Techforlearning

Today a colleague of mine, Ann, and I were discussing how to set up a blog with a familiar blogging software included in our district web site solution to discuss best practices in block scheduling with our school faculty. The blogging software is limited in that the dialogue box where you type your post does not offer a special area to title the post. The software offers only the option to title the the blog itself which can have many topics. The post dialogue box does not allow you to format text or add hyperlinks for posts either.

So, we had to fix the look of the blog so that each post was not just separated by a date of post. We wanted each post to have its own title.

To give the post a title we typed a little bit of html code in the dialogue box where we type our post. We typed <b> then typed the title of our post. We typed a <p> to skip a double space or block then typed our actual thoughts.

This resulted in our post having a bolded title, a space, then our posted thoughts.

After our post we added a few links using html. We added the links using html code < a href=”url”>the name of the link</a>.

Here is the actual code we used to tweak the blogging software.

<b>Block Scheduling and Professional Practices</b>
<p>The goal of this <b>post</b> is to create a dialogue amongst our faculty about quality instruction, and expose everyone to <i>professional practices related to teaching in the block.</i> Professional, scholarly articles have been provided. When commenting, tell us what you think of the attached articles as they relate to your own experiences teaching in the block.<p>
<a href=”http://www.myteacherpages.com/webpages/asobol/files/analysis%20of%20research%20on%20block%20scheduling.pdf”>Article #1</a>
<p>
<a href=”http://www.myteacherpages.com/webpages/asobol/files/blockscheduling.pdf”>Article #2</a>

The more html code teachers know the more flexibilty they will have in their design when confronted with the limitations of their web page software.:)

Click here Alden HS Faculty Blog to see the actual blog post.

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 Ideas for creating Podcasts on the  classroom to teach a concept:

• Have students record their vocabulary
• Have students record a podcast on the steps of a process
• Record students presentations of  themselves
• Have students record me (the teacher)
• Record comments while on a field trip

Comment on this…… you know you want to!

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Find a video this morning while checking your RSS feeds?

Watch it. Then show it. Great lesson!

News or Talk show Interviews with influencial people CAN be interesting!

Students can be engaged while watching videos where there is mostly just dialogue.
For example a video like this can capture kids attention.
Some ideas how:

• Watch the video with the students

• Pause frequently and ask clarifying questions about the vocabulary the people are using.

• Ask students questions about the events that are being discussed. Pause and Explain the events if students are unfamiliar.

• Jot down questions while watching.

At the end……

• Play review game with students and ask them to predict the future based on what they have heard or ask their opinion.
• Instill pride in students that what they learned from the interview or news clip or documentary is important because………
• Tell them that knowing this information makes them unique because they can help others understand……….
• Explain to them that in the future seeing this and knowing this information will be beneficial because……….
• Reward with praise for their participation

They are engaged!They learn! We bond!

Great lesson without much planning!

Comment on this!

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Teachers have been talking lately about burning to DVD to play on a television. So, if a school has a multimedia cart with

DVD+R player, projector, wireless laptop, usb dvd+r drive and speakers on a cart

Teachers can:

• burn/play recorded dv camera tape on projector through DVD player
• watch videos via DVD player
• watch videos from a wireless laptop ( see other blog to catch the post about watching videos in class)
• burn videos from VHS before tape wears out. Ha!
• burn files such as .wmv via the dvd+r drive

What else? Post your comments if you think of what else can be done with the resources above!

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