Because we all need clipart

Image: Clipart Kid

We all need clipart from time to time. When I find a good site I put it on my blog . Clipart Kid has a lot of free, useful clipart. It clearly marks any clipart which is not for free use which is helpful. Sites need to be very clear what is free and what isn’t. The site also has some watermarked clipart which may or may not interest you. I like the approach where the boundaries are clear.

Free video clips and animated gifs

Cyberworld is becoming increasingly animated and video oriented. If you and your students are looking for free video clips to insert into presentations then Videezy is the place to go. As more people use it the banks of clips will become more varied and helpful . As it stands I found three which would make my video presentation more interesting and pertinent. If you want animated gifs, which have their place but not all over the place(!), then giphy has plenty of animated gifs available. Have fun!

100% focus

Nothing wrong with KeyNote or PowerPoint. Use them to match your needs. What do year 9s need first thing Thursday morning? KeyNote. It sparkles, it bubbles – it doesn’t just blandly sit there . I was on a mission. I had a verb to conjugate . I created the KeyNote presentation so we would look at the verb subjects first and then the conjugated form of the verb.One person of the verb at a time. Each word sparkled, bubbled, caught of fire or had firework explosions and the students loved it and loved their verb and learned really quickly. They even said I had done well. There was nothing to detract or distract and so we got through the verb quickly and then could make up sentences on each part of the verb and I could write them on top of the presentation.  There was plenty of room on the slide presentation for this contextual learning. We did so well we had half an hour spare to spend on our language learning site. 100% focus increases productivity!

bContext presentations with iPad

Create and share

BContext is quite a versatile app where you can create screen images for the IWB or just your iPad and use recording, image placement, web searches , text and shapes to create presentations. If you were adept at it , you’d be able to teach and talk but you could also make premade materials for students or they could use the app to make presentations themselves.You can share your presentations from within the app. Screenshots of what you do come out high resolution and high definition and so would easily lend themselves to being imported into a movie making programme for an even more creative, high impact presentation. Some parts of the app are paid but you are not required to pay in order to make good use of the app which you put on your iPad. bContext itself comes with a number of short, competent , video tutorials which help you to get oriented and productive. There are quite a few apps like this but bContext had a number of elements you could use for the presentations, the tutorials and then I found the hand writing part of the app was very responsive. I think students and teachers would find it a useful tool in their kit.

Use Powerpoint as a Learning Tool

In Australia teachers have the Professional Teacher Standards which are available on the aitsl site along with a great number of other documents which you can download to support you with working with the standards. On the site there is also plenty of material to engage with which will help you understand what the standards look like in the real world with real teachers and students. There are also the iPhone and Android My Standards apps which you can download so that you have the standards handy on your phone or tablet. I have done all of that and downloaded the Demonstrating Impact pdf from the aitsl site and Demonstrating a Professional Mindset pdf. Both of these are interactive workbooks for teachers to work with the standards. First, I need to get this all clear in my head and even though I have been looking at the standards for quite some time now, if I want to seriously engage with them and make a solid effort to reflect on what I am doing I need to organise the material very clearly in my head. Just looking at documents and reading it all isn’t how I learn to put standards into practice and know my content. I have started a Powerpoint about the standards because it is the best way I know of learning complex material using technology. As I play with the layout and animations on each slide I am thinking about the content I am displaying. As I choose colours, backdrops, order of presentation I am forced to think about what the content means. This image is my first slide . In real life it is animated and as the information comes up the content is revealed in a way that I am neither swamped nor intimidated by it. When my Powerpoint is finished and you can see what I am doing I’ll share it with you. I get students to present information I want them to learn. Sometimes they can just take a photo from the board but if I want them to involve themselves with the material I get them to create a presentation. I then start to get very particular questions about what something means or whether they have it right. Powerpoint presentations encourage you to consider each and every aspect of what you are presenting as you compose the material on each slide. It naturally forces you to break learning down into bitesize pieces. KeyNote on the MacBook does exactly the same thing. By using Powerpoint as a learning tool I become immersed in my learning. It is not a clockwork exercise where I can tune out because I am creating visual learning. My next step is to look at individual indicators in the seven areas of Professional Standards:

1. Know students and how they learn

2. Know the  content and  how to teach it

3. Plan for and implement effective teaching and learning

4. Create and maintain supportive and safe learning

5. Assess, provide feedback and report on student learning

6. Engage in professional learning

7. Engage professionally with colleagues, parents/carers and the community