Sunday, 22 December 2013

Teacher Training at Colegio Humboldt, San José, Costa Rica - Introduction of 500 iPads for the next academic school year - December 17 to 19 2013

When the Colegio Humboldt approached me to conduct a teacher training for their staff, little did I know about the extend of the project they are about to take on coming academic year - means January 2014.

They will turn grades 5 to 12 into iPad classes effective from January 2014 onwards.
I was happy to accept the challenge to empower their teachers to face the following challenges:


  • What are the ways for teachers to apply an iPad during lesson time and at home to create a modern and efficient teaching style.
  • What are the ways for students to apply an iPad during lessons and homework to experience a modern and effective learning environment.
  • Facing around 40 staff members of different experience level and different language background (German, Spanish and English).
  • Setting up an implementation plan for the iPad with the school management and IT team.
Paramount for the planning was the requirement to create time with the individual trainee.

Solution:

  1. Setting up a bilingual moodle interactive training course in Englisch and German.
  2. A goal oriented training approach was picked to make the teachers achieve the knowledge about how to use the respective apps during creating the expected outcome. This enables them to pass expectations as well as expertise on to their students.
  3. Setting up a draft for a iPad curriculum with the management team. 

Contents
  • Using QR codes to enhance worksheets - use of the student iPad as individual media server and as a source for differentiation and individualisation in learning.
  • Creating worksheets for the iPad with a combination of keynote/ pages and type on pdf - creating paperless worksheets.
  • Use of interactive flash elements from the internet on the iPad - Puffin as alternative browser
  • Using knowmia teach app to create online lectures for flipped classroom concept
  • Application of Evernote for documentation of lesson results.
  • Application of Aurasma to create augmented reality content (students and teachers).
  • Creating keynote presentations for lessons on the iPad.
  • Creating crossword puzzles for knowledge testing.
The combination of the existing moodle platform, the teachers' ipads and the picked tasks and applications, made it possible for me to attend to every participant during the 12 hours of training.
I have learnt from the feedback that the teachers' of the Colegio Humboldt have learnt how to make use of the iPad themselves as well as received ideas of how to make students work with the iPad on their own by putting out an effective combination of task and app.

I am also happy to support the Colegio Humboldt during the oncoming challenges of their iPad program.

In the wake of this training I will create not just manuals of how to use applications but also how to embed them into concrete task and lesson plans. So stay put for online manuals and lesson concepts to come.





Tuesday, 19 November 2013

Wow - An amazing software! EyeScream - Free visual field test

I remember those times when we had to use huge discs we had to press against our foreheads to be able to determine the visual field of our eyes during biology lessons. Usually the small number of those devices causes rather a disruption than an collaborative learning atmosphere.

What about this little free software that I just found 5 minutes ago.

Take a look, there is also a German version available for download.

http://www.eyesage.org/

Monday, 18 November 2013

Flash - the kind of stuff that adds extra value for my students to my lessons


What extra values do learning and teaching resources have to offer to make a remarkable difference to my students' progress? I want to create a win-win situation during in my lessons for me and my students.

Therefore the following points are vital to me:


  • Will the resource cut down my workload, because the students are able to make use of it independently?
  • Will the resource be able to feedback to my students and create a space for learning by try and error for them?
  • Does the resource reduce safety risks? e.g. student experiments.
  • Will it give my student the possibility to explore and repeat till he is able to understand?
  • Does it combine different learning channels like sound, movies, animations, etc.
Well, flash animations (SWF) can do that for me and my students. 
Don't panic - I will not tell you to create them yourself. I am merely pointing out that there is a universe of free teaching flash animations out there, that just wait for you to find them and give your lessons a boost and fascinating possibilities.

I discovered recently that just googling the desired keyword e.g. photosynthesis plus the abbreviation swf will grant me with a lot of links to interesting flash animations that have been created by helpful people out there in the teachiverse.

So "photosynthesis swf" delivered those two links:


http://dendro.cnre.vt.edu/forestbiology/photosynthesis.swf

or

http://www.wiley.com/college/boyer/0470003790/animations/photosynthesis/photosynthesis.swf


For geography googling "continents swf":

http://www.missmaggie.org/geospy_files/geospy.swf

or

http://www.softschools.com/social_studies/continents/map2.swf

That should already make your fingers twiddle on the keyboard. Just spend 5 minutes to do the same for the keywords of your next topic and the swf abbreviation. There is a ton of english flashes waiting to do some magic for your students.

To make it more "hands on" you are able to combine the touchscreen of students' ipads with the interactive flash content. I am referring to one of my older posts that deals with enabling flash on the ipad by using the browser puffin.



Download the puffin browser right here from itunes - be assured it is worth the few bucks investment. 

Sunday, 17 November 2013

Flash Animationen - Was müssen Lehr- und Lernmittel leisten, damit sich ein Einsatz für meine Schüler lohnt.

Was müssen Lehr- und Lernmittel leisten, damit sich ein Einsatz für meine Schüler lohnt.
Ich möchte eine Win-Win Situation für mich und meine Schüler herstellen und außerdem sind für mich noch folgende Punkte wichtig:


  • Kann ein Medium mir Arbeit abnehmen, indem es den Schülern Rückmeldung über ihren Lernfortschritt und die Richtigkeit ihrer Ansaätze gibt?
  • Gibt es Raum für Lernen durch Versuch und Irrtum?
  • Ermöglicht das Medium den Schülern Dinge zu tun, die ohne das Medium nicht möglich wären? (besondere Experimente, gefährliche Situationen vermeiden, Experimente daheim durchführen)
  • Kann der Schüler damit Experimente und Versuche wiederholen.
  • Sind unterschiedliche Darstellungsmöglichkeiten kombiniert um verschiedene Sinne zu aktivieren?
    z.B. Schrift, Film, Bild, Grafiken, Modelle, etc.
Daher sind Flash-Animationen definitiv eine Bereicherung meines Unterrichts - sowohl aus meiner als auch aus der Sicht der Schüler.


Hier ein Beispiel für eine Flash Animation zum Thema Aggregatzustände:
http://www.ltam.lu/chimie/AggregatCD.html

Ein einfaches Googlen nach dem gesuchten Fachbegriff und dem Kürzel "SWF" (Shockwave Flash Animation) fördert meist Schätze zutage, die einfach verlinkt an die Schüler weitergegeben werden können.

Gesammelte Flashes zur Chemie:
http://www.ltam.lu/chimie/Auswahl.swf

Hier Flashes zum Thema Photosynthese:
http://dendro.cnre.vt.edu/forestbiology/photosynthesis.swf

http://www.wiley.com/college/boyer/0470003790/animations/photosynthesis/photosynthesis.swf

Für Geographen: "kontinentaldrift swf" lieferte beim Googlen:
http://www.3sat.de/nano/diverses/kontinentaldrift/kontinentaldrift.swf

Für Physik "astronomie und swf":
http://astro.unl.edu/naap/pos/animations/kepler.swf

Vielleicht investieren Sie einmal 5 Minuten für eine Stichwortsuche aus dem Fachbegriff des kommenden Themengebiets und dem Kürzel SWF. Wenn Sie für englischsprachige Medien offen sind, dann lohnt es sich auf jeden Fall.

Die Kombination von Flash mit der Fingerbedienung auf dem iPad ist dabei unschlagbar. Hier noch einmal ein Verweis auf einen alten Post von mir, welcher das mit dem Browser Puffin auf dem iPad ermöglicht.



Den Puffinbrowser gleich hier bei iTunes downloaden - er ist das kleine Geld wert. 









Wednesday, 6 November 2013

Die Chemie der glycosidischen Bindung

Eine neue Knowmia Lesson.

Thema - Die glycosidische Bindung

Vom Monosaccharid zu Disacchariden -Als Download mit dabei eine PPT mit Übungsaufgaben.

http://www.knowmia.com/watch/lesson/22239



Sunday, 3 November 2013

Chemische Reaktionsgleichungen - Eigentlich sind es nur Kochrezepte, oder?

Ich stosse seit Jahren auf Verständnisprobleme bei chemischen Gleichungen:


  • Wieso Formeln?
  • Was bedeuten die Koeffizienten?
  • Wieso muss ich Koeffizientenausgleich können?
Hier ein humorvoller Perspektivwechsel. Ich bin an Rückmeldungen sehr interessiert.


Thursday, 31 October 2013

Getting feedback for my lessons right at the end

How did my lesson actually go today? What is my students' perception of it?
Feedback is the key to improvement - so why not getting it now at the end of my lesson by just passing around my iPad for an easy - klick the smiley and rate me - feedback session?

Here is how: This application is all you need for it.

Snaprating - getting feedback about your work in a minute after you finished it. I am using it for lessons, parents teacher talks right now.

SNAPRATING - GET FEEDBACK. :) JUST ONE iPAD PER CLASS IS ENOUGH!

Just find out at the end of the lesson how my students experienced their lesson.