Exploring Short Stories

Stories remain a popular unit with all age groups and I have stumbled across an engaging site that covers the five essential elements most of us use in the classroom. The comments below the clip indicate that it has been extensively used with upper Primary but I am sure it would be equally effective with years 7 and 8. It enables you to download the clip and the lyrics and even offers some very simple templates to use as follow-up. So if you are looking for a way to liven up your short story unit with the juniors, have a look at a rap version of the five key elements of short stories. 

http://flocabulary.com/fivethings/

ICT in the Classroom

It is a long time since I posted but with Term 4 looming large, I thought I had better explore how I could best integrate more ICT into teaching and expand my own limited skills in best using technology to maximise student learning. There are increasing pressures for using the vast range of tools that are available but many teachers are still hesitant for a number of legitimate reasons, myself included, to really embrace what is on offer. For ICT to be really effective as a teaching and learning tool rather than gimmicky, support needs to be offered at the school and professional development level. 
ICT Tool lists such as the one I have put together for blogging are available but they take time to investigate and some are certainly easier to handle than others.

Micro-Blogging Tools

Micro-blogging enables users to publish brief text updates such as Twitter. The simplicity and ability to post frequently are attracting users. A close competitor to Twitter isJaiku but a range of other similar tools are also available.

Pownce - Allows messaging as well as easily shared links, files, or events

Tumblr –is a similar but slicker micro blogging platform which allows users to share text, photos, quotes, chats and even video.

MySay is verbal rather than textual, allowing people to listen via phone, e-mail, or the web.

Hictu uses webcam to create videoposts.

Emotionr gauges and shares happiness ratings on a sliding scale with those around you.

Using Blogging within the classroom

Teachers have come up with a host of inventive ways to use blogging with students and I will endeavour to explore some of the ideas outlined on the following sites as time permits. 

Have a look at some of the following sites for possible ideas to use:

http://edte.ch/blog/2010/09/25/10-ideas-for-class-blog-posts/

http://classroomblogging.wikispaces.com/Blogging+Activities

http://www.det.wa.edu.au/education/cmis/eval/curriculum/ict/weblogs/

I hopefully will extend my ICT skills in the next few months but I think some valid points have been raised on the following science teacher blogsite. He has extensively examined the role of ICT in the classroom and the website has a lot of material.  

http://didascalic.wordpress.com/category/ict-in-education/page/2

'The incorporation of information and communication technologies (ICT) into the classroom, it is increasingly important that teachers are able to use these tools effectively.

In 1999, a study done in 1999 (Cox, Preston & Cox), interviewed teachers in the UK and found that the most common obstacles to implementing effective ICT in the classroom were the ICT literacy of the teacher, interruptions to classes due to technical issues and availability of resources (p3). These are summarised in the diagram below, where the advantages of using ICT in the classroom are shown in green, and the disadvantages in red:

Holidays - A Welcome Respite

Our classrooms and resources may look different  to the one shown here but the workload however, seems even more onerous despite class sizes having dropped.
I cannot remember my early teaching days being as frenetic in pace as now experienced by teachers.  Marking and programming was thorough but less regimented and there was more teacher autonomy and scope for creativity with fewer deadlines enabling real engagement with texts, language and heaven forbid, even grammar. The schools of today seem driven by an Assessment heavy curriculum with teaching towards exams like NAPLAN and HSC dictating things rather than teaching for learning. For all the push in this direction, it is ironic that statisticians tell us that Australia's international educational status has dropped; certainly not due to any reduction in how hard teachers are working.

Holidays allow a time to rest but also for catching up for unfinished teaching chores and preparation for a new HSC cohort and no doubt a new round of changes imposed from above to this, that and the other.New Scheme teachers seem unnecessarily overloaded with time consuming paperwork along with the eternal round of marking, programming and reworking assessment tasks. Perennial arguments regarding single or mixed sex classes, graded versus ungraded, set rather than flexible texts raise are voiced with little attention paid to the anecdotal experience or wishes of teachers themselves. Whatever form the New Curriculum actually takes, it can only be hoped that it will usher in productive change that will benefit students and teachers alike rather than the bureaucrats.

The Holidays beckon and every teacher in the state and across the country will breathe a collective sigh of thanks once that Friday night arrives.

"The best teacher is the one who suggests rather than dogmatizes, and inspires his listener with the wish to teach himself." Edward Bulwer-Lytton

'Satire' published

'Satire' is finally available on the shelves and I think that most schools will have received details in the pre-holidays mail-out from Phoenix Education. It has taken me longer than anticipated but I am really pleased with the range of classic and more contemporary texts that I have included. There were many others that I would have included but that would have taken two volumes instead of one.  Satire used to be a very popular and successful and productive unit of work in high schools in earlier years but it works well as a Preliminary AOS in preparing analytical response skills and conceptual links across varied texts. Now that it is finished I can begin working on the next project before the new HSC text list is distributed about this time next year and the preparation begins for the first new cohort beginning in Term 4, 2014.

Teachers are obviously concerned about the percentage of new and familiar texts but also the conceptual framing for each of the modules as well. It takes so long to read, research and develop resources that the lead in year is frantic, especially with so many experienced teachers reaching retirement age. When combined with speculation about the changes ushered in with the introduction of National Curriculum and what it will generate in terms of teacher workload, the next year or so will be busy. I am looking forward to the upcoming holidays and along with all teachers, the absence for a short time of bells, staff meetings, assessment tasks and marking deadlines. Perhaps teachers need a great satirist to point out the follies of political educationalists who often fail to make goals achievable or at times even appropriate. To quote Edwin Percy Whipple:

"As men neither fear nor respect what has been made contemptible, all honor to him who makes oppression laughable as well as detestable.—Armies cannot protect it then; and walls that have remained impenetrable to cannon have fallen before a roar of laughter or a hiss of contempt." 

Spring Rejuvenation

A momentary pondering of how quickly the transition occurs from winter to spring, almost as if a switch has been pulled and everything suddenly shifts pace. The video clip is a timely reminder for dealing with the frenzied pace of a term that is a particularly arduous one.Spring and the accompanying holidays it brings offers a temporary respite from marking and lesson and resource preparation. As the term draws to an end 

NSW teachers should be able to access details regarding 7-10 curriculum content  and give some thought to the degree of change it offers. Concerned by the current heavy workloads and after nearly four decades of teaching I am convinced that despite the cyclical call for change in content and methodology, the basic recipe for success in the classroom remains stable. Sound teaching strategies remain valid whatever the altered trappings that might surround them.  

The workload itself remains the biggest hurdle, enhanced by current news reports of teaching standards once again becoming a political focus on how to lift educational standards. We can only hope that sound common sense prevails and that teachers will not be expected to take up an Orwellian  Boxer, 'I will work harder' stance. Educational outcomes are governed by many things besides those areas that teachers can directly control. As a close friend advises, the trick is to somehow find balance.  

The holidays and the garden beckon.

Good luck for those teachers with HSC students.

Barbara

'Billy Elliot'

This wonderful film works very well for the 'Into the World' elective but choosing an appropriate related text can be problematic. The trick is to remain conceptually focused and remember that this is  'Texts and Society' Module elective. While the syllabus does not dictate that a different text type needs to be chosen, social texts offer a wide range of rich options for showing transitions and different pathways into the world. Filmic features and techniques need to be well known but students need to do far more than offer a simple commentary and a list of camera shots and angles used to communicate the director's vision.

Narrative Codes are the ways in which the story is put together and how the sequence structure propels the film narrative forward.

Symbolic and codes are signs embedded within the text itself which have strong associative or connotative meanings. Symbolic codes include objects, set design, body language, lighting, dialogue, sound effects, music, choice of language.

Representational codes refer to the thinking behind the film creates a representation of reality and creates meaning. Weir’s auteur director style is included in terms of filmic vision.

Technical codes relate to the professional craftsmanship, and techniques of construction. Technical codes include framing, composition or mis en scene, shot and angle type, lighting, special effects, editing, camera movement, fades and cuts and words on the screen.

Audio codes refer to the way in which sound, both diagetic and non-diagetic, adds another dimension to the film through dialogue, music and sound effects. 

“As students view a film, we want them to pay special attention to those areas of the film

we consider important and to draw conclusions from their experience with the film.  Only

then does a passive viewer become active; for by thinking about the film’s content, the student is interacting with the film.” Resch and Schnicker

'Satire' almost at the printers

More information is available from the publisher's website listed below but I am pleased to find that it is nearly ready for the shelves. Time to begin the next one.

www.phoenixeduc.com

Hope you find it useful.
Barbara