Kristianstill

Another storm has swept through the ICT department. Control and sequencing has never been exactly ‘exciting’ but Lightbot has caught their imagination, and that of one of our Assistant Head Teachers (mathsmatician).

Bascially you control a robot by giving it commands. Use programmer-style logic for more complex levels that include functions to re-use.

Well its fantastic and its had the ICT rooms packed to the rafters. Its got me thinking, what does it offer thats so entertaining?

Easy to start. Quick short levels that get progressing harder. A fun wee character. Challenge, the later levels are certainly taxing.

My colleague has been creating screencast WINK manuals to help, only this evening I found that YOUTUBE has beaten him to the finishing line.

‘The effect of a very small change in the initial conditions of a system which makes a significant difference to the outcome.’

Our touch typing experiment? This term we are introducing every ICT class (year 7, 8, 9 and 10) with just FIVE (hence a very small change) minutes of touch typing using the typingweb free resource. In summary, Typingweb is

• 100% free
• Web-based, and can be access anywhere
• Teaches typing technique
• Provides progress statistics

Here is the education bit. A warm front to lessons, students arrive, login, access Tyingweb right from the intranet page. Punctual students get the first 5-7 minutes practice that provides a transitional phase into the lesson, students who are a little tardy get less time or miss out. No more disrupted or staggered starts.

To extend this, my mentees get a further 4 x 15 minute sessions of mentor time as we meet in my teaching room. My mentees performance in just 2 weeks has more than doubled, and as it is web-based some students are now practicing at home. In ICT lessons,students typing speeds is pretty constant, but students are eager to arrive and disappointed if they miss out on typing web time.

We hope that if the students progress to typing with 10 fingers and thumbs that will be a serious improvement on the two index fingers the majority are using now and an valuable life skill they will continue to use long after they leave Hamble College.

Topic or Tool: Online Polling. This overview looks at when and how polls can be used. Polls are embedded in our College webpage but there are also web options. We use polls to monitor opinions from students and parents but also to encourage students to engage with the website. For example our students recently correctly predicted the outcome of the X Factor final.

What does it cost? For the most part FREE.

How it could be used for teaching? There are a range of options here.

Most Web polling software are free and they require no technical knowledge. Lets take a look at a few, but there are plenty more than that. Note the key differences are HOW users vote and How you interact with the site.

1. The very first polling software I used was SurveyMonkey. I used it to gather student feedback about the course. I then used this information to develop and steer the course. In the post 16 sector, gauging and responding to the students was very important. Still a very powerful tool, basic subscribers (FREE) are limited to a total of 10 questions and 100 responses per survey. So good for a cohort or group but if you want to go beyond 100 respondents, and up to 1000 or gain access many more features, there is a cost. 8/10

2. Micropoll- This web poll service doesn’t require registration and you can create a quick poll by simply typing all the possible choices in a text box separated by new lines. Great for quick hit question. Micropoll provides a variety of colored themes and you can embed polls in websites either as JavaScript or a Flash movie. You get to see poll responses on a world map and the paid version also supports SMS polls.

3. Google Docs – Simply fantastic. Create a new form in Google Docs with a range of questions styles. Its already been used to gather cross college data in our establishment. With the help of some online colleagues, we have added the function of instant grading. Here is a highly developed spelling test formwith extras, marked instantaneously – now I have your attention don’t I. Or how about lesson review forms for students to feedback to teachers. Here is a form for Unit 4 from the OCR Nationals, two groups in two separate rooms competed against one another. Tom Barrett does a great job with Google Docs. With the pros, come the cons. Poll embedding options in Google Docs aren’t very convenient and users can’t see the results after voting but you can convert answers to gadgets….. but that’s another meal.

4. PollDaddyis the most popular online polling software focused as an online solution. A free account from PollDaddy allows you to create surveys and polls for your website, blog and social network profiles.

5. StrawPoll – This is an interesting service that lets you run live polls on Twitter. Good for your PLN not necessarily for school.

6. Poll Everywhere – This could be a student poll, but also good for conference or staff CPD participation. I hope to work with Poll Everywhere in the New Year. Although fine as a web poll, Poll. Poll Everywhere also offers SMS Polls where people can vote though text messaging on mobile phones just like polls conducted on TV or radio. The basic plan is free though it only allows 30 votes per poll.

There are more, Notifu, Vizu Polls and Toluna. The question is, what works for you.

Which polling software is right for me?

All the services discussed above offer some unique options. For instance, Notifu allows polling via email while Micropoll lets you create polls even without asking for your email address. So, if you are doing a poll with students and want to use the result instantly or present the results go with Poll Everywhere, their ppt integretion is very neat.

If you are a doing a presentation in a conference room and need opinions of participants over a certain topic, try Poll Everywhere again, hoping everyone has either a phone or laptop they can join in with.

If you need polls for embedding in web pages, Poll Daddy, the free version of PollDaddy offers unlimited polls and unlimited number of votes, however you will need the Pro version for if you want to prevent fraudulent multiple votes from the same IP address.

For use with students and staff responses, I dont think you can beat the ease of Google Docs. Certainly if you want the students to fill in data, then Google docs rocks. Bring the data to life with Google Gadgets or Many Eyes.

Polling in action….

Look, there are only ever two key questions from teachers when talking about Youtube. The first is ‘why is it blocked in school?’ Good question, but then again some many educational tools are blocked by the educational establishment; Google Image search, Ning to name a few. In fact I think it was Alan November that stated that the of the five top reasons for students to use the internet (IM, Downloading music, Video Games, Social Networks and Youtube) all five are blocked in most schools. That would be the case for the schools I have taught in. So why is it blocked…. safety. (There are alternatives, check out teachertube.)

For me it is the ’scissors’ argument. Do you hide the scissors away from the children, of course you don’t, you show them how to use them safely…. perhaps this is not the forum for banging this drum.

So to the second question, ‘how do I get THAT Youtube video?’ or shall we be more generic and say all FLV videos from popular online websites? Its often a two stage process, getting the video and then converting it to a Windows friendly file type. Here is my new answer for 2009, thanks to another RSS posting.

YouTube FLV Downloader from Moyea, (along with a range of other products, some free and some not). A simple way to download, store, manage and convert your FLV videos from all video sharing sites so YouTube, Yahoo, Google, MySpace, iFilm, Dailymotion, Metacafe. There are even some simple tutorials on how to use it. So that’s the second question, I fear the first question will be long standing.

In November, Microsoft released a major update to its Windows Live online services. The Windows Live suite included updates for mail, messenger, photo gallery and more, I was particular interested in how Movie Maker would work. I blogged about the  Windows Live Family Safety features although I am not sure our students won’t find numerous ways around these features. There are also a two new additions: Windows Live Sync and the Office Live Add-In. Silverlight is now also part of the Live Essentials suite.

We now also have Live Sync which allows you to sync any kind of file to the 25GB of space that Microsoft’s SkyDrive online storage service now offers. Now this has potential. I had read somewhere that the LIVE OFFICE would include OneNote? I have not seen evidence of this yet? Anyone?

Regardless we move forward. I am considering to use a folder and group to develop a group of Moodle ICT teachers. A place to share information and documents. I let you know how we get on – my only reservation with this option is that the Moodle group will set up a Moodle LP for this purpose.