Hosted by Michael Boll, this workshop explored uses and development of a WordPress site. Learned how to manipulate themes and was able to upload a new header image! There is also a .css editor to make changes to font styles etc.
Look! You can insert images in a post!!
Developed some more skills such as inserting and aligning images (check out Jeff to the right!) Also managed to get some sub-pages working (quite simple really…) and played around with users and comments.
I have been signed up to an ECIS ICT forum for the last few years and sometimes it produces some real gems. Here’s a post with links to some resources on ICT curriculum scope and sequence (re-posted with permission from author-Jennifer Janesko of Dresden International School):
I have looked at many, and here are some resources that I have found most helpful:
http://memotech.ning.com/page/memo-information-and
Minnesota’s updated Information and Technology Literacy curriculum. This is one that I have been using to help refine some of our benchmarks.
http://www.ncrel.org/tech/nets/rubrics.htm
This is one that I started with because it is linked directly to the ISTE. I thought that it was a bit outdated, and for our context a little too agressive some areas a little to lax in other areas.
http://www.iste.org/store/product.aspx?ID=653
Kelly M. G., Haber Jon. Resources for Student Assessment. Oregon: International Society for Technology in Education, 2006.This book has an updated version of the scope and sequence found on the NCREL website. It also provides practical tips on how to integrate assessment of technology.
http://www.kusd.edu/media/pdf/standards_benchmarks/instructional_technology/itl–k-12.pdf
South Dakota curriculum. Used for ideas on different items to add to our curriculum.http://www.dpi.state.nd.us/standard/content.shtm
North Dakota curriculum. Used for ideas on different items to add to our curriculum.
Well, a moment of serendipity as I sit in an auditorium waiting for Peter Hessler to give a presentation. Time to kill? Why not do some marking….
Connected to the school’s wi fi network, I logged in to the wiki server where students had been creating a wiki each on a selected human right. I was able to look up the rubric, go to each students page, mark and record in Evernote for later syncing with school lap top, and post a comment to each student!
The Apple wiki server has a cool feature that makes it look great for a small screen like on my phone. And I posted this from my WordPress app!! The wonders of technology….
While stumbling about on Stumble Upon, I came across the following blog post – Redesigning Education: Rethinking the School Corridor. By a chap called Trung Le, who seems to have a range of views on the design of schools, it’s amazing to think who little the space for teaching in secondary schools has changed in the last 100 years. Check out this quote:
“School designers have used the double loaded corridor for easy circulation. It met its single purpose of moving kids from one contained classroom to the next at the sound of the bell. Now, when every aspect of a school’s design budget is being questioned, the square footage allocated to the double-loaded corridor accounts, on average, for up to 30% on the total. Roughly one-third of the typical school building is used not for learning, growing, or interacting, but for getting to the places where that happens.”
I’ll never look at a corridor in a school in the same way anymore!
After the random browsing through Apps for the classroom last night, I came across an e-polling application. The functionality of being able to poll students is really useful, for example to quickly check if the class has understood a certain concept by a quick multiple choice question. In a previous school, I used NetSupportSchool which had this functioanlity. I mainly used to check for task completion (Who is finished this task? Yes/No). So, this all perked my interest to see what solutions are currently available.
SMART, mainly known for their IWB’s, have a product called ‘SMART Response‘. This version works on student computers, rather than the seperate device that SMART is trying to peddle.
Having one application to manage all classroom needs is really useful (screen sharing, groups, polling, assessment, locked screens, shared browsing …). I really miss NeSupportSchool!
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