My last few weeks

I am quite sorry about not having done an entry for a while. I guess there are two reasons - my normal work and report writing getting in the way and the second is because I have to do real work sometimes I haven't been looking at the different web tools to use and so I haven't felt I have had anything decent to say.

I am currently on term break which is giving me a little time to think of the web tools I will be using in the courses I am developing over the next term and so I will probably go over the ones that I have discovered over the last 12 months and how I am planning to use them in my teaching in my next few Entries starting with Audacity today.

Towards the end of term I presented some of the work I have been doing with another staff member to some Victorian Specialist Science Centres and even though our time had been wittered away we came across enthuseasitic and the tools we showed really encouraged these Centres as a way to engage students from across the state to be able to tap into their resources.

We showed them:

• 2 different ways to conduct an online chat based lesson
• 2 different ways to blog with students
• 1 type of podcasting
• Our schools involvement in Skoolaborate
• We didn't get to show our LMS or use of google maps........

What I found interesting on reflection of this presentation is that we hadn't done anything with any wizz bang sites or facililties. That students don't really mind what the software or site looks like to use them and that they are being engaged in learning.


We have been using some pretty old school type of blogging platform in the LMS with our students, using Chatzy as a place to do online lessons at night with senior students who have had access to an information blog in Blogger and will be using a Ning for the rest of the year. We also showed the Ning we have set up for the group involved in our online science project....

So I have decided it doesn't really matter what you use as long as you are using it to direct students to learn and engage with each other.



I am interesting in knowing what people would like me to blog about.

Whether you want to know the tools I have used or how I am using them with my general excitement of finding something new. Please leave a comment I would really appreciate it.

So my next post will be on using Audacity.

Using Teachnology

The last couple of weeks my school has really engaged with the different technologies available for teaching.

For my VCE Biology students a colleague and I held a seminar where we recorded a number of students questions about concepts they wanted to know more about on the iPhone and then proceeded to answer them using a microphone and Audacity and a little bit of Garageband for background music. In all we made 4 podcast episodes. Which we added to teachertube and then embedded into the student's information Blog.



See more Audio at TeacherTube.com.


The exam for this unit is on Tuesday so I am hoping they use these to help them and they are all studying right now :-)

The ability to Podcast and Screencast is becoming popular at my school as well as being able to find the best online whiteboard / file sharing / chat place, if you have any ideas for the best place please leave a comment below as I am interesting in finding out as it is really hard finding something that works well on a school network.


Wordle and Quizlet are the next two favourites. As literacy is becoming a whole school focus there is a real focus on the different strategies that can be used.
I have used Wordle to help students "Get knowledge Ready" and to either create a similar wordle in MS Word or define some of the key terms that are in the wordle.

I love Wordle and other teachers are now using for all sorts of engagement ideas too.

I placed all the key words and their definintions from Quizlet used in Biology for the semester and created a really interesting Wordle of the key terms.


The ease of Quizlet is great, the ability to create a word list and their definitions in half an hour and then that Word List having endless possibilities for students to use and it all being free is fantastic. It has been taken on by older staff members. If you haven't starting using Quizlet for your students then you are definitely missing out.

I might actually try and make a screencast for that today :-)

So the technologies mentioned today are:

Podcasting - Iphone, Audacity, Microphone, Garageband (or some sample music)
Screencasting - Can be done with SnagIT, Jing, Camtastia and probably a million more different types of software
Literacy Tools - Wordle and Quizlet.