Sometimes only paper will do!

Posted on January 26th, 2008 in misc by lynnehorn

paperfotuneteller.gif

To practise saying what you’re going to do I’ve been making these origami fortune tellers with S2 - couldn’t believe how many of them had never done this before and we spent a happy period making these and using them the other day.  My learning support colleague got a bit carried away and was making paper orchids at one end of the room (I’m just jealous, it took me a few attempts to remember how to make these!)

Meanwhile in S3 we are doing verb drills - no fuss, no computer - although there are lots of examples of these you can do online, nothing is the same as just writing out lots of examples to get it into your head.  Technology is wonderful, but sometimes you just need to get back to basics!

Dansez avec Igor!

Posted on January 23rd, 2008 in ICT by lynnehorn

I was looking for nursery rhymes in French for my primary colleagues on YouTube (and found some lovely animated versions), but I came across this - definitely for use in class!  Igor is apparently a healthy cake for children in Quebec and has his own website here - great for units on food and healthy living.

Red Riding Hood Online

Posted on January 21st, 2008 in ICT, cooperative learning, cross curricular links by lynnehorn

First versions of our Red Riding Hood podcasts were completed today (if we do this again I will write scripts for Blue Beard and Cinderella - I am suffering from a Red Riding Hood overload).  We started these a while ago , but were a bit delayed, especially over the last two weeks as exams meant a lot of classes were displaced so it was difficult to find quiet places to record.  It took about 10 minutes to show these groups the basics of Garageband - everything here is their own work - they had a script, the rest was up to them.  These were recorded straight onto the iBooks due to lack of mics for the iPods - however these arrived today, so next time they’ll be in use.

They also worked well in these groups sharing out the work between them , in the second version I have uploaded the Wolf and Red Riding Hood are played by the same person when one of the group was absent for a couple of weeks - I think he’s done a good job!  Click below to have a listen.

Tobermory High Podcasts

BBC Learning Zone Clips.

Posted on January 20th, 2008 in ICT, cross curricular links by lynnehorn

Something for pretty much everything on this site - I came across the link on the LTScotland masterclass boards - it has links for primary, secondary and colleges and there are already clips there for most subjects with more to be added.

 BBC Learning Zone

If I’d found this last week I could have used bits of it in the RME Day sessions, then I could have had the wonderful Rev Pete Owen Jones in my classroom (even if only virtually!)

peter-owen-jones.jpg

Sacred Writing (the technological way!)

Posted on January 13th, 2008 in ICT, cross curricular links by lynnehorn  Tagged , ,

As I’ve mentioned before our S1/2s do RME as a series of conferences, usually one a month and on a variety of topics which are on a two year rolling programme.

Tuesday brings us again to a day on Sacred Writing, as always this will be a cross curricular day and this time involves languages, English and Art.

I’ve done this day before and as I am preparing for it, it struck me that I’ve never done the session the same way twice and that’s mainly due to evolving technology particuarly what’s available online.

My session is on how the Bible was translated and whether or not translations are reliable.  Two years ago I started with the history of how the Bible was translated, then looked at how the New English Bible was translated using a little online film as an example, moving on to code cracking using hieroglyphics and the Rosetta Stone as an example - the BBC series Egypt meant that I could use clips from it to show how Champollion cracked the code.  Then using a CD Rom which automatically translates what you’re writing into hieroglypics everyone typed a sentence for others to have a go at trying to translate.  In addition we were able to listen to extracts from the Bible in Mandarin, Hindi and Hebrew.

I haven’t fully planned what I’m going to do this Tuesday, because I’ve found lots more that I can use.  There are many online pictures of early Bibles and extracts from many examples of sacred writing.  YouTube has some clips from a tv programme about Wycliff, as well as other bits and pieces on Bible translation.  I also found the Lord’s Prayer in BSL.  In fact we can start off with the Lord’s Prayer in Aramaic, moving onto Greek, then Latin, then English following the path of its translation - as well as many other languages not to mention text speak - you can download the whole Bible in SMS.  We can put our names into Hebrew, as well as finding out more about “the Mother of languages”.

 All of this makes the whole experience just a little easier for these 12 and 13 year olds to understand - who knows what we’ll be looking at in another 2 years.

Recording from Smart Notebook(2)

Posted on January 6th, 2008 in Uncategorized by lynnehorn

I managed to upload my practice run to blip.tv (thanks again Adam!)  Here is the link

 Reading Hints Practice

Recording from Smart Notebook

Posted on January 5th, 2008 in ICT by lynnehorn

I was inspired by Adam’s presentation to have a go at something similar - I wanted to make up something that would show how to do improve reading skills etc.  The good news is I managed to make something that had potential - I had my text with words being highlighted etc and I know that I could have put a commentary onto it at some point, but I have hit a problem.  I made up presentation in Smartnotebook and recorded it as I was doing it - however when it saves the files are huge (one is 50MB and another 183 MB) and there’s really not that much on them.  The files save as avi files and although I have tried  to convert them to mp4 files using zamzar, so far that’s not worked.  If I could make the files a bit smaller that might help, but so far not seeing a way of doing that.  Back to the drawing board!

 

Merry Christmas and Happy New Year!

Posted on January 2nd, 2008 in misc by lynnehorn  Tagged

santaandsharks2.jpg

I’m a bit late with my greetings - I did start writing this on Christmas Eve, but as I was visiting my mum I was on dial up and it was taking too long to post.

Here Santa is taking some time out of his busy Christmas Even schedule to feed the fish and sharks at Deep Sea World in North Queensferry - great visit to stop my nephews and niece becoming too over excited whilst I was baby sitting.  Visiting my nephews and niece was also an excuse to visit the MacRobert Centre twice in one day.  They do a kind of pantomime especially for the under 5s and 2 year old Ellis loved “The Littlest  Christmas Tree”, later that evening the two boys enjoyed Cinderella - one of the funniest things I’ve seen for a long time - obviously MacRobert pantomimes are to be recommended!  Mum and I enjoyed Christmas lunch at Stirling Castle on the Sunday - great meal, worth watching out for next year.

After Christmas I did another visit so Ellis “could see the animals” visiting the Seven Sisters Zoo at West Calder - lots of lemurs, meerkats, prairie dogs, tamarins and some very friendly parrots as well as a great reptile section - well worth a visit.

I came back to Tobermory for New Year - forgot to take my camera so I have no photos of fireworks over the bay, but they were spectactular as always.  Trying not to think about school at the moment, so will save my school resolutions for later in the week!