Tag Archives: Resources

Listened: OEG Voices 040: Charlie Farley and Lorna Campbell⤴

from @ wwwd – John's World Wide Wall Display

Listened OEG Voices 040: Charlie Farley and Lorna Campbell on Two Award Winning Projects from University of Edinburgh – OEG Voices by an author from podcast.oeglobal.org
There is something going on with Open Education in Edinburgh. In episode 40 we get to hear first hand from Charlie Farley and Lorna Campbell about two exemplary efforts from the University of Edinburgh that were both recognized with OE Awards for Excellence in 2021. But that is just half of the awar...

Listened: OEG Voices 040: Charlie Farley and Lorna Campbell on Two Award Winning Projects from University of Edinburgh – OEG Voices a podcast produced by Open Education Global.

I huffduffed 1 this mainly to hear the voices of Alan & Lorna.

A few years ago I really hoped that the OER idea would catch on with primary & secondary teachers. Ian and I discussed this many times while working on Glow. We went to a few OER and Wikimedia events but we never got the traction to make it work.

Sharing resources for primary & secondary schools seems a very mixed bag of Facebook (I am lead to believe), the web, TES, twitter and Google Drive. The understanding of OER and creative commons amongst my colleagues is not evenly distributed yet. This is not a criticism, my knowledges of many areas I should know about is quite shaky.

I really enjoyed the listen, the work Edinburgh is doing is inspiring on all sorts of levels. I learned this included my own:

In this episode’s conversation, OER Adviser Charlie Farley shares a fabulous outreach program started in GeoSciences that has expanded to other disciplines, where students get applied open education experience working with local schools, museums, and community groups, to design and publish OERs that are shared openly through TES Resources and Open.Ed.

This has taken me to University of Edinburgh Open.Ed – Teaching Resources – Primary Science which looks as if it is full of a lot of useful resources for me and my school colleagues.

The ones I’ve downloaded so far are well badged with Open Education Resource and Creative Commons licenses. They also look like great resources.

I am fairly embarrassed not to have known about this, but quite excited I do now. I’d recommend a listen for inspiration & following the links for useful resources.

  1. Huffduffer is a wonderful service that allows you to gather audio from across the web into your own personal RSS feed. You can then subscribe to that in the app you listen to podcasts on. It also will rip youtube videos to audio and add them via huffduff-video ↩

How can maths teachers engage with the climate emergency?⤴

from @ The IDL Network

The maths classroom is often seen as a place of simple right and wrong answers and rote learning but it can and should be a place where children learn to think critically about complex real-life problems. What are we educating them for if it isn’t? The climate crisis provides an urgent, timely and ideal interdisciplinary … Continue reading "How can maths teachers engage with the climate emergency?"

Climate Change, Environment and Sustainability: Teaching Resources⤴

from @ The IDL Network

The 26th UN Climate Change Conference in Glasgow is a critically important intergovernmental meeting of world leaders and scientists if irreversible climate change is to be avoided. It is also part of a much greater and broader long-term challenge of mitigating wider environmental degradation world-wide that threatens the sustainability not just of humanity but of … Continue reading "Climate Change, Environment and Sustainability: Teaching Resources"

The Biodiversity Heritage Library & Bird Bingo⤴

from @ wwwd – John's World Wide Wall Display

Somewhere or other1 I Saw a link to v.2 (1799) – The Naturalist’s Pocket Magazine or compleat cabinet of the curiosities and beauties of nature. Intriguing enough which lead me to discover the Biodiversity Heritage Library:

The Biodiversity Heritage Library (BHL) is the world’s largest open access digital library for biodiversity literature and archives. BHL is revolutionizing global research by providing free, worldwide access to knowledge about life on Earth.

About BHL – Information about the Biodiversity Heritage Library

There seems to be a vast collection of biological books that are free to read and download. There is also a twitter account, @BioDivLibrar and an amazing Flickr account: Biodiversity Heritage Library where there are over a quarter of a million images, many public domain. They have also contributed

over 2 million BHL images have been uploaded to the IA Book Images Flickr stream as part of the Art of Life project. These images are identified and uploaded in bulk using an algorithm. They offer a great opportunity for serendipitous discovery via browsing.

from: About Biodiversity Heritage Library | Flickr.

The Library are asking for people to help tag their flickr images and this might be a good activity for secondary pupils?

Bird Bingo


As a primary teacher, once I’d stopped just raking through some beautiful images I knocked up a quick Bird Bingo game for my class to help with bird identification. It has random cards and a caller.

There is page after page of beautiful pictures in the photo stream I defy anyone to leave it quickly. Example page 2094!

Featured Image: n456_w1150 | Natural history of the animal kingdom for the u… | Flickr public domain.

1. I don’t like not being able to attribute where I found this amazing resource.↩

A Simple, High Impact Learning Activity⤴

from @ DF Scotland Teach

I know I am not alone in finding lockdown challenging.  We are teachers, and as such having quiet schools with only a handful of children just does not feel normal.  We, along with our children, are learning to adapt every day and the stark difference in the quality of learning many children are experiencing in this lockdown is incredible – a true testament to how well colleagues have reflected and adapted to rise up to the challenge.

That being said, it is hard and online learning is still never going to be any substitute for face to face teaching.

Reflections on this, and how best to meet the needs of learners in my target groups; providing them with fun and engaging activities that they can engage in at home has led me back to an activity that I used in my second year of teaching, when I reached out to GDSS for advice on how to support one particular learner; I have linked to their website below as it is a superb resource. They showed me how to use the game ‘Snakes and Ladders’ to support literacy development.  Now, there are many ways to do this, and after hunting for the resource that was shared with me I could not find it so I have put together a resource (below) which works really well for me with learners who require support with reading and spelling.

Link to PDF resource:  Snakes and ladders game

For this game you need word cards, but children can easily make these at home by copying down their spelling words/common words.  There are fantastic word card packs out there, which I will also link to below.  Anything can be used as a counter, and this can easily be played as a family game.

I have used it with a variety of learners from P3-7, and have found that they really enjoy it, and, as children can use their own word cards it is automatically differentiated as children can play at their own pace.  Indeed, when I have children who are using more advanced words, they will often use the rules for game one while children with cvc words would use the game 1 rules.

However you play it, do, as it is truly a fantastic game.  Again, I take no credit for the idea but just put together a quick resource to save you making one!

Have a good week,

Donald

Word cards website that I love to use: ESLFlashcards.com
GDSS website: gdss.glasgow.sch.uk

 

No Travel No Problem! -Bringing Languages Alive During a Pandemic-Seneca MFL Conference 10 October 2020⤴

from @ My Languages

 I had a great time at the Seneca Virtual MFL Conference today.

Here is a copy of my slides:

https://www.slideshare.net/icpj/no-travel-no-problembringing-languages-alive-during-a-pandemic

More resources from the conference can be found here.

Enjoy! 

"Music, Rhythm and Grammar-Supporting Recall", TM Modern Foreign Languages Icons event, Saturday 26 September 2020⤴

from @ My Languages

 

I had a great time at the TM Modern Foreign Languages event this morning. There certainly was a great variety of topics and presenters and now I am truly buzzing with new ideas...

Please find a link here to my presentation on " Music, Rhythm and Grammar-Supporting Recall" :

Really looking forward to try in my classroom all the new ideas that were shared!

Music and Technology: Making Language Learning Memorable, a TiLT Webinar-Thursday 29 August 2020⤴

from @ My Languages


I have always been a strong advocate for using music in the Languages classroom and was delighted to be offered to present a TiLT Webinar for ALL London on this topic.

I have been a member of ALL, the Association for Language Learning for as long as I can remember and their programme of free Webinars to support language teachers during the pandemic has simply been amazing. Co-hosted by ALL London chair Helen Myers and ICT expert Joe Dale, there are now more 50 TiLT Webinars that can be accessed through the ALL London website and Joe's YouTube channel.

In my webinar, I shared a range of tools and ideas for integrating music in activities in and outside the classroom. We looked at streaming platforms like Spotify, recording tools and apps as well as sites to source free beats and loops to support pupils' creativity and memorisation of language.

I also presented tools to use melody, rhythm and song lyrics to enhance pupils' enjoyment, motivation and support their recall of key language structures.

I showed different resources to develop teachers' knowledge in order to link music and song lyrics to the culture of the Target-Language countries.

Last but not least, I shared how specific websites, apps and social media can support teachers in discovering new artists and tracks from a range of Target-Language countries.

My slides can be downloaded from here

A copy of the chat discussion and the recording of the webinar  is available from ALL London website and Joe Dale's YouTube channel

The following collaborative Wakelets were started in the session:
French https://wakelet.com/i/invite?code=5665d3a
Spanish https://wakelet.com/i/invite?code=882ab34
German https://wakelet.com/i/invite?code=792a9af
Songs for young learners https://wakelet.com/i/invite?code=ad5b361

Do join in and share your favourite songs to teach languages....

Context planners for our ‘new normal’⤴

from @ Digital Learning & Teaching in Falkirk Schools

Hi All 

We hope you have managed to enjoy a break in some form over the summer.  As we are all returning to a new normal and finding our feet, we are taking a break from providing CLPL for a short while.  We are working in the background to develop more CLPL sessions and other exciting STEM opportunities which we hope to bring to you later in the term.  For now, we would like to reassure you we are still here for any advice/support you may need, please feel free to contact us. 

We would like to share with you some resources you may find useful in this new normal.  Prior to the summer we worked as a team with all the RAiSE officers across Scotland to produce a resource for use by teachers on return to school.  The reasoning behind the creation of these resources was that pre-summer, there was the possibility teachers could return to a blended learning model.   We set to work trying to provide support for this model.  As it turns out we are not in a blended learning model, however, the resources created are still valuable in the teaching context we now find ourselves with some limitations on group work, resource sharing and potentially lengthy pupil absences.  As a result, we are publishing these resources now for use as you wish. 

These context planners are for Early, First and Second level to include Es and Os from across the curriculum (not just STEM).  The planners provide opportunities and complete resources for: home based learning, classroom working and IDL (Inter Disciplinary Learning) experiences.  Consideration has been given to pupils having to work relatively self-supported, potentially without access to technology and individually rather than in groups for practical work.  These resources could prove useful in completing practical work outside of group work.  They could be used to support pupils in periods of extended absence or fully in a classroom context and simply provide resources for learning. 

Each planner has an overview which outlines the whole context for learning and all the experiences which could be taught.  It shows the Es and Os which would be covered, highlights where tasks could be complete at home and which tasks are IDL.  The links to the resources for these tasks, worksheets, powerpoints, videos are all in the overview. 

Please use an up to date browser to access this resource ie Firefox, Chrome or Edge (not Microsoft Explorer) 

If you are in an up to date browser then you can access the resources by clicking on the images below.  If you are internet explorer then please copy the link to this post into one of the other browsers and then you can click on the images for the resources. 

Early Level

First Level

Second Level

The full resource can be found here. Context planners

Any feedback or questions you have on these please feel free to contact us: Barbara Hanning gw14hanningbarbara@glow.sch.uk or Laura McCafferty gw11mccaffertylaura@glow.sch.uk

Lessons from Lockdown⤴

from @ My Languages

Lockdown is continuing to be very hectic and intense for teachers. I have asked my online teacher network about what lockdown has meant for them and this is what I was told…

Lockdown has highlighted the importance of students’ intrinsic motivation and home support and the large impact they have on students’ achievements. It has also shown that teaching needs to facilitate independence. For instance, some of the quietest students have been seen to produce amazing work that they would never have produced in class for fear of drawing attention to themselves.

However, lockdown has also sparked creativity in many teachers, parents and pupils and in some case made parents realise what teaching really is about.

It has also created many opportunities for teachers to upskill, learn about blended learning, online learning and reflect on our practice.

Pedagogy and new tools-A few pointers

Focusing on fewer aspects of the language and guiding students’ practice to ensure complete mastery and success has come out as the biggest priority

Acknowledging the need for more repetition, practice and pace when learning vocabulary.

Understanding what it looks like from a learner’s perspective, keeping things simple and along a linear organisation allowing the teacher to reduce undue technical difficulties for pupils.

Developing a principled approach like the one adopted by @BarriMoc : retrieval, short video presentation, practice tasks (dictation, translation, gap-fill based on the content), reading task and a writing or speaking task using Flipgrid . Everything is then put in one document with any resources hyperlinked to avoid needing to open and flick between multiple tabs including Textivate  or Quizziz .

Exploring the use of Bitmojis and sharing on the Bitmoji Craze for Educator FaceBook group 

Taking time to test new tools, like Genial.ly 

Turning a book-based IGCSE SoW into a skill-driven one so that learning objectives and assessment align

Twitter conversations

Lockdown and teaching remotely have highlighted …

The importance of high impact, low stakes testing for informing planning as well as improving student retrieval and retention.

That the children love to be able to “pause” the teacher on Loom  so pace of explanations during direct instruction may need to be adapted.

That learners benefit from creating sentences and actively applying vocab and grammar rules along with their own creativity. This gives all they/we are doing a sense of value, purpose and meaning. It creates a bond and link of learning trust between us even though we are remote.

That in online lessons, it is a good idea to include table of language chunks that pupils can use as a writing scaffold. Pupils can add in suggestions too. Extension vocabulary and structures need to be labelled explicitly. A simple example of an activity is to get pupils to read out their Target Language phrase. Teacher highlights (on zoom) . Another pupil translates. Creative follow-up is then offered for further practice.

That your instructions are never clear enough! It has confirmed more than ever the importance of quality instruction, explanations, and modelling with a lot of comprehensible input and chunks instead of single words. Voice record pro  is great for making own listening.

Finally, the CPD…

There have been so many opportunities for all teachers and especially language teachers to upskill themselves to deliver effective language lessons remotely. I have collated many of them in a Wakelet here, with the most prolific sources of CPD being ALL, the Association for Language Learning , Linguascope, Joe Dale’s MFL Twitterati group (#mfltwitterati on Twitter) and the Global Innovative Language TeacherFacebook group  created by Gianfranco Conti  and Dylan Viñales.

Time to join the conversation!