You can now make you own stories with 7 simple search terms.  It couldn’t be easier, you just type in up to 7 search terms and then choose whether the video will show it as a normal search, image search, map search etc.  Try it here: http://www.youtube.com/user/SearchStories

I knocked one up very quickly – took about 5 minutes, you’ll have to excuse the cheese factor of it!

Could be a great tool for pupils telling stories new or old, explaining topics, making revision tips, any other suggestions?

Enjoy

Technorati Tags: ELearning, English, Google, online, Resources, stories, teaching, video, writing, YouTube

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Watch one of Hans Rosling’s classic TED talks to see what it’s capable of:

There have been a number of great updates which can be seen in this diagram I’ve borrowed from Gapminder.org:

You can see the blog post detailing these on Gapminder, but to summarise:

• More data;
• Downloadable data – each set is available as a Google Spreadsheet ;
• Data displayed as scatter graph or plotted on a map;
• News & videos. (Bookmark their RSS feed in your Google Reader!)
• For Teachers section that is soon to be updated with teaching ideas & resources.

How have you used Gapminder in your classroom? I’d be fascinated to hear.

PS: I also note that Google (who bought our Gapminder a few years ago) have a little strangely brought out a very similar tool: Google Public Data Explorer.  This has some nice alternative data sets to investigate.

PPS: Another short Hans Rosling video – just because he’s great

Technorati Tags: Data, Gapminder, geography, Google, Google Spreadsheet, hans rosling, history, math, mathematics, Maths, science, social studies, world

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I have just completed the second edition of the SHS E-Learning Newsletter.  This issue’s focus was:

1. Google Maps/Earth Special!
2. MFL – Street View
3. History – Historical Imagery
4. Science – Tours of the World
5. Maths – Collaborative Maps
6. Further Reading / Ideas

Check it out here, or sign up for the next edition over on the right in the sidebar

Technorati Tags: ELearning, Google, Google Earth, Google Maps, Google Street View, maps, newsletter

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Go and read it.

Go on!

I threw my lesson plan out of the window and did exactly what Tom did, here are the replies: (click through for them all)

This caused great excitement and interest in the topic, and really helped us look in to the language and mathematics of describing chance.

This class have really been inspired with the idea of my network, I had to stop them spending the rest of the lesson bombarding you all with further questions!  Bringing global connections into the classroom is a real attention grabber, and like it or not we are entertainers!

Nothing more to say – thanks Tom –  a great idea, and thanks to everyone who contributed to the lesson.

Technorati Tags: chance, Classroom, EdTech, education, educators, KS3, Lesson plan, math, mathematics, Maths, online, PLN, probability, Teacher, teaching, Twitter, Web2.0

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So here’s the plan:

• Discuss data quality based on previous lesson
• Tweet a link to my questionnaire and a Wallwisher for feedback on the questions
• Fill out my questionnaire full of deliberate mistakes in class
• Look at the live data spreadsheet
• Groups look at the data for one question, suggest problems with the data collected, and suggest improvements to the data.
• Discuss findings, looking at key points of: Leading Questions, Bias, Open/Closed Qs, Personal Qs, Options Boxes, Group boundaries etc.
• Look at Twitter feedback on Wallwisher, compare to our own thoughts
• Each team leaves one learning point on our own Wallwisher.
• Compile new Qs into anew Questionnaire

A lot to pack in to 60 minutes, but time for individual, group and whole class work and reflection.  My class have a high proportion of special educational needs, I feel there is a good mixture of learning styles catered for here and certainly not much time to get bored!

To complete the technological marvel, this was all wrapped up in a Prezi presentation:

As you can see I took charity as a theme – we had been collecting that morning for Haiti so it seemed appropriate.

Here’s my questionnaire – complete with deliberate mistakes galore:

I tweeted out a link to the form and my lovely personal learning network took care of the rest.

We completed the form individually in class while the live spreadsheet was up on the board:

Each group then worked through one of the questions, looking at data problems, and how to improve it.  This allowed me to differentiate the work, stronger groups could look at the tougher concepts and vice-versa.

Here’s the worksheets they worked on:

At this point we had some, lively, discussions about this and looked at the feedback from the Twitterverse on Wallwisher:

As you can see there was an awesome level of feedback here – I can’t thank everyone enough!  I was losing things a little by now, whole class discussion is hard work!

Finally we moved on and I asked each team to go to our own Wallwisher and put one point that they had learned today. This was tough, verbalising this level of Maths is not easy for them.  There were a few little nuggets in here, and although each pupil couldn’t put into words exactly what they had learned, I’m convinced each of them made good progress today.

My favourite (and it wasn’t me – a pupil using my logon) was:

“don’t ask the names cus the peepz won’t be honest”

Linking the fineries of English language questioning, with different data collection boxes through to the raw data that comes out of the other side is pretty complex stuff.

To blow my own trumpet, I think this is a pretty good way to teach Questionnaires & Data Quality.  Looking at the problems with the data produced from poor questioning makes it much clearer how to phrase and design them in the first place.  Has anyone else got any other novel ideas for this part of the curriculum?  I’d be fascinated to hear any ideas!

Finally, thanks to the fabulous TeachMeet BETT 2010.  The ideas of using Twitter in the classroom is one that I was reminded of at BETT, and particularly the use of Wallwisher.  I’ve seen it before and always forgotten to integrate it into the Maths classroom.  The ideas are fab, and the copy of Camtasia I won for emailing my use to tmbett2010@gmail.com will be really well used at school!  So a big thanks from me, and from the pupils for an entertaining lesson

Technorati Tags: Classroom, education, Google Spreadsheet, Internet, laptops, math, mathematics, Maths, online, PLN, prezi, Twitter, wallwisher, Web2.0

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For those new to the term Augmented Reality it involves overlaying virtual images on top of a live video stream. Some of the first examples are on the iPhone and the PS3.

Here is an iPhone example called Nearest Tube, directions to the nearest London Tube stop are overlayed onto the image from the phone’s camera:

Another on the iPhone that I have used is the excellent Yelp app, overlaying the nearest restaurant, bar, shops etc onto an image from the camera:

Recently released on the PS3 is the ‘game’ EyePet, this uses a camera pointed at your living room floor, the PS3 then overlays a virtual pet who plays with you on your floor. Stuart Rideout has written a great little post about this. Please go and read that article, and take particular note of the little pieces of card that that software uses.

The system I saw today was similar to this, the camera picked up the distinct patterns on pieces of card and created a 3D image in their place. The team from the SSAT are creating some applications with these cards, some examples that were mentioned were cards that represented different tectonic plates. These could then be moved together by the teacher, and the project image on the IWB would show the plates meeting. Another was some cards to attach to the joints of your arm, when your arm moved, the image on screen showed the bones and muscles moving overlayed onto the video image.

The team are creating these little programs at the moment, and when done all that would be needed would be the software, a webcam and a projector/monitor. They are really engaging and certainly have the wow factor!

This is where you come in, Paul is looking for ideas to create some Maths software with this technology. The obvious thing is some virtual 3D shapes, but we can do better than that! If you have any ideas, rather than putting his email up here, I will pass on to him details of this post. If you could then leave your ideas in the comments section hopefully Paul’s team will put together some of them over the coming months.

My first thought was using this to teach balancing equations. Cards could represent numbers and letters and operations, these could then be presented as the old fashioned idea of some scales balancing an equation. With a bit of animation, the idea of doing the same operation to each side of the equation could be shown.

So over to you, can you think of anything more original?

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Well you can’t have missed the fact that Google has finally unleashed Google Wave to 100,000 lucky testers, and with it a tsunami of hype.  I was lucky enough to be one of the 100,000 first wave.  Enough of the puns, if you want a bytesize explanation of what Wave is then this video is the best start:

Technorati Tags: education, email, Google, Google Wave, GoogleApps, Web2.0

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I will post my first impressions of Google Wave soon, in the meantime we have started building a directory of educators who are using Wave at the moment.  This can be found here.

If you have are logged in to Wave, it should hopefully be embedded below:

If you are waiting for your invite to Wave then there is a Wiki of educators here.

Technorati Tags: directory, education, educators, Google, Google Wave, teachers

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With that out of the way, what’s BrainPop?  The website has videos for many subjects, all starring Tim and his beeping robot friend Moby.  Subjects covered include: Science, English, Maths, Humanities, Arts, PSHE, Citizenship & Design & Technology.

Tim & Moby can probably explain it better than me, head over to there introductory video here.

I have trialled the new Maths videos with my Year 8 class.  They are a lively class who respond best to less traditional methods of teaching, the more engaging the better, so they seemed like a good choice.  We had a look at the video on Rounding and also some of the Fractions videos.  I used these at the start of a lesson, almost replacing my usual instruction.

The pupils were engaged throughout the video, probably more so than my attempts to get them to listen to me for 5 minutes flat after lunch!  Their feedback was interesting though, they weren’t completely positive.  Some said they liked it and thought the video was funny, some thought it was a bit ‘babyish’ for them.  A number pointed out that I could have taught them that without the need for a video.

Each video is accompanied by a multiple choice quiz to re-inforce the learning.  We worked through the quiz after watching the video, pupils were engaged throughout this, and enjoyed coming to the board to take part in it.  With hindsight it might have been sensible to run the quiz before AND after the video to see if it helped explain the concepts to them.

I think that the video format has it’s limitations in Mathematics, it’s a hands-on, example driven subject that craves interactivity.  Would the videos be more suited to other subjects? Maybe.  I will pass on any feedback I get from other departments over coming weeks.

So the pupils were a little underwhelmed at the video use in class.  When I asked them if they thought they would be more useful at home, when doing homework or revising for a test, they were far more positive.  “It would be like having a teacher in your own home” one pupil commented, and I couldn’t put it better myself!

Like MyMaths, Brainpop is a subscription based website, I will have to review things on a wider school level to see if we will be buying a site license when our free trial runs out.

What do you think of the BrainPop videos?  Have you used them in other subjects? Interested to hear your comments as ever…

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Kodu is a new game programming language / tool from Microsoft.  It has had a very low-key launch, I came across it as it was featured in the excellent Edge Magazine last month.  Kodu is initially available to the public on X-Box Live Marketplace for about £3.50.  I have been fortunate enough to be allowed on to the Beta of the PC version, this is currently only open to educators.  You can apply to join the Beta by following the link from this MSDN blog.  Watch this video from Microsoft, it gives you a quick feel of how the program works:

Kodu demonstration for schools

I have spent the whole morning working through the tutorials and examples getting a feel for what is possible and I have to say I am impressed by the scope of the package.  I’m also a little bit overwhelmed.  So I decided to try and build the bare bones of a game from scratch.  I chose a tower defence style game as the mechanics of it are simple enough.  What follows is a quick run through of my progress so far, I hope it serves as a good enough introduction of Kodu.

Terrain:

Terrain menu

There are a number of terrain building tools allowing you to raise/lower the ground, add water, smooth edges and lay different terrain types.  So the first thing I did was make a simple square of land, surrounded with water and with a road laid on top.

Paths:

All tower defence games have a path along which the invading enemy hordes must walk.  The easiest way to make any game character follow a certain route is to add a path.  You can see the path joining the yellow nodes on the next screenshot.  I’ll come back to this when I have a character.

Path via yellow nodes

Control:

You map the controller to move any of the objects / characters you add to the game world.  I tried a number of control methods, the default is to add a Kodu, a slow creature who walks around.

Add a Kodu

I tried adding one of these and then having him walk over to a tower, pick it up and place it where it was required.  This all seemed a bit ungainly.  I decided I really just needed a cursor of sorts with which I could click on the screen to add a tower.  To make a cursor you still need to add an object, so I chose the flying saucer and made it move with the left analogue stick.

Saucer

Programming:

How you ask?  Hitting Y brings up the meat of Kodu, it’s visual programming language.  Below are the commands programmed in for my flying saucer cursor:

Code for Saucer

That first line is all that’s needed to make the saucer fly in whichever direction you move the analogue stick (X-Box controller is required – even for PC).  I’ll get onto the rest shortly.

Baddies:

I wanted a steady stream of baddies to walk through the level, it took a little bit of fiddling to work out how to do this.  I chose a character called the Cycle which is a little robot uni-cycle.  After creating him I needed to go into his options by hitting X and then making him ‘Createable’, this meant I could create him from the code of other objects.  There’s a handy help menu for every single option.

Options menu

Help menu

I programmed my Cycle to follow the yellow path which I created earlier and to shoot at the towers on sight.

Cycle Code

I added a ‘Hut’ at the start of the level and programmed it open every 10 seconds, ‘create’ a Cycle of a random colour, and make a noise while it was at it.

Hut

Hut Code

Towers:

Just like the baddies I made a ‘createable’ tower from the ‘Stick’ character, one that naturally just sits and shoots, perfect for the job.  I programmed it to turn towards and shoot rockets at the cycles.

Tower code

If you look back at my code for the Saucer you will see I added a line that creates a tower each time A is pressed on the pad.

Points:

No game is complete without a scoring mechanic.  Kodu makes it easy to change the score via any event.  First thing I did was add a cost of 20 points for creating a tower which you can see in the Saucer code.  All well and good, but Kodu happily let me build loads of towers sending the points off into a world of negativity!  To stop this I had to get a little creative, I added the following code which checked if the score was below zero, and if it was moved to the second screen of code for my Saucer.

-ve points switch to code screen 2

Code page 2

Once switched to this second screen Kodu will only run these instructions on your character.  As you can see I removed the ability to create towers whilst below zero and added a line of code to switch back to code screen 1 when the score returned above zero.  This is great for changing the behaviour of an object based on some event.

This created another problem, I started with no points which meant at the start of the game you could only build one tower.  There was no option to start the score from anything other than zero.  To get around this I added a ‘Star’ object on top of the Saucer, as soon as the game starts the Saucer ‘eats’ the Star, and you get 50 points, problem solved! (See original Saucer code).

Points scoring was then programmed in via the Cycles:

Points code

If the Cycle is destroyed by your Towers you get 20 points, if it makes it all the way to the end of the level alive and touches the Castle I placed there you lose 10 points.

Action:

And here’s the finished game in action: EDIT *Video problems uploading – I’ll post the video soon*

As you can see there is much tweaking needed, you can adjust damage and health levels and the like to balance your game.  If I continued with this I would make additional towers and baddies and sort out the scoring so there is a game-over of some description.  I hope this has given you a small flavour of Kodu and scratched the surface of what is possible.

In School?

So could I see this being used in school? Yes, for sure, but with some caveats.  It has a steeper learning curve than I was expecting and would be hard work with a class full of kids.  Although I could be wrong and they could take to it like ducks to water.  One obvious place for it is in the ‘Control’ part of the ICT curriculum.  I haven’t taught ICT yet myself, so I don’t know if it would tick all the boxes required, although I guess it would.  Whether it would be an efficient way to cover the work I doubt, but it sure would be fun!  There is obviously logic and programming galore in here, so wherever that needs to be taught Kodu is a possibility.  I think my next challenge will be to think of some Maths based uses, there is obviously lots of potential here.  Where Kodu will I’m sure shine is in after school / lunchtime clubs.  With a smaller group of interested pupils you could have great fun in this environment.  Once you get in the swing of things, with a basic game set up, the process of balancing the game with points, health, weapons etc becomes an interesting insight into the games design process.  I think were I to give this to pupils to work with I would start them off with a suitable example, such as the one I have just made, and ask them to develop it from there.  It’s much easier to get the hang of the whole system when you have an existing game to play around with.

All in all Kodu is an exciting development and sits nicely alongside Scratch as a tool for looking at programming and games design.

Technorati Tags: control, education, games, ICT, Kodu, Microsoft, Programming

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