The IWB Challenge Week 1

As mentionned in a previous post, I (somewhat foolishly, I fear) decided to take up the IWB Challenge as set up by Jess McCulloch and also take up by me (of course) and Isabelle Jones from My Languages.
What a week to start off with! I think I was actually in my classroom, fully focused, for a day last week, I therefore have to admit to not being very adventurous at all. I did mage a few things, all of which were newish to me:

• On Monday I introduced clothing to my Yr7 bottom set. I used Powerpoint to introduce the clothes with their colours, like flashcards (not new) and then, as a plenary to see how much they had learnt I created another, more flashy Powerpoint. The slide transitions were all timed and there was music the started with the first slide and continued to the end, whilst on each slide there was a picture and a multiple choice of the correct sentence for them to pick. I know that to some this may be nothing new, but I only recently learnt how to do it (after having been taught by a wonderful colleague). The pupils seemed to like it too, the music seemed to keep them more focused on what they were doing, somehow!
• With the same class, the next lesson I used a flashcard powerpoint where puils had to click on a number, a picture appeared, told me what theyn thought the French work for it was and then they "flipped" the slide to see if it was correct - could have been quite effective, if somehow things hadn't got out of sync a bit in transfer from my lap to to my classroom computer :o(
• The only other thing I can think of is not very exciting, or new really. To revise European Countries with my Yr9 Set 3 German class, I got them to come and draw links from the German name of the country to where it was on the map. It was very interesting to see their knowledge of European geography (and lack of it), so they learnt where some European countries were (see, I even got in some cross-curricular links!)
  

The rest of the week was spent either in the computer suite or learning Japanese Calligraphy with Noriko, our Japanese Assistant.

I have some rather ambitious plans for using placeSpotting.com and MyStudiyo that Joe Dale blogged about earlier this week for next week. We shall see how it goes...

Ian Ramsey went Dutch

As I sit here, exhausted, I finally have time to reflect upon one of the most hectic weeks of my teaching career - the first leg of our eTwinning project with a school in the Netherlands (doing a History project, but why I was involved is a whole other story!).
There were times when I thought it would never happen and there were definitely times when I hoped it wouldn't happen!
Anyway, on Sunday all 20 pupils arrived, without a hitch. I had images of a poor Dutch child being left at school with no partner but everything worked OK, apart from my appalling pronunciation of the kids' names. We had a great few days with trips to Beamish and Preston Park Museum, pupils working in the LRC on their projects and evening activities of bowling and a social evening at school where we were able to show parents a great slideshow of the activities.
The whole few days were fantastic, if not exhausting. These things are always such fun but so tiring at the same time. It was amazing the amount of support I got from colleagues throughout the school and the confidence it has given me in general. It was a bit of come-down to have to teach normal lessons on Thursday (we had a CPD Day today).
The tell tale signe of the success of the project were the tears at the end of the trip. Several of the pupils were hoping to stow away on the coach with their partners as they left.
For me, as a linguist, the most mortifying thing of the whole few days was that I couldn't (and till can't) speak a word of Dutch. I will certainly be rectifying that before I go over there in a few weeks time to plan the return trip :oP

Alternative Eurovision Song Contest

Earlier this week, I was invited by Jess McCulloch to join the Alternative Eurovision Song Contest Ning Network. The idea - a fanatstic idea of Jo Rhys-Jones of Talkabout Primary MFL - being to attempt to do better than the real Eurovision Contestants in May. Each person has to choose a country to reperesent in the "alternative" contest (although I am assured that we don't have to sing in that country's language).
So, having nothing better to do with my time, having Dutch pupils in school on an eTwinning project, a trip to Cologne to plan and a podcasting competition to enter and that's not even counting the IWB challenge and Animoto Challenge, I decided that this would be the ideal opportunity to get the Yr 7 pupils involved in. I'm going to work with our G&T Yr 7s and we're going to represent the Netherlands (surprise, surprise). I'm actually going to get a teacher who actually is Dutch and works at our school to help us to learn a song in Dutch. I'm hoping that this will also provoke interest in Dutch, ready for recruitment to the Project with Zeldenrust Steelantcollege next year.

The Dutch have arrived!

My biggest nightmare of the past 9 months has been our Dutch eTwinning project. Maybe it's because I don't speak Dutch, or maybe it's because I'm not a History teacher but I've really struggled to get a handle on this. However, after the nightmares of having to increase numbers from 15 to 20 hosts and telling parents arrival and departure dates had changed they arrived this evening without a hitch! All day I had images of being left with 2 Dutch children too many, or them having decided not to bother due to our disorganisation and us all standing at school waiting for people who weren't going to arrive. The only fly in the ointment now is the Head of History is ill and will probably not be able to go to Beamish tomorrow - I think we have a backup now! My only role now is to get us all bowling tomorrow evening and arrange a "social event" on Tuesday.
I must admit, I'll be relieved on Wednesday evening!
I'll be blogging with the kids on Our Victorian Adventure all week.

Samantha Hughes

I first came across Samantha Hughes whilst I was recovering from Meningitis about two and a half years ago, through an article in my mum's newspaper(she had to come and look after the children until I was well enough to do so). She was a little girl (aged 2 at the time I think) from Derbyshire suffering from a rare childhood cancer called Neuroblastoma. I found her website and, curiously it was from there that I found the first ever blog I read regularly Support for Christi Thomas written by the inspirational Angela Thomas (Christi's mum). Since then I have been a regular reader, so it was with enormous sadness that I read today that she had died, aged 5 after a recent relapse. I can't believe how upset I am and just count myself very lucky that I have 2 gorgeous, healthy children.

My IWB Challenge

Having read on Jess McCulloch's excellent Technolote blog a couple of weeks ago about her Interactive Whiteboard Challenge and then seen Isabelle Jones' commitment to take up the challenge too in the comments on that post and in her own later post, I decided that since my own IWB lies dorment in my classroom much of the time that now was the ideal opportunity to improve upon my IWB skills.
The idea is to use the IWB in 2 new ways every week and then blog about it at the end of that week. Hopefully, I can keep the ideas rolling and find 2 new ways to use it each week!!! I have some ideas for next week's lessons anyway, so that's a start.
So from next week, when we return from our 2 week break I will begin and I intend to write a blog post about my ventures on a Friday evening (with the aid of Grolsch or Stella, depending on Tesco's best offers that week!)

Dan starts full time nursery

Today was a bit of a milestone, since Dan has now started "propper" full-time nursery, rather than his previous 3 days a week day nursery.
Naturally, he has begun Red House where Graeme works as Network Manager and where Alice is already in Yr1 and having a ball. He was so excited all day yesterday he never shut up! This morning was lovley as he got on his little uniform (including cap!) and kept telling me to sort out his bag etc... Even better was that I got to take him on his first day due to our Easter breaks not matching this year so I got to meet his new teacher (a man!...Quite unusual for a nursery, I think). He was pleased as punch to be able to go in with me and Graeme and begin banging things together etc...
I must admit to always feeling a little "poor" on having any dealings with Red House and it's parents, since they're all so extremely well off (Alice is in awell know Dragon's son's class), so I was a little "star-struck" when I well know Austrian Boro player taking his daughter into the nursery talking in German to her (naturally)...I wanted to start talking in German too...will have to get Dan talking in German to her.
Of course all this means, very few of Dan's and Alice's friends will ever be able to come to our house for a visit, as we don't have gates or our own grounds!