can change our lesson plan to resolve these.
-We will be able to compare student answers side by side.
-Students who have not filled in the Google Form will not be able to move on to the task in class, they will also not have the information and skills that the rest of the class have, so will feel left behind. This should include participation and increase students ownership over their own learning.
-Having all student responses in one document will help us when marking work.

-Having student work side by side should help us when providing students with ideas for improvement.
-Google forms produce two types of reports. One which shows one individuals answer to each question and another which shows all students answers to individual questions!
-Google Forms can be used for peer assessment.
-Google forms can be used to help students evaluate their own work, their peers and other artist’s work, developing more meaningful and insightful answers.

Issues
For the first few weeks we may need to go over the forms together at the start of class. Often students fail to answer in full sentences when filling in surveys. By discussing the answers and what we expect from them, we should not only see an increase in the amount of homework being done, but we should see an improvement in the quality.

Examples

When looking at the summary of responses this is the first result to show up. This means at the start of a lesson we can see who has and hasn’t completed the work. This could also be used the day before to remind students who have not completed the work.
Here we can see all the students results to one individual question. Here students can compare answers. This is also great for collaborative work, for example if you asked students ‘name one thing which creates a successful poster’, this would be followed by a list of all the students responses.
This is very good when doing peer feedback, for example ‘The thing I like most about Ms. Dance’s art is’ , would then be followed by all the results from all the students. This can be used by the student in the evaluation of their product or art work.


The other type of feedback shows individual's responses. Here you can scroll along and see the persons answers for each question.This can be useful for students to refer to when writing an evaluation. Also it is good for teachers to refer to when speaking to a student, or their parents, about their work. The problems column is also useful as you can quickly see who is having problems and what - these issues can be built into your lesson plan and dealt with at the start of class.

Other
If successful we would like to share this with other staff, hopefully getting them to adopt this method too.

VideoThis tutorial hopefully explains our plans and should also help anyone who wishes to adopt these methods.  

Google Forms and GTA Application

I'm still working on my application for the Google Teacher Academy, but have finished my video. It is on Motivation and Learning andI have decided to focus on Google Forms. I think most videos made by other applicants are about Google generally, but I wanted to focus mine down to one of the many tools I use. When I receive training I enjoy getting practical tips and suggestions for something I can work on straight away - something more focussed, like one Google App. When I deliver training I also like to focus on practical tips - this is why I have decided to focus on my video just onto Google Forms, as I can give examples of how I apple them to my teaching.

I am also working on a research project at school with another teacher. We are going to be using Google Forms at least once a week for every class we teach as part of their homework. This will help us flip the classroom, but will also help us increase student homework participation and also increase the quality of the work. We will be able to compare student work side by side and use the forms for peer assessment. Each form will also have a question allowing students to express any issues or areas of concern they are having. I will post more on this project as we move on with it - we are just in the stages of drawing it up right now.

Wish my luck with both the application and the research project!

Good Reads Book Group

A cute widget for our school's Book Club on Good Reads!

Halcyon Book Club
40 members
A digital hang out and reading group for member of the Halcyon London International School Commun...

Books we've read

Wonder
by R.J. Palacio

The Book Thief
by Markus Zusak

View this group on Goodreads »

As we work in a 1:1 iPad school we decided to deliver all of our courses through iTunesU. I also created a course with resources for staff and one for the library. The library course has lots of information about local libraries, GoodReads, Apps for getting free e-books and audio books, links to author websites and loads more.  I have divided each of my tech classes into the five units, a section on assessments and a section with the MYP tech outline. In each unit students will get an introduction to the course, they will then have work for every lesson and homework set on iTunesU. Here I can also upload any useful PDFs, video tutorials, websites and other documents. Most of them are full of tutorials for the different apps we will be using as well as links to the students' homework in Google Drive. I really love using iTunes U and know the students love it too. It also helps that all students are using it across the school, as students are very familiar with it. Although you need a code to enroll we happily let parents enrol on our courses, so they can see exactly what the students are doing in class and for homework and get access to all the materials to help support their child. Every time you make an update it pushes through a notification to the student, this is very useful when sending reminders, such as letting students know we are going on a trip, have a test or they need to download an app. We also save useful websites in the course, as well as log in details for places like BrainPop!

If anyone would like to take a look at any of the iTunesU courses or wants to find out about setting it up, feel free to message me on here or on Twitter.

More details about iTunesU here.

Green Screen Experimenting

Today Grade 8s are setting up the Green Screen to film some news broadcasts. We bought a really cheap green screen kit from Amazon, but it seems to be doing the job pretty well.

Does anyone have any tips for using this? If so, please tweet me @missedutton

Next term I will be working with students to create a news story for the BBC School Report. 

Here is the report I made in my last school:

ClassTools - BURGER BABY

I love a good burger. I even went on a burger tour of the east coast of America and had a pet African Pygmy Hedgehog Called Burger. Here's evidence of both:

Here's ClassTools cute Burger Story Planning tool. I know a good friend of mine uses this a lot in English and History classes and I've used it once very successfully. I am enjoying looking through the ClassTools resources today, as a few I haven't used for a while. It's helping inspire me!

Check it out here.

ClassTools - Source Analyser

A quick tool to get students to assess if a website is reliable or not. I used this with some of my KS3 students when working on different projects. It's pretty simply, but very effective! Check it out here.

ClassTools Countdown

Another tool I use on ClassTools is the countdown. At the moment I am using this almost every lesson. As it is the end of half-term students are working independently finishing off their projects. The countdown allows them to know how long they have left - also I 30-1.30second song at the end, so students can tidy up and all get together again. This is when we share what we have been working on with the rest of the class.

   

 Check it out here.

ClassTools Random Name Picker

I have started using the ClassTools Random Name Picker again. I find that I have a couple of students who are very quiet in class and don't contribute as much as I would like them to, to class discussions. Using the random name picker means all students get a chance to contribute. They also get excited when I use it, as it is almost a game! Although ClassTools is a pretty garish clumsy looking website I actually use some of the tools it provides on a daily basis! Check it out here.

Next term I am doing a product design course with the students. The products they design will be sold to parents and teachers and we may even create an online store. Students will get a small budget, but will have complete freedom with what they design! I created two Pinterest boards to help inspire them.

Classroom Management Tips

This is where I share some of my classroom management tips and strategies:

Writing Prompts

Images to get students writing! I love visual story starters - students always come up with the most interesting, diverse stories.

Google Search Tricks

One of the first videos I made - Google Search Tricks!

Creating Educational Videos

I was invited to speak at The Librarian TeachMeet event - CILIP ARLG Eastern
Saturday, 15 June 2013 from 14:00 to 17:30 (BST)
Norwich, United Kingdom.

As I couldn't make it, I was asked to create a video.  This video talks about creating educational videos. Following this they showed one of my Stop Motion Animations. I was available on Twitter to answer any questions!

Word Taboo

I made this game of Word Taboo for my Debate Club. My Debate Club are a group of highly intelligent, wonderful students...however they do not have the best communication skills. As they are very bright, they have tons of ideas, and have difficulty not talking over each other. I created this game to help combat that!

If you are not familiar with taboo the rules are very simple - the class split into teams  - one student sits in front of the whiteboard/TV, so that they can not see the screen. A word and an image pop up on the screen, along with a few other 'clue words'. Students on that team must try and get them to guess the correct word, but they must not use any of the clue words. They are also not allowed to leave their seats, to shout, to point, to do voices, to sing songs or to mention any names at all, (this includes places and people)! The teams not playing must help moderate and must look out for cheating! I usually give students 30-40 seconds to guess the word.

You can download this activity here.

Spelling Taboo

A twist on the game of Word Taboo. Students must also spell the word correctly before they get any points or can leave the hot seat! I used this with our nurture group, (students with SENs and EAL issues). Download the powerpoint from TES.

International Quiz

A quiz I made for International Week. Students were really good at this, guessing most of the flags correctly! The food students found a bit difficult. I was also surprised by how many students didn't recognise landmarks from England! Download the quiz on TES.

Science Trivia Quiz

A quick trivia quiz. This was done during tutor group time during Engineering week! Download it from TES.

Westminster Libraries

As members of my school we are able to become members to any library in Westminster. We can then register our cards with any library in the Hammersmith and Fulham or the Chelsea and Kensington borough. This gives students access to a huge amount of books, e-books, e-magazines, DVDs and other resources. I created the video above to show students the resources available to them.

Granny Cloud

Today students in grade seven are taking part in the "Granny Cloud'. They have set up Skype interviews with older relatives from around the world, and will be asking them a series of questions about identity. In case there are technical issues or students cannot get hold of someone, I am substituting as a granny. Students will be calling me through Skype and asking me a range of questions, using various sentence structures. I even have my biggest glasses and a headscarf for a disguise!

This is an excellent lesson organised by Ms. Jones, our wonderful English teacher! Very impressed!

Update.

Photo Evidence! UH OH!

Basically Reading is AWESOME

A Stop Motion I made about the benefits of reading!

Another Book Quiz

Another quick book quiz! This should be suitable for students of mixed ability who enjoy different types of books. I generally get the students to answer these questions in a Google Form or on paper and I get them working in a group!

Opening Lines to Famous Children's Books

Here is a quick quiz using opening lines from famous children's books. I have done this as a video and delivered this myself. This has been done for individually classes and also as a school wide competition! I used Sock Puppets to create this sweet video.
Have a listen - how many will you guess?

Poetry

Who doesn't love poetry? In my last school we had some fantastic slam poetry competitions. I ended up being on the judging panel twice - a very difficult job.

Google Apps Tutorial

Another tutorial I created to show colleagues the basics of Google Apps. 

I shared this with the School Librarians Network and got some great feedback!

Good Reads Tutorial

All students at my school use Good Reads. We add reviews for any books we read in English class. We also have a book group for all students, staff and parents. This is a tutorial I made to show students how to use the website. Each advisory group also spent some time in The Hub (our library) looking at the app and signing up to the site.

The Dewey Decimal Classification System

A video I made for the start of year introductions to the library! 

A quick video to explain the Dewey Decimal Classification System!

Pinterest - Books Worth Reading

QR Codes

An old video I made about using QR codes.

Before I left my last school I covered all the toilet doors with laminated signs. These signs would have a quote from a book, with no details telling the author or title, but just a QR code linking to the Good Reads site, or a YouTube book trailer!
Now that I work in a 1:1 iPad I am able to use them in a range of creative ways. Mostly I have been putting them in books to enhance them  - so either linking to videos and other resources to support the books, or linking to our book club or to an authors website. I am also going to start using them for new students, so that they have QR codes for all of their iTunesU courses!

On Pinterest I have pinned lots of ideas for using QR codes in school too.

Twitter

I love Twitter. I don't think I would ever have a personal one, but as a tool to network and share ideas it is fantastic. I follow a lot of authors, publishers and others teachers....as well as some funny Twitter accounts, like Snape's! I find it to be a place for constant inspiration. Even just scrolling through my homepage, I will easily see a dozen links to blog posts, lesson plans, tutorials, app reviews, competition and a whole range of other inspiring resources!
A lot of teachers are a bit sceptical about Twitter and do not know where to start. I have showed a lot of colleagues and other educators how to use it and have got them hooked. I will have a tutorial posted on here soon too!

@missedutton

TES

I share a lot of resources on TES. Most of these resources were made when I was at Evelyn Grace Academy. A lot of them are for students with SENs and EAL students. There are lesson plans as well as one off lessons, like international quizzes and Word Taboo! Click the image to view my profile and my resources.

Pinterest

Pinterest

Pinterest
I love Pinterest and use it a lot to get inspired and to share my ideas.
Recently I have also been using it as a teaching tool, by creating inspiration boards for projects students are working on. Next half-term I will be getting al my students, (who are over 13) to create Pinterest boards to help them when researching and planning for their technology projects.

I've created this video to show students before they use Pinterest:

I am going to re-make my video for educators using Pinterest. I'll post it here as soon as it is done!

Welcome

I realised that all the resources I share online are spread out online between TES, YouTube, Pinterest, SLN, Fronter, Google Drive and Twitter. I think it is finally time to pull them all together!

I have recently moved on from being the Librarian at a school in Brixton to become the Digital Librarian and Technology Teacher at a new international school in central London. This is the second new school I have worked in and I am really loving it. I am getting to grips with the international baccalaureate MYP course and enjoying teaching technology lessons. Currently I have students working on iBook, Movie and food tech projects.

The library itself is mostly digital and we use resources from Westminster, Hammersmith and Fulham and Chelsea and Kensington Libraries. All of our courses are delivered through iTunesU. Teachers here have created their own resources and books for our students. I even have an iTunesU course all about libraries and online resources.

This blog will aim to show videos, lesson plans, app reviews and will let me show off some of the incredible work my students are producing.

Thanks

Ms. D