PamelaYale.co.uk: 2013

Friday, 13 December 2013

Curriculum Workshop: ICT and English 12/12/13

ICT - Blogging, 'The Cloud', G Drive, Trackers...

English - Literacy in Lessons

Some ideas to use in class:

WOW Starter: Find a WOW word! Find a word that you haven't used in your design logs, annotations, review, etc and incorporate it into the text.
Add 5 WOW words to your review!
Anagram starter: Solve the anagram to find today's keyword.
Find the keywords hidden around the room.
Synonyms: "a word or phrase that means exactly or nearly the same as another word or phrase in the same language, for example shut is a synonym of close"
Hook - Friends
Identify words students commonly use in their design logs that need to be improved e.g. big - thinking year 9.
Starter activity: Link to Pointless game e.g. students to come up with the best synonym and one that no one else has thought of - Gold for a pointless answer.
Text: Provide a simplified text - students to add description to improve the text - homework? Next lesson, starter - compare with exemplar or each others.
Banned Vocab: Create a list of banned vocabulary.
PEE all over your work - Point, Evidence, Explain

Friday, 6 December 2013

CPD Day 6/12/13

Session A: To boldly go to the threshold of my capacity ...

Session B: Using SOLO Taxonomy for differentiation

Use of HOQ

Session C: Literacy - A focus upon writing

How to Improve your Vocabulary - 100 words
http://world-english.org/improve_vocabulary_advanced.htm

Environment and Time:
How can we break up tasks? 'Pupil discussion' 'Think, Pair, Share'
What kind of environment do pupils write in? 'No music - it's a myth that it helps them focus!'

Key Vocab:
Model how this should look (on the board? Printed Design Logs?)

Checking:
Pupils to check each others work by reading it aloud to each other

Resources here

FlipIT SIG

What is your project? Flipping the classroom

Who will you do this project with? 8x1

Where are you planning to upload resources etc? Blogger/Google Drive/YouTube/iTunesU

When are you planning to this by? Over the end of the second term

Do you have a timeline? Ongoing

How are you going to share your project? Through the use of my blog/pupil blogs

Wednesday, 4 December 2013

TeachMeet 3 Minutes: Blogging

Why blog?

1. It is quick and easy to set up (all Wildern accounts use GMail and have Blogger as it is a Google tool).

2. It is very useful for AfL. Using the 'Post Comments ' function, pupils are able to give instant responses to pose questions and discuss. This facilitates open discussion.

3. You can link your blog posts to other channels and vice versa using IFTTT (If This Then That). IFTTT is a powerful service that allows you to connect channels such as Twitter, Blogger, Instagram and many more....

4. Having a teaching blog allows students to quickly and easily access work for the lesson from in the classroom and at home (and no more excuses for homework, as it's all on there!).

This last point is an interesting one, as it ties in with the FlipIT SIG that I am a part of. I have now started planning 'lessons' in which the students can follow at home. This is where the LEARNING will take place. During their next lesson at school, students will then put the learning into PRACTICE. I am uploading resources onto my YouTube account and Google Drive and embedding/linking them onto my blog. Students can then choose their own learning platform depending on technology available at home.

Students' comments:

"I know that I can come straight into Miss Rymill's lesson and get straight onto her blog and the lesson will be there. I don't need to wait for others to come into the room to make a start on the lesson."

"I forgot what my homework was about the other day and headed straight for Miss Rymill's blog - where I found the video I needed to watch, along with the questions I needed to answer."

5. Lastly, blogging is a powerful tool which allows students to be creative, improve literacy skills and celebrate their learning and achievements.

Thursday, 28 November 2013

Curriculum Meeting 28/11/13

Thursday, 4 July 2013

Curriculum Workshop

Try Python...

Functions
Parameters
Prints
Notes

# Receive and Return
# Demonstrates parameters and return values

def display(message):
print(message)

def give_me_five():
five = 5
return five

def ask_yes_no(question):
"""Ask a yes or no question."""
response = None
while response not in ("y", "n"):
response = input(question).lower()
return response

# main
display("Here's a message for you.\n")

number = give_me_five()
print("Here's what I got from give_me_five():", number)

answer = ask_yes_no("\nPlease enter 'y' or 'n': ")
print("Thanks for entering:", answer)

input("\n\nPress the enter key to exit.")

Task: Put this into Notepad !!

Thursday, 27 June 2013

CPD Day Thursday 27th June

The session started with SOW activity ideas. See our Google Doc below for our ideas:

https://docs.google.com/a/wildern.hants.sch.uk/spreadsheet/ccc?key=0Ag7KbpPXAUnqdGdkcGRlUU5pSl85QVVBVnVLeEYtMkE#gid=0

And development opportunity ideas for SOWs:

https://docs.google.com/a/wildern.hants.sch.uk/spreadsheet/ccc?key=0AgQcF1EIwJPydENFeU9jQ2ZtTHF1YmRTSUJ4ek0yY0E#gid=0

Next, we discussed department trips:

https://docs.google.com/a/wildern.hants.sch.uk/spreadsheet/ccc?key=0AgQcF1EIwJPydGRnN3k0TmJmeTJDdk5kWUNDMzJVRlE#gid=0

We also looked at the new VLE:

https://moodle2.wildern.hants.sch.uk/my/

And finally, RQTs presented to departments. Dru and I presented our findings from our RQT Enquiry based learnings as below:

What is Enquiry Based Learning?

A way of ensuring that students are problem solving. They can do this by teachers being 'less helpful'!!

Students should generate their own questioning rather than simply being questioned. Students following on from what someone else has just said with a question is a good example.

How we use it in ICT

The students are encouraged to produce graphics in a variety of different programs and students find out which software would suit the product they are producing. Students look to the teacher to tell them which software they are using. I set Year 10 the task of creating their graphics in a program of their choice and they then had to report back to the class and explained why it suits the product/why it doesn't suit the product.

When review writing we use a template which covers a list of questions - students then answer the questions and write up their report based on the answers.

I have been using the Questioning Snail and introduced more of a collaborative learning environment. We have been discussing individual progress as a group first and then students will go away and write their reviews.

Good vs Bad things

I tried to create an environment where the students didn't feel afraid to 'fail' and most enjoyed the freedom.

Some students felt that they needed or are used to a certain degree of guidance therefore these students seemed to worry about the work they were producing.

The thing I found helpful was consistency. Not expecting them to do it first time but to build on the first lesson.

Thursday, 20 June 2013

#SIG13

The DisruptIT SIG have been busy. See our final blog post on Google+ and other social media here:

http://disrupteit.blogspot.co.uk/2013/06/google-final-thoughts.html

The #SIG13 evening went well and our three helpers were excellent! They persuaded quite a few teachers to try out Google+ and Storify for themselves....

Thursday, 25 April 2013

Ofsted: Revised Guidance

Click here for the introduction to the revised guidance introduction

Click here for the ICT grade descriptors and guidance

Wednesday, 20 March 2013

Miss Rymill's Blog: IBM Blue Fusion Event

Miss Rymill's Blog: IBM Blue Fusion Event: On Tuesday 19 th March, nine schools competed in the IBM Blue Fusion event. Six excited Wildern girls took part and had to compete in six d...