Lynne Horn

                                                                               Following my resolution to make better use of the Smartboard I’ve been playing a lot with it this week, following suggestions by Jose Picardo. With the new S1s we are preparing to make vokis.  I got them to tell me phrases they thought they would use - I had already typed them onto a notebook file, and then covered them over with a line the same colour as the background.  As the phrases were suggested I used the eraser to reveal the answers - class were suitably impressed by this piece of magic!

With S4 I took some of the phrases from passages in their text book describing the climate in different areas of France - as groups recognised/worked out the meanings of the phrases they came forward and revealed the meaning on the board.

Finally S2 started with revision of some basic weather phrases - phrases were revealed under the symbols as they were guessed, we then decided what the weather was like in France moving the symbols to places as appropriate, finally each group predicted what the weather was like in differenct places on Mull and in Morven before I revealed the correct answer.  So a smarter beginning and hopefully more to come (pictures are in a funny order, but refusing to move for me!)

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I’ve only got round to doing what I should have done a while ago and started adding links to a del.icio.us account.  I’ve never understood the name and why it’s broken up the way it is and it did turn me against it a bit - silly I know but I can never remember where the dots go, but never mind - as Sam says to CJ in The West Wing, “let’s not dwell on your coming late to the party and celebrate that you showed up at all”!

http://del.icio.us/lmhtob

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Just having another play with Wordle - this time looking at its use with poetry.



 

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Here’s my first attempt at making something with animoto to use in class - S2 have done time before, but I want something to remind them of the vocab before we start.  In fact I think this could be used at either the beginning or end of the lesson.  I did this be making a powerpoint (of clock faces found in google images), then saving the powerpoint as images, these were then uploaded to animoto and it did the rest. What I’d like to do is record a soundtrack for a video and see how that goes.  I used music from animoto, although I had thought to use Gwen Stefani’s “What are you waiting for?” which would have fitted well, but then felt that couldn’t go on here or YouTube without getting permission.

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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.

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After helping S1/2 a bit with their Nativity last week S4 wanted to film it themselves.  Working in 2 groups half headed to the Maths room to film their version (which I haven’t seen yet, but did spot a pair of glittery wings heading down the corridor) whilst the others decided to go on location.  Their self appointed director had worked out the locations and ticked them off as they filmed.  I had suggested they do it seriously and not a parody of “primary 1 does the Nativity in French” and they did this quite well. 

As always the dressing up box proved a useful resource - there is a pink hat (very “Mrs Mack”) all my boys are very fond off - it has appeared in a variety of role plays and films, today it was worn by one of the wise men along with a sari - and surprisingly this combination actually looked good.  Changing into a purple shirt and a “bush hat” he became a shepherd.  Joseph did a similar hat swap to become a shepherd, Mary looked very good in a blue sari and our Angel draped herself in burgundy and silver - a couple of scarves bundled up became the baby Jesus.  With the entrance hall as the stable, the Secret Garden in the primary playground as the desert, the shepherds and angel played out their scene on grass above the car park.

Two things struck me as I watched this - apart from some advice on filming everything came from themselves - the creativity, the enterprising attitudes and the  collaboration.

I was also struck by the relevant confidence with which they spoke the lines, understanding that it would look silly if they had the scripts in front of them - now I need to work out how to transfer this to their conversations.

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