Here’s something light to finish off your week. How many of us have given our learners something similar? Enjoy the giggle, but think about it.

Mark.

Thanks to the PYP ICT Blog for originally hosting the cartoon, and to Jenny Gilbert (nenifoofer) for bringing it to my attention on the OzTeachers Twibe.

Resource: Child1st

(Please note that this is not a paid post)

Child1st Publications is an online resource that exists to serve children who are visual and right brained learners, covering, but not limited to, the autistic and ADHD spectrum. They offer products mainly for the younger learner, but also for those who may be learning English or consolidating their skills. On their site they write;

We believe every child can learn, that many learning failures are avoidable, and that a label assigned doesn’t have to be a life sentence. We believe brains are made to learn, they love to learn, and in most cases they will learn when conditions are right. We also believe that once the gaps in their understanding are bridged, they will progress rapidly.

Product designers at Child1st look at children first to discover how they learn most naturally. We integrate explicit phonics instruction with specific strategies (visuals, movement, storytelling, humor, rhyme, and patterns) to engage children with an array of learning strengths. Teach smarter, more efficiently, and with confidence.

They provide resources for learning letters (Snap Letters), words (Snap Words), reading (Easy-for-Me Reading) and reading practice (Easy for Me Books). The site is over flowing with resources and materials; they always have reasonings for their products, explaining their purpose in a simply and easy to read manner. The team are currently working on translating their products into Spanish. A nice feature of Child1st is the ability to buy and download the products directly from the site. You can then print them out at your own convenience.

I recommend that you have a look at the site and evaluate whether it’s suitable for your students and your school. The staff are contactable through the website, their Facebook fan page and their Twitter account.

It’s been a while since I did this, but I feel it’s good to take stock of what people are reading, tweeting and using from this site every once in a while. August proved a busy month with lots of Twitter updates, new followers and hits to the site here.  On the side I also started the OZTeachers Twibe on Twitter which is gaining followers daily.   On the Twitter front a staggering 300 people started following The Teacher’s Hub in August up to a total of nearly 1300. Post wise, the ten most popular post for August were;

1. Ten Amazing Tips from Einstein to Implement Technology into the Classroom.

2. OzTeachers on Twitter

3. StoryLine Online – Stories Read by Actors

4. WallWisher

5. Tessellation Creator

6. Tradukka – Realtime Translation for ESL Teachers

7. Better than Wordle? Try Word Mosaics

8. Best Resource Sites for Using Flip Cameras

9. 10 Google Forms For the Classroom

10. Facebook can be a GREAT Learning Management System

Don’t forget that you can subscribe via RSS or email, follow on Twitter or Facebook. I look forward to seeing you somewhere around the traps.

Facebook can be a great tool for Learning Management. Kudos to the teacher, the school and the principal that backed this idea. It seems to have worked.

I must admit that, even though I have had an account for a while, I have only just really started to utilise GoogleDocs.

I’ve found it to be a tool that I can start to build on and use; it’s also a great way to share live documents with colleagues or students. That’s why I was excited to come across this article from Tom Barrett explaining ten Google based documents that designed for use in the classroom. I suggest that they be good starting points for integrating (I hate to say it) the power of Google into your class setting. The ten forms are;

1. Get to know your class
2. Emotion graph
3. Spelling test
4. Comprehension questions
5. Weekly Reading Record
6. Maths data handling
7. Guided Reading Record
8. Prior Learning Assessment
9. Library Book Review
10. Learning Success

Get your own copies from the article, which can be found here.

Phil Bird’s website Classroom 201X is a fantastic resource essentially for the EOSL and functional English teachers, but educators of all persuasions will find a gem hidden in its pages. Phil (who’s located in the UK) writes primarily about the tools he encounters in his EOSL role; his latest post was an indepth comparison between Prezi and PowerPoint. The other resources that he offers can be found as pages across the top menu bar.   

His SmartBoard Resources provide a plethora of links and ideas, as well as connections to Smatboard software, including the Beta Smartboard Express. The Software Toolbox page is a great overview of about nine programs (only one of them has a cost), with links and ideas that will help particularly with Literacy teaching. The final page, Teaching Links, covers different categories, again giving some great links including Blogs, Twittering Teachers and Professional Development resources.

Phil has put in a fantastic effort in getting this site full of rich content. I suggest you set aside half an hour or more and explore Classroom 201X. You can also find Phil on Twitter using @pysproblem81

Just quickly pointing you to some quick reference guides for your workplace.  

Custom Guide is an online learning environment that host a variety of guides that cover many programs, for both Mac and PC and even Adobe.

They are free to download and permission is giving for workplace distribution either via email or hardcopy. They are even allowed to be reproduced for your school’s website. A great pre-made tool for any PD or presentation you’re doing.

Each year Jane Hart over at the Centre for Learning and Performance Activities (C4LPA) is once again putting the call out for help in compiling the Top 100 Tools for Learning. Simply head to her site and follow the links, then add ten tools that have been invaluable to your service as an educator. So far over 380 learning professionals have contributed their opinions on the most valuable tools that they have when considering e-Learning. You can also access the results back to 2007 when this annual compilation started, when the top ten tools for e-learning were;

1. Firefox
2. Delicious
3. Google Search
4. Skype
5. PowerPoint
6. WordPress
7. Gmail
8. Google Reader
9. Blogger
10. Word

Polling closes this year on the 17th of October, 2010.
Post your contributions here.

This Prezi wasn’t designed by me, but I thought it was a fantastic way to showcase the type of presentation capabilities that Prezi is capable of. Beth Arledge is the original author and has done a fantastic job of showing some of the functionality of this new and exciting presentation tool. Prezi offers free and paid accounts as well as educator accounts. Get one and move away from the Powerpoint.

Here’s something to take you into the weekend.

Enjoy – Mark.