Ok, this probably isn’t the most useful resource that we have brought to your attention. But when you are having one of those teaching days that just goes from bad to worst and all you want to do is get your ‘wonderful’ year 9 group to be quiet, you might just find a use for this little tool.
Give it a go, it is bound to make you smile.
Click here to access The Drama Button
Thanks to Mark Clarkson for the heads up about this.
When students use Google to search for information they probably find that many of their search results link to pages where the language is above their reading level and difficult to fully understand.
Did you know that you can use the advanced search feature in Google to either show the reading level of all search results i.e. basic, intermediate and advanced?
Alternatively, you can choose a specific reading level for the search results you would like shown i.e. you can choose to only show intermediate reading level results.
This is a really simple feature to use and we have created a step-by-step guide that can be printed in A4 and laminated for use as a reference source in the classroom.
Access the full sized A4 guide here
‘Caught in the Web’ is a programme that has been put together by Newsround as a resource to inform children about staying safe on the internet.
The video lasts just over 14 minutes and tells the story of a girl who gets into trouble after her virtual life in an online chatroom spills into the real world.
As well as the main story there are also real-life case studies showing a girl who has suffered from cyber bullying and a boy who became addicted to playing games.
The programme seems to be aimed towards upper KS2 or lower KS3 students and it would be a good resource to show for Safer Internet Day or as part of a scheme of work about online safety.
The video can be viewed online here
Many teachers run graphics units as part of KS3 and KS4 to teach students the skills required to use different graphics applications. However, no matter how confident my students were with using said package, whenever they wanted to resize a picture for a piece of work either they seemed to have forgotten that the application existed or they just couldn’t be bothered to use it (their words, not mine).
I came across an excellent web tool today that I think students would ‘be bothered’ to use. In literally a few seconds they can upload an image, resize it, change the outline and even add drop shadows. They then save the edited image and insert it into their work – it really couldn’t be any more simple.
Nearly all ICT teachers will run at least one lesson looking at how to design a logo. This might be at KS3 where students are undertaking a larger scale project or at KS4 for the OCR Nationals and now even some AS coursework requires students to create a logo as part of their structured tasks.
As part of these lessons it is fairly standard practice to show a range of famous and instantly recognisable logos from large multinational companies. This task then usually leads to a discussion about what features make a good logo.
You could develop this discussion even further by looking at this page, ’60 recently redesigned corporate identities’. Questions could be asked such as:
I came across a superb web tool today called MessageHop. This tool allows you to quickly and easily create an animation using your own images and text and then share your work almost instantly with friends and colleagues. You don’t even have to sign up for an account – something which often stops many web tools being used in the classroom due to their age restrictions.
Here is an example that I put together in literally two minutes (excuse the text animations, this was the default but there were other options available).
You can then email the url to a friend or publish your work to one of the social networking sites such as Twitter or Facebook.
It is an incredibly simple and intuitive tool to use and I can see so many applications for it in every subject from a tour of castles in History to the development of a glacier in Geography.
There is a tutorial here if you would like a quick run through on how to set up your first animation.
All students need to learn about what copyright is, why it is important and how they should abide by the legislation.
This can be a pretty dry subject to try to teach in the classroom so this fantastic film on YouTube could be used to help introduce the subject in a way that will engage most students – especially the younger ones. It takes many individual clips from Disney films and pieces them together to explain the subject of copyright.
You will need access to YouTube in the classroom or a method of showing the film offline.
If I am being very purist then I suppose I should ask the question about why a film all about copyright makes use of so many copyrighted Disney clips in order to tell the story.
The 4th annual schools computer animation competition has just been announced.
Last year over 200 schools across the UK entered students aged 7-19 for the competition. Students created a short animation on any topic of their choice using their preferred software and then submitted it to the competition. Take a look at the 2010 winners gallery, the animations are sure to inspire your students.
If you are a teacher you can register with no obligation by visiting this link
This is a fantastic opportunity to introduce animation and enthuse your students either in lessons or in an extra curricular animation club