SOS in action

Today's PLG focus was preparation for our first attempt at a Class On Air episode. This involves us filming one of our lessons to be shared publicly, including planning and reflection. As part of the Class On Air episode, we need a one page site including our planing, footage and reflection, as well as student blogs (hopefully I can include this in the future). See the beginning of my site below, I am attempting to start from scratch, to revise HTML again.

As I was unwell today, I read through my peers posts, for some tips for my own episode.

Some key tips include:

- Consider the light from the windows, this may affect screens in the classroom, and camera shots.

- Filming may include snippets from a variety of lessons or days, to show the flow between. This also provides time for the learners to develop some content knowledge for the filming.

- Consider using screencasts to share what is on the learners screens, if using a digital tool.

- Think about the audio as well as the visual, to ensure voices are heard throughout the footage.

- Editing is a big job, filming is the easy part - but try get it right the first time!

Thanks to Heath for the pointers!

I am filming a SOS lesson next week, which will be focused around legal ages in NZ, legal ages globally and finishing with a debate! This is to conclude our government unit we have be learning about recently, and will be our last lesson of 2016. Watch this space...

Inspire Outside The Classroom

Today we focused on visible learning and ensuring we cater for all learners in our classrooms. The key idea I took away from our session was to inspire students before they are even in the classroom. This really made me think critically about my teaching as well as my learning as a student - why would I attend a university lecture if I have no inspiration, desire or interest to do so? Similarly, why would my students attend my classes?

I have experimented with multi-modal learning myself as a learner, as well as attempted to create resources for my students that are multi-modal such as my water safety site, to provide a variety of content and texts for students. Having images, readings, videos, infographics and tasks to complete all based around the same topics and learning, gives student agency to pick and choose how they would like to learn and where they would like to go. To check out the slides from today, go here!

Our task was to create a site for our learners to access that is multi-modal, exploring the idea of being a visible teacher and learner. As my timetable is changing shortly, and I will be teaching different year levels and subjects, I took the time to plan out Year 10 Health ideas for 2017. I am so excited for the times to come!

Posting Our Votes

Carrying on from last week's creation of advertisements for our political parties, today we watched our ads and then voted in our own elections! I was so impressed with the ads the students created, they could actually run for government! Check out a couple below!

Students were given a a voting slip, to show what it is like to vote in the NZ elections - one vote for the party and one vote for the leader. I crossed out the party that each child was in, so they did not vote for their own party, so the voting was fairer. 

As we were only halfway through our double period after watching the films, I introduced the next part of our unit - branches of the NZ government. If you are interested to learn more, check out the virtual tours on the NZ parliament website.

Coding to Game

This morning's task was to create a game through the website Code.org, a non-profit organisation which encourages people to develop their own games through coding. This is called The Hour of Code.

There are various options available for people from all ability levels, from a simple drag and drop box, to more complex jargon such as Javascript. This would be great for students interested in coding and gaming! Prior to creating games, there are various steps to complete to scaffold the learner, as well as an intro in the jargon. There is a great sense of accomplishment when you achieve the tasks set!

I was disappointed when Google Sites took away the option to HTML code, as I enjoyed manipulating the code to produce a site page/interface, so maybe this could be the way I get my coding fix!

Unfortunately, my field does not align very heavily with this application, so I am unsure of the opportunities I may have to use it. However, I do wonder whether I could create something related to the body. For instance, my Seniors are completing and evaluating training programmes, so I may be able to use a training programme through a game sense to teach acute and chronic responses to exercise by creating a body the user interacts with.

I am interested to think and explore further with this idea for the future!

Vote For Us!

Currently in SOS we are learning about the government and politics. I personally haven't ever had interest in politics because I find a lot of it so dull! So, this has required a lot of learning myself and thinking about how to teach everything creatively so the students are interested and engaged in the content/lessons.

This morning was a lot of fun! The students have spent the past couple of days creating their own political parties and developing their own ideas about what they would want to achieve if they were in the government. The kids came up with some amazing ideas such as free lunch for all kids in NZ, four days at school per week, building shelters for homeless and free university. The students had the job this morning to film their own advertisements to sell why their party should be in the government.

I am really looking forward to next week, because we are going to share their ads with the class, and then hold our own elections! The students will be able to vote for the party they believe should be in the government! In addition to the ad, the students are creating logos and slogans for their party too.