Doctor Who Trailer Maker
Doctor Who has been a part of my life since I was a kid, hiding behind the sofa when the Daleks came on the screen. The “new” series is now on Season 4 and I’ve been really enjoying it so far, even if it does have that awful Tate lady (TATL) as an assistant.
The BBC have embraced a lot of the interactive features of the Internet, and their Doctor Who website is no exception.
The Comic Maker was pretty cool but I really like their Trailer Maker.
It allows you to make a 30 second trailer using clips, music and sound effects and then save your effort to share with others. It’s great fun and has great potential for using with a class.
You can see my quick effort here. It’s not much, but gives you an idea of what you can do with it.
I have a feeling the site won’t be accessible outside the UK I’m afraid. But for UK teachers – get your class creating!
Read More
Magic Pen Game
No, not related to my earlier post about the Smart Magic Pen, but more related to my post about Phun the other week.
Thanks to Science Punk for linking to another fun little Real Physics application called Magic Pen.
Magic Pen is like Phun in that you use a crayon to draw objects that then behave on the screen as if they were real. Balls roll, oblongs topple down under gravity etc. This time, there’s an actual objective. You need to get the little ball to the flag. You might need to just roll a ball into it to make it move, or you could build a more complex solution.
It’s very neat, and would be great on an IWB as a lesson starter activity.
Play Magic Pen here: http://magic.pen.fizzlebot.com/
Read More
The Magic Pen
One of the small niggles I had with Smart 9 was that there was no spotlight tool on the toolbar in Smart Notebook. I know you could get it via the floating toolbar, but it annoyed me that I couldn’t get it quickly in Notebook without having to use workarounds.
So I was really happy when I was first shown a beta of Smart Notebook 10 with the tool called the Magic Pen.
The Magic Pen is brilliant.
If you write with the Magic Pen it stays on the screen for a few seconds and then fades away. This is great for adding quick annotations that you don’t want to last – underlining an area on the screen, circling a key point etc.
If you draw a circle on the screen with the Magic Pen then it automatically turns into a Spotlight tool! This is my favourite!
If you draw a rectangle on the screen it will turn into a magnifyer – making an area of the screen larger. Good for making text larger such as web addresses etc.
Here’s a quick video that shows how to use the Magic Pen. I made this with the beta but couldn’t show them due to the NDA, which is why it talks about being the second video… I can’t find part 1!!
http://www.screencast.com/t/WBCypM5Pcn0
Read More
The IWB Challenge
I just wanted to direct you to the blog of Jess McCulloch who has decided that April is Interactive Whiteboard month and has been writing about her use of the IWB to teach Modern Foreign Languages. Read part 3 here, which has links to the previous posts.
As well as Jess, three other teachers at My Languages, The Langwitch Chronicles and Sans Problemes have also taken up the IWB challenge and written about their experiences. I’m looking forward to seeing more as they continue the challenge.
This has also been linked to the Passion Quilt meme, where teachers blog about what they are most passionate about in education. Again, well worth a look.
There is a growing network of inspirational teachers sharing their ideas on the Internet for others to use to develop their own teaching. I always love stumbling across a new one, there are some truly inspirational ones out there.
Read More
Animoto Education Program
I’ve talked about Animoto before in the last few months(here and here), and I think it’s a great way of producing professional-looking slideshows.
Even better now is the announcement of an Animoto Education Program. This is great news and means that educators can use Animoto with their classes for free!
Contact Rebecca at Animoto via the address on this page to find out more.
Read More
Smart Notebook 10 Toolbar
I’ve always found it useful when doing IWB training to give teachers a sheet with all the icons on the toolbar and what they do. Many teachers like to print this off and stick it on the wall next to their IWB.
Here is my new guide to the Smart Notebook 10 toolbar. If you want, you can download it as a pdf file here.
In the future I’ll do a post that explains what each of these buttons actually does.
Read More
In Plain English
Here are some great videos to watch because a) they use plain English and b) I love the clean presentation style. They cover some of the new Web 2.0 tools that have really enhanced the way people use the internet in the last few years.
Social Bookmarking in Plain English
Podcasting in Plain English
RSS in Plain English
You can find all their videos, covering Twitter, Social Networking, Photo Sharing and, erm.. Zombies on YouTube here. Or go to the CommonCraft site to download high res versions to use elsewhere.
Read More
My Extended Memory
I have an average memory. I mean, it’s OK but it’s nothing special. I can remember birthdays and I can quote whole chunks of Eddie Izzard routines but I do tend to forget things. I’m bad at remembering hardware specs and prices. I often forget the web address of that great site I just saw in a teachers magazine.
So my memory needs a little help sometimes. Luckily technology can help me. In the form of my mobile phone.
I don’t always have a pen or a piece of paper with me. or if I have written it down I may not have that bit of paper on me when I need it. But I always have my phone with me. Which means I always have a camera with me. And this is where it can really help.
I see a web address in an article or on a poster that looks interesting. Simple, I get out my phone and I take a photograph of it. I see a new digital camera in a store and I want to go home and check out the reviews and price-compare online. Easy, I just take a photo of the shelf label and look it up when I get home. Most modern phone cameras act as pretty good document cameras.
A domestic example; I need to buy some more washing and proofing products for my Ski gear to get it ready for next season. I always get mixed up which products we need. So I took a photo of the bottles. Next time I find myself in a ski store I can just look up the image on my phone and buy the right products. The chances are that any piece of paper will have long been lost by the time I end up in a store.
The camera in my phone acts as a memory enhancer. I’m quite a visual learner and I need visual reminders. I could type things into my phone too, although I find that can be slower than a photo. I do make use of the Notes feature in Outlook (which syncs to my phone) for longer notes and reminders of work-related addresses and passwords.
There are other features in the phone that I could also use – the voice memo feature for example, but I haven’t made much use of that yet. And there are many web2.0 sites like Remember the Milk etc that can help with to-do lists if you want to take it to another level.
I do try and remember these things normally too. I don’t see myself as a slave to my phone. But the technology helps to make my life just that little bit easier. And prevents our kitchen filling up with uneeded products!
How could we harness some of this in the classoom? As a science teacher, I can see ways we could use them in the science lesson. Want kids to remember the apparatus set up? Easy, take a photograph of it. Maybe take a video of the trolley going down the ramp or the weights on the spring. Use the voice memo to record the results as they read them out. Get them to add important dates such as coursework deadlines or homework into the calendar of the phone.
Some kids could aid their revision by using their PC to record themselves reading out important facts they need to know for their exams. They can put it onto their phone/iPod as an MP3 file and listen to it on the way to and from school….
An extreme example maybe, but some students could benefit from taking a new look at the computing power they routinely carry in their pockets.
The Internet itself also acts as a way for me to extend (and share) my memory. I use my del.icio.us feed to add websites that I want to remember. Tags help me search for them later. If I have found a good website that I haven’t got a lot of time to look at, I can add it to del.ico.us and then access it later on when I have more time. I may not be on the same computer or even in the same location, so a standard bookmark isn’t going to help.
On training days, I am often asked for lists of good websites. I used to do this in Word. But you can guarantee that as soon as you print it off you find several more you could have added. Dynamic bookmark lists such as del.ico.us or Diig means I can share the lists with people and know they have the most recent version. Tags mean I can direct trainees on my whiteboard days to http://del.icio.us/dannynic/iwb and my PGCE students to http://del.icio.us/dannynic/pgce.
Similarly I use my blog and forum as a brain dump. Many posts are morefor my benefit than for my readers. It’s nice to share though, so if others also find the links useful then that’s great.
So taking this all into account I actually have a very good memory. But it’s not all inside my head!
Read More
TeachMeet08 North East London
I’m really hoping to be able to attend the next TeachMeet in a few weeks time.
TeachMeet is a chance to share what has and is effective, exciting and innovative technology in our schools in an informal environment.
The details of the event are:
Redbridge Teachers Centre
Melbourne Road
Ilford, IG1 4HT
6:00pm- 9:30pm
More information can be found here. If you want to attend, you need to edit the Wiki to add your name to the list.
It sounds like a fun event and I look forward to meeting everybody there!
Read More
Translate this site
About Me
Danny Nicholson : Educator, Science teacher, ICT Consultant, PGCE lecturer, Author and Web2.0 / SMART Masters/ Interactive Whiteboard Trainer. Contact me for any training requests. 
Buy the book!
