Greg’s delicious site (http://delicious.com/gregc5) also has links as does Janes (http://delicious.com/saltnz). We are continually adding to these lists so feel free to come back and peruse any time, or subscribe to a tag in your aggregator. There are teacher resource, class activity and academic readings in our tag lists.

So … have a look at these sites we have cosen simply as a starting point. Browse, follow links, google and search, and don’t forget to add good sites you find in the comments.

Online Resources:

1. Free Reading initial taxonomy showing children’s oral language development.
2. List of user-submitted phonological awareness activities from the Free Reading website.
3. Free Reading website – activities organised in a developmental in hierarchy. Teacher notes and lesson plans.
4. Definition and teacher activities.
5. Simple rhyme game.
6. How the sounds are made in terms of the physical production of the phonemes. Has demos too (note: a couple of mistakes pronouncing them). American pronunciation and emphasis.
7. Lots of very cool games focusing on sound discrimination and listening. Earobics – graded in 3 levels too which is good for grouping etc.
8. ICT Games site. You will have to pick and choose but some good phonological awareness games in here. Has informative summaries of what skill they focus on and how to play. Has activities for other Literacies too if you return to the homepage.
9. Roy the Zebra - very simple and structured phonics activities
10. Adventure game with simple structure where you have to help characters solve phonological awareness and phonics puzzles to progress on the quest.
11. Starfall.com - A gazillion online literacy activities broken into levels. Not just phonological awareness …
12. Elmo rhyming game
13. Auditory discrimination activity with a focus on initial sound. American accent but not too bad.
14. Very simple letter recognition and letter sound activities
15. Linking listening, phonics and initial sounds - listen to words and find them from choice of three.
16. From the Scholastic website which has a lot of good activities –this one is a simple rhyming activity. Follow the links to other games and activities too. Good teacher resource materials as well.
17. Games that show phonemes with sound. (Shockwave so probably best on Windows computers as I couldn’t get the Mac plug in to work properly).
18. Alphabet activities from Starfall.com Very Simple.
19. A gazillion games and activities from Quia.com. Another of the places that has almost too many things to choose from – you could spend all day in here.

Don’t forget “offline” activities like:

1. Using Kidpix to make a picture or scene of something with a particular sound in it. See if people can guess the sound – put the answer under a flap so people can check.
2. Using ComicLife to find photographs/images of things starting with /ending with /including a particular sound. Again have a flap so people can check. Make a book of them? Post on the wall?
3. Use Kidspiration/Inspiration to make a mind map of things with particular sounds in them. Simply cut out and past on paper?
4. Use Garageband/ Audacity/ PhotoBooth/ iMovie to record a story, poem, tongue-twister, etc with a particular sound in it.
5. Make a list of words – write, type, illustrate….
6. Record a list of words in audio – are they spelt the same? What is the spelling pattern?
7. Interview people in the class about “how many words you know that ….”. Try the teachers or other adults?
8. Make posters from pictures in magazines focusing on a particular sound. Group them according to spelling pattern – eg ‘k’ can be represented by letters ‘k’, ‘c’, ‘q’, or ‘ch’. A homework task to find a picture for each?
9. Make a snap or dominoes game using sound focused pictures from magazines.
10. Commercial games and activities – Smartkids etc.

Can you add any other ideas to this list? Again put them in the comments ….

Feel free to contact either of us directly!

Jane – jcarroll@clear.net.nz

Greg - gregc@outram.school.nz

Nearly 75% of US college students believe WiFi access on their college campus helps them get better grades, according to a recent survey conducted for the Wi-Fi Alliance.

Wakefield Research polled 501 US college students in September 2008 and found that nine out of ten say Wi-Fi access is as essential to education as classrooms and computers, while nearly three in five say they wouldn’t go to a college that doesn’t have free Wi-Fi. Almost 80% percent said that without Wi-Fi access, college would be a lot harder.

source

I must admit that I certainly feel it if I am away from wireless internet access for too long. It is good to make the choice at times but it is difficult to do my job without it.

“assessment for the purpose of IMPROVING student learning” - NZC.  Framing the purpose of e-Portfolios from NZC which is a good place to begin

stuff on Nicks blog here

strong focus on ALL portfolios being for Assessment FOR learning, (not just OF learning as a summative thing).  change in mindset here, particularly for parents who often just want a summative assessment and comparative information.

Have changed from iWeb and sending home on DVD to using passworded online format.  Linked from school website.  Move to web-based format has made more dynamic and allowed for interaction and ongoing reflection by learner and others.  Parents making comments etc has changed the nature of the portfolios.

this is what we have found with blogging at school as well - the audience makes the medium even more powerful.  When children know they have a genuine, meaningful audience it really ramps up the expectations for and of the children. Having others looking at what you are doing makes a difference!

Allows for showcasing method as well as product(s).

have a local ISP that hosts for them - YAY.  makes a big difference!

Wordpress as platform and at this point not worrying about tagging individual posts but using pages in Wordpress to differentiate content (eg individual pages for Literacy topics, maths, etc)

This time:

• Intra-preneurs (as opposed to enrepreneurs).  People who change things from the inside rather than heading into the big wide world.  We need to teaching children and teachers to change thing in their local environments/situation as well.
• ‘zeitgeist’ - wind of change.  Concepts that are permeating our thinking - like ‘lifelong learning’.
• Some of the roles of the transformational teacher - Energiser, Ethicist, Entrepreneur, Environmentalist
• Modeling self-talk and scaffolding children to ‘hear the voice in their head’ and have conversations with themselves as a window on metacognition.  I really like this one!

the 3 c’s of questioning:

1.  CATCH - their attention.

2.  CLUSTER - new and required vocabulary.

3.  CONSTRUCT - your question.

three aspects to remember but not really a sequence! Seems a little artificial to me.  How would you get children to construct a question if they were not engaged?  I do like the bit reminding us to introduce new vocabulary though

turning questions into LI’s - to enable you to see precisely if (or not) children have answered their questions.

Using questioning matrix (is, did, can, would, will, might - on orizontal axis; who, what, where, when, how, why - on vertical axis) and puting each axis of the matrix on a dice.  So you randomly create for example “what might?” … etc. Isn’t this Michael Pohl or someone like that? I am sure I have seen it called a Question Generator and sold comercially??

Will Richardson:

• the power of stories and that quite young children are engaged.
• helping kids become literate in their networks
• kids are google-able (need to think about what this means for our policies at school.  I certainly take opportunities to have the discussions, but need to ensure all teachers do the same)
• it is not about changing the way we teach - it is about changing the way we LEARN.

Sheryl N-B:

• communities of practice - post of new teacher reflecting on his practice. (interesting to note that his reflection is the test results! NCLB has a lot to answer for in terms of the culture of teaching in the US)
• shifting from classroom metaphor to community metaphor.  Communities of practice - wider than education networks.  cocreation and bigger than the sum of the individuals. (It is funny hearing this as I very much take this for granted now.)
• Communities of practice as a step on from learning communities.
• we are the last generation that has a choice about engaging with technology!  In todays world, preparing todays learners we have a MORAL OBLIGATION to engage with technology and teach children how to use and manage tools (etc). (woh …. powerful point!!)

Last week, I wrote an entry on my blog that began like this:

“One of these days, I’m going to write a book called, ‘The Basics.’ It’s going to be a compendium of the essential tech bits that you just assume everyone knows–but you’re wrong.

(I’ll never forget watching a book editor at a publishing house painstakingly drag across a word in a word processor to select it. After 10 minutes of this, I couldn’t stand it. ‘Why don’t you just double-click the word?’ She had no clue you could do that!)”

Many readers chimed in with other “basics” that they assumed every computer user knew–but soon discovered that what’s common knowledge isn’t the same as universal knowledge.

I’m sure the basics could fill a book, but here are a few to get you started.

Wolk outlines eleven essentials to put more joy into learning.

1 Find Pleasure in learning. With pleasurable learning we don’t mind possible difficulties invoved in any in learning; we tend to see them as a natural part of learning, so we are far more open to taking risks. Schools need to tap into what children enjoy learning about and also make all school learning more enjoyable.

2 Give Students Choice. How much choice ( or ‘ownership’) do students have about their learning? Students can be given choices during the school day. Students can be given choice in their studies, the questions they want to explore, and how they wish to express their ideas. Schooling ought to inspire children to ask questions able to design their own tasks.

3 Let Students Create Things. People like to make stuff. Creating something original gives us a tremendous sense of agency and pride. As well, creating things gives us an appreciation of the creative process in action.

4 Show off Students Work. Our schools, and classrooms, should be brimming with wonderful, original student work. Classrooms should ’speak’ to visitors.

5 Take Time to Tinker. We all learn by fooling around. Student’s imaginative ideas , their intuitive leaps of imagination, should be encouraged. All too often our schools are too planned, leaving no room for spontaneity. We need to free teachers to take risks, experiment, to play with the art of pedagogy, and to feel the joy that comes from such on open approach to teaching.

6 Make school Places Inviting. All spaces, inside and outside of schools, need to be seen as learning spaces.

7 Get Outside. More of the school day should be outside. Fresh air and a sunny day can do miracles for the human spirit. Children need to have their sensory awareness expanded.To sit under a tree to read, draw, think, or talk. Much of our science could directly include the outdoors. Ecosystems are all around.

8 Read Good Books. Make sharing good literature an important feature of all classrooms. Give students time to share their own stories. All study topics have themes which provide opportunities to introduce good literature.

9 More Physical Education and Arts. In America many students have no art, music, and drama and little time for PE. For many students these are the areas that many children have strengths in and gain joy from.

10 Transform Assessment. Assessment is a pert of life and students need to see it as an important part of the learning process. We should make more use of immediate feedback, narrative assessment, self assessment, portfolios of authentic work, presentations, exhibitions and performances.

11 Have Fun Together. Teachers need to take a break from the seriousness of the school day and have some fun together. Anything that tears down the walls that often get built inside schools and builds more caring relationships is to be encouraged

Wolk concludes by referring back to John Dewey quote and says that schools can sap our souls is just as true for teachers as it is for students

If principals can help teachers find joy in their work, and help their teachers strive to ‘own their own teaching’ the teachers can enter their rooms every morning enthusiastic to help their students experience joy in their learning.

source:

We were having a discussion last week in staff meeting about how our school vision includes ALL children having WOW moments at school every day. Also that teachers should expect the same…

How cool is that!