Draw a StickMan : A New Chapter
If you liked the Draw a Stickman thing I posted last year then you will be pleased to know there’s a second chapter available taking your hero on another adventure.
If you haven’t seen it yet, you start by drawing a stickman and then… well go see for yourself. I won’t spoil it for you.
This would be great on an interactive whiteboard to help with the drawing – but works just as well with a mouse. You could use this with a class as a story starter activity perhaps?
It’s very cute, and well worth a few minutes of your time.
Take a look at : http://www.drawastickman.com
Lend Me Your Literacy – collaborative projects
Lendmeyourliteracy.org is a very interesting online resource base for teachers and students of Literacy. It’s billed as a one stop website for examples of good pieces of literacy work written by children and not just models written in a text book.
Teachers can use these pieces of work for moderation purposes and an aid to good teaching, inspiring children to believe…
Teachers can pick the very best examples of literacy work in their class and upload them to the lendmeyourliteracy website. This work can then be seen by schools nationwide as part of the lendmeyourliteracy network. Teachers can also upload examples of everyday literacy such as application forms, personal statements and letters to support Skills for Employment for Adults.
It’s a really interesting idea, and if you’re looking for some new ideas for teaching literacy (or want to share some of your own)it’s well worth taking some time to look at their resources.
Take a look at : http://lendmeyourliteracy.org/
Thanks to Lara Savory (@reallara) for the link via twitter.
Read MoreInanimate Alice – a digital novel
I can’t believe I’ve not written about Inanimate Alice before. Set in the early years of the 21st century and told through text, sound, images, music and games, Inanimate Alice is the story of Alice and her imaginary digital friend Brad.
This “transmedia” story is told over 10 increasingly interactive and complex episodes. Created around a high-quality text, the story is suitable for the deep-reading and re-reading necessary for academic investigation. The production is unique in that the complexity of the story as well as the interactivity increases with each episode, directly correlating with Alice’s age and developing technological proficiency as the game designer she is to become.
Through embedded puzzles and games, together with the creative inspiration, Inanimate Alice makes the reader a direct participant in telling the story. The story is available in French, German, Italian and Spanish too.
Several episodes are available now, with more to come in the future. I’ve been really impressed with the quality of the content so far.
The Inanimate Alice website has downloadable resources for teachers and parents. On the Promethean Planet website you will find a teachers guide to using Inanimate Alice as well as teaching resources for using it in the classroom, including flipcharts, a mindmap and user generated content.
Also look at Alice’s School Report : Whiteboards.
Find out more at http://inanimatealice.com
Read MoreBembo’s Zoo – fun with fonts
Just a quick link to a website that might be of interest to primary/elementary teachers. Bembo’s Zoo is based on the book by Roberto de Vicq de Cumptich. The idea behind the site is to use a font called Bembo to create 26 different animals, one for each letter of the alphabet.
So for the letter “A,” the letters that make up the word “antelope” are manipulated to form the creature’s outline. Similar things are done for “bison” and “crab,” and so on all the way through to “yak” and “zebra.”
On the IWB you could use with the screen capture tool and see if the students can work out the word from the animal. Or use it to inspire their own creations.
Check it out at : http://www.bemboszoo.com/
Read MoreTeaching Library – literacy ideas and lesson resources
Teaching Library is a place to find free teaching ideas and lesson resources, all linked to books that can be used in the classroom. Each book has ideas for uses in different areas of the curriculum, along with related video content and downloadable materials. You can browse by category or author.
As well as the books that are listed, the site will let teachers add their own ideas, to build up a bank of useful lesson ideas. Primary teachers should definitely take a look at this site and add it to their list of bookmarks.
This is another great website by Mark Warner to add to his excellent stable of Teaching Websites. Go check out the others!
What do you think? Let me know in the comments!
Read MoreWord Tamer – creative writing help
Word Tamer is an interactive flash-based website where you “tame words and train stories”
The site helps students create and develop new writing possibilities. All the ideas can be saved and printed off to be developed off-line. You can even print off certificates!
The site contains different sections such as Wild Words, Prowl Through Plot, Capture a Character, Snare a Setting and Grapple With Genre. Each task is simple to get into and fun for children to play.
Word Tamer is created by children’s author Judy Waite and is born out of the creative writing workshops she delivers in schools.
It’s a fun website that would be of interest to all English teachers and could form part of literacy lessons. It’s Flash based- so no iPad use for now….
Find out more at : http://www.wordtamer.co.uk/
Read MoreCreating Class E-Books
This post is inspired by a video presentation given by Ian Addison at last nights TeachMeet Bedford. In the video he demonstrate an excellent e-book created by Colin Hill (@Colport) and his class.
To create the e-book they used the website myebook.com. You can view their ebook here. Student work was scanned and uploaded to the website which then creates the on-screen version of the book. You can even embed audio.
As Ian says in the video this means you can still produce great looking ebooks from what might initially be a non-ICT task – pupils could draw and handwrite stories which then form part of the book. You could also then add typed work or digital photos to produce a finished product.
It’s a great way for collating and sharing pupil work with parents – create an end-of-term (or year) book to summarise the work done or create a special book for a class project.
To make your own book – go to http://www.myebook.com and sign up for a free account.
Thanks again to Colin and Ian for sharing the idea!
Read MoreSubtangent – words and numbers starters
I wrote yesterday about an anagram generator which could be used as a lesson starter. This reminded me of a great little website called Subtangent who provides several flash games including a few which mimic the letters and the numbers rounds from the Countdown TV show. The site was produced by Duncan Keith, a Maths teacher from England.
Click to access the Letters and Numbers Game
For Literacy lessons – choose a mixture of vowels and consonants and then see who can make the longest word from the letters provided.
For Maths lessons – see who can get the closest to the target number using combinations of numbers provided. This is a great mental warm up activity.
Games can be played online or downloaded for offline use. There are other fun games on the Subtangent site – some can now only be played offline to reduce site load – but they are easy to download and play.
A downloadable freeware version of the numbers game can be downloaded from CSF software. This version is great as it also provides the answers!
Read MoreBrainNook online maths and literacy game
BrainNook is a new online game that helps kids develop Maths and English skills while exploring and playing safely with others.
BrainNook contains over a hundred educational games based on fundamental concepts in Maths and English Grammar. The games cover Maths concepts ranging from single-digit addition to 3D spatial visualization, and English concepts ranging from building simple sentences to counting syllables. These games are embedded within colorful virtual worlds that children can unlock and explore.
In BrainNook, children play educational games while exploring virtual worlds, safely competing and interacting with other children, and solving puzzles.
In addition to Maths and English skills, BrainNook helps kids strengthen other important skills such as reading, reasoning, decision-making, analysis, memorization, dexterity and computer literacy.
For teachers, check out BrainNook @ School, an easy way for your class to play BrainNook together.
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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. 
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