One joy of being back in the classroom last year was plenty of opportunities to try out different Google Classroom strategies with my students. By the end of the year I was feeling very pleased with my use of topic headers, mark up tools, rubrics, video and audio feedback etc, to improve my communication and … [Read more…]
Like many design teachers this year I have had to figure out how to teach CAD skills to my students using free online tools. After much dithering I finally committed to using OnShape Free with our IGCSE and IB students and Sketchup for Schools with out Year 7 to 9 students. OnShape was a great … [Read more…]
If you scroll back to my first blog posts in 2008 you will see that I have had a weird and eclectic teaching career. After being trained as a science teacher, I got dragged into teaching math and learned I loved it. I then became a technology teacher and coordinator because everyone else I was … [Read more…]
Note: This post is part of my online coursework for the ISTE Certified Teacher program. I have spent a lot of my career teaching Math and Design Technology and in my experience both of these subjects involve a lot of analog work with paper and pencil. In Math it is working out solutions and in … [Read more…]
Tomorrow I am presenting at the 6th Annual SENIA Malaysia Conference on Digital Assistive Technologies. I am focusing mainly on Read&Write, Immersive Reader and iOS Apps and Settings. I owe a big thanks to Eric Curts for sharing his very useful presentation on Google Tools for Struggling Students, as I reference parts of it more … [Read more…]
One of the questions at the back of the Reflection chapter of Innovate Inside the Box is: What do you feel guilty about as a teacher? Reflect on that and consider how to move forward. Well, upon ‘reflection’ I can honestly say that I feel guilty about all the times I have handed my students … [Read more…]
One of the elements of George Couros‘s Innovator’s Mindset is being a risk taker. I would hazard a guess that most teachers aspire for their students to be risk takers. I know that when I was a math teacher I was constantly frustrated that my students just wanted to get the right anwer and were … [Read more…]
I had carefully planned my 70 minute lesson. The students were to get into pairs and look at each other’s designs for the lunar lander (read: egg drop) project we were working on. This project had become a little derailed over the past week as school had been closed due to Haze and students had … [Read more…]
This year I am supporting our school English as an Additional Language (EAL) department set up E-Portfolios for their students. As we are a Google school the obvious solution is to use Google Sites, and we are now in the process of establishing a workflow that will facilitate the following: The creation of a folder … [Read more…]
I am reading Innovate Inside the Box right now and loving it. I couldn’t wait for a paper copy to arrive so I went high tech and downloaded it to my Kindle, but decided to go old school with my notes. My workflow is to read a chapter and take notes on the Kindle, and … [Read more…]
