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What is your most innovative use of New Technologies in your classroom?

I have begun using video-podcasting within teaching and learning in my classroom. I am currently recording my own videos of practical Art demonstrations and playing them to my classes as starter activities before beginning the task. Further to this, I have uploaded them onto our VLE to aid learning anytime, anywhere.
I am very interested in hearing what you are doing in your schools, and would grateful for any responses.
Many thanks.

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Permalink Reply by jay on June 15, 2009 at 1:58

I'm new to the network and have only been teaching for six months but i've not been doing a great deal- made a web quest and am getting blogs set up for next term, i'm finding the lack of technology is a struggle have you got many ideas that are low cost?

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Permalink Reply by Mary Millington-Cassidy on June 17, 2009 at 19:37

Thanks for your reply. I may be able to help with some ideas. There's a lot of free stuff available on the internet. classtools.com is great for starters. You can do loads with a digital camera and your mobile phone. Russel Prue is the guy to watch for real innovation within new technologies, but can be costly. Let me know what subject you teach and I'll see what I can come up with. First things first though, get one of your techies on board, they are the key to everything!
Keep in touch.

jay said:

I'm new to the network and have only been teaching for six months but i've not been doing a great deal- made a web quest and am getting blogs set up for next term, i'm finding the lack of technology is a struggle have you got many ideas that are low cost?

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Permalink Reply by Trish Dower on September 29, 2009 at 13:07

In the term just finished our inquiry unit was based on the environment and how we can make a change. Our two Grade 4 classes wanted to take action and to educate and get the message out about changing how we live and what we do. Our 'techie kids' created a number of tech projects using a variety of tools and skills. We had a number of groups working on different tech projects to produce the following:
- Research, develop, publish and present a website based on the environment covering a range of aspects including climate change, power options, healthy eating, worm farming, endangered animals and more. The kids learnt how to incorporate animations on their pages and how website are developed. The website is currently hosted on our school intranet and is a hit with the school community.
- Stop Motion movie/ infomercial about the importance of growing and eating healthy foods. The kids scripted, sculptured, photographed, super-duper music loopered, used movie maker and audacity to create their movie. On our class wiki these kids commented on how much they loved our 'Action Thursdays' and created a great film. Check it out here http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9iDcP_GwUbg
- Four students created 'Pivot' stick figure animations. These four kids seemed to get stuck on the 'black balloon' theme but were engaged and created some great work. Each 'Pivot' is over 1000 frames. The students used Movie Maker to add titles and audio commentary to their stories. Check these out here: Tim's Pivot ; Tyrone's Pivot
- Our final techie group worked on producing Podcasts and Vidcasts. Interviewing, scripting, recording using MP4 players and Flip cameras - using audacity, super dooper music looper and movie maker to publish and share their episodes.
Check out Aidan's first vidcast ; Podcast Episode 1

We had a super term and all learnt heaps. We also completed a couple of webquests that involved developing a variety of skills.

Our school has invested heavily by installing Smartboards into every classroom so our tech focus for term 4 will include exploring what the kids to do, share, learn and teach each other using the notebook software. Hope this gives an update to what we have been up to.

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Permalink Reply by Paula kennedy on November 8, 2009 at 8:11

I agree with Mary that Class tools is great for starters and plenaries. It has a random name generator in the style of a typewritter and fruit machine. I use these regularly to pick names for pleanary questions.
I have used 'wordle' to create word clouds in revision lessons. I asked students to e mail me a list of topics they found easy and difficult. I copied and pasted these words into wordle and created two word clouds. The topics that crop up most often appear as larger words. An easy visual way to see what we need to focus on as a class.
Finally, I have used Ning to set up an 'i Science @ Perins' group. I have posted video clips on this, photos of activites we have carried out in class and wider, and revision links. Much of this info is our network and Moodle any way, but the students have responded more to the ning group.
All are free.

jay said:

I'm new to the network and have only been teaching for six months but i've not been doing a great deal- made a web quest and am getting blogs set up for next term, i'm finding the lack of technology is a struggle have you got many ideas that are low cost?