My IWB Challenge Week 2 and the Animoto Challenge

Two challenges for the price of one this week!
Embarking upon the IWB Challenge for this week, I decided it could be a good way to begin working on the Animoto Challenge that Jose Picardo set on his blog Box of Tricks the week before last. So, despite only being in my classroom 3 days this week due to my French Speaking Exams, I've been a busy bee.

Firstly, I used Mystudiyo.com that Joe Dale blogged about and Lisa Stevens also used last week, to create a plenary for my Yr 8 class who have just begun to learn about food (I'm absolutely miles behind where I should be in Metro 2 vert!). It a was very simple word level activity, however they really enjoyed coming up to the board to click on the right answer. (Despite not being able to read the smaller words due to my high-quality projector) Here it is



Naturally, I used animated Powerpoints...my Yr 9 set 5 class, who seemed "unteachable" back in September loved them. I also did a "vocabulary circle" (as we call them in our dept.) automatic slide transition and music for their plenary, putting together countries and transport (we're planning a holiday) which they adored and didn't get too carried away with the music.

I got brave and started to use the ActiveStudio this week as well (I say brave, because it is like diving into the unknown wondering where the writing is going to appear this time - and yes, it is callibrated!!!). However, with Yr 11 I did Speed Dating, with one question on each page and set the clock to chime every 2 minutes (much to the frustration of the class above me!) so that they (and I ) knew when to change. I've use the timer quite a bit this week - mainly to annoy my colleagues - only joking!

Going back to Powerpoint, I'm planning a different kind of holiday with my other Yr 9 class (no, not one that involves running very quickly off a cliff), as they are - apparently of a higher level than the previous class. We are consolidating knowledge of Europe at the moment, so I decided to do some European Geography with them. I'm working with some Yr 7 pupils on the Alternative Eurovision Song Contest as mentionned in a previous post and Jo Rys-Jones provided us with a fanatastic map of Europe powerpoint where you could move the map pins around. I hope that she doesn't mind that I used this with my Yr 9 class and they loved it! I was stunned at how much they DID know :o) I only wish I knew how to do something so clever myself, as I tried all night one night and failed :o( Thank you Jo!

Finally to Animoto. My Tutor Group, whom I adore (Yr 8) are doing a unit on the EU at the moment in Citizenship, so as a starter I created a 30 second Animoto video that feature items relating to various EU countries and they had to see how many countried they could spot. Couldn't decide which I liked best one with some latin music (seen below) or another with Ode to Joy...see YouTube.

Continuing with the Animoto theme, I also made a video of some of the photos from our Dutch project. Here is is (there is a rare photo of me with colleagues in there...can you spot it?)