There are lots of ways to use technology to revise for upcoming exams; most of these focus on using websites such as BBC Bitesize, SAM Learning or your school’s VLE.
What about when you are on the move? How can you make the best use of your time by using your iPod Touch or iPhone when you are on the bus, in the car or those forced visits to grandma?
Here are a selection of apps and techniques to keep the revision going.
Evernote is a free web service that allows you to store content that you have written yourself or found on the Internet. It has a free iPod Touch and iPhone app that allows you to access your content offline.
Ideas
Advantages
Evernote Website
Evernote iTunes App
Google Docs is an online word processor, spreadsheet and presentation package. Sign up is free and it allows you to access your documents and presentations from any Internet enabled device. You can even upload documents and presentations that have been created using Microsoft Office (such as ones from teachers) and you’ll be able to access them on the go.
Ideas
Advantages
Disadvantages
Google Docs Website
MiGhtyDocs iTunes App
ReQall is a task management website that allows you to create lists of ‘to-do’ items. You could split your revision goals into individual ‘to-do’ entries and then cross them off as you go on the ReQall website. There’s nothing more satisfying!
Download the free app and you can have your to-do list available when you are online and offline. When you are able to connect your device to the Internet again, you can launch the ReQall app and sync back up to the website.
e.g.
Advantages
Disadvantages
ReQall Website
ReQall iTunes App
Google Calendar allows you to make appointments and organise your time. It would be a useful tool to organise your revision plan. You can then access this from any Internet-enabled computer and you can add the account to your iPhone or iPod Touch and access it online and offline to see what you should be revising when. You can even share it with your parents so they know what you are revising when.
Advantages
Disadvantages
Google Calendar Website
iCal for iPhone/iPod Touch already installed
Each year my school runs a revision evening for Year 11 students.
We have a couple of presentations (one from me about online revision resources and e-learning tools - blog post to come!) and parents and students are given two booklets.
- a general revision tips booklet with advice on good practice and things to avoid
- a subject specific revision booklet that contains information about what to revise, where to get information and syllabus information.
This second booklet is a little bit of a problem as it can become an incredibly bloated publication with lots of text that becomes too much and then nobody reads it.
This year I have suggested that we print an A2 poster that could go on the fridge, brightly coloured and with less information and more signposting to sources for the subject areas. Therefore it became my responsibility to make it!
Here is my first draft. I would really appreciate any comments or tips for improvement that would make it more accessible to parents. I know there is still a lot of text on the page but we are limited on how brief we can make it.
UPDATE: The poster has been completed. Please feel free to share as an idea with your school. It was created in Adobe Illustrator and will be printed in A2 format.
Anyway, download the PDF of the visualisation so far and jot ideas in the comment section below.
Thanks!
Stuart
This is the second video (of four) that shows you how to create a PacMan clone using Kodu Game Lab. This part focuses on setting up characters and basic behaviours using “See” and “Wander”. It also shows how to control characters using XBOX 360 controllers and keyboard.
If you have any questions please post in the comments or contact me via Twitter.
This is the first video (of four) that shows you how to create a PacMan clone using Kodu Game Lab. This one just focuses on creating the environment to play in and adding objects to eat.
If you have any questions please post in the comments or contact me via Twitter.
[video]
Student voice is a big part of modern school life and senior management teams need to take more notice of what students think. Part of the way we achieve this is by using the Questionnaire functionality of our virtual learning environment (Moodle) to poll our students and get their opinions.
Two ways that we have used this recently is “The BIG ICT Survey” and “Have YOUR say on reports”.
The BIG ICT Survey
This is one of our major research methods into
We perform this survey annually (in lesson time to avoid skewing the results) and this informs our decision making in the ICT Strategy Group. In last year’s survey we found that 95% of respondents have access to the Internet at home and that 91% have access to some form of mobile audio (e.g. iPod, generic MP3 players or music capabilities on mobiles). When you have information like that it encourages you to develop more publishing in that area e.g. revision podcasts.
We’ve updated the questions for 2010 to get more information about how students use Moodle and access our services from home. You can view this year’s questionnaire here. We’re currently running the survey so will publish findings soon.
Have YOUR say … on reports
We’ve recently been looking at improving our reporting systems for parents and students. As part of the review process we wanted to find out what students and parents thought about the way we report.
We created two questionnaires to be completed online by these groups. These were advertised in our school newsletter, on our website and to students on the Moodle homepage.
The return rate was excellent and the results were quite illuminating and will certainly help us to continue to improve our reports. It also meant that students and parents knew that their voice had been heard and that we were working in partnership with them.
Advantages and Disadvantages
The advantages to doing surveys online are clear
The main disadvantage is how students and parents without access are prevented from answering online but by making paper copies available this can be mitigated. Students can access the survey in lessons or at the library before and after school.
We also learned a few things about carefully constructing our questions. This includes
Hi,
My name is Stuart and I’m an Assistant Headteacher and Head of ICT at one of the largest schools in the UK (2800 students).
Firstly … we LOVE Storybird!
It’s a great site and I’ve tweeted and blogged about how we used it in the classroom - http://www.stuartridout.com/post/347591517/writing-with-storybird
The only thing that’s a little iffy for me/us is the terms of service, specifically the part about the age restriction. “If you are under the age of 18 you may use this Site and submit personal information to us only in conjunction with and under the supervision of your parent or guardian.” This is kind of prohibitive for us in the classroom as to use this fantastic resource we would have to get consent from every parent. For us 2800 signatures is a big logistical task and to be honest we wouldn’t move forward with this. 
I was wondering if there was any scope for looking at this. When you sign up for Storybird you don’t actually give any personal information other than your name and email so I think it wouldn’t be a big problem for students to sign up without parental consent. I know there are teachers in the UK who are using this with kids as young as 8 or 9 years old.
Secondly, after using Storybird with a number of students they were unhappy with the username being used on the front cover of the book. You can’t always get the username you want as it might be taken and they said they would prefer to be able to type the name on the cover (as opposed to using username or the name on the account). They also said they found the artwork screen on the book writing section a little ‘messy’ and were wondering if you could have a button to arrange the artists work into a tiled layout (rather than the default view) or to click a button and have artwork arranged into ‘piles’ by theme, style or keyword. Some of the ‘busier’ artists have a lot of artwork on there and the writing screen is quite cluttered.
We still love Storybird and I’ll continue to use it in the classroom but I told my students that I’ll pass their feedback on to you.
Many thanks
Stuart Ridout
Many of us have been waiting for the Apple iTablet, iSlate, iPad for some time. Some thought the announcement would come a year ago but were left disappointed. Fast forward a year to 27th January 2010 and Steve Jobs announces the iPad to the world. This has been overhyped almost as much as the iPhone but without the ingenuity and innovation that came on the iPhone.
In the run up to the event, speculation was rife that one of the main target groups was education and that it was a ‘game changer’ that would revolutionise the classroom. Now having watched the blogs and video on the Apple iPad page, I think that it probably won’t (in it’s current incarnation.)
It’s certainly a sexy product, 0.5 inch thick, 9.7 inch display, 1.5 lb in weight and a great 10 hour battery life (depending on usage) but to me it looked more like a leisure device (lounging on the sofa) and less of a business/education computer.
Web browsing is apparently a dream on the iPad but still no Flash … that missing plugin icon is still there on Flash enabled websites. That means no animated demos or online educational games (such as Content Generator on your VLE).
School budgets are increasingly constrained and with the Apple exchange rate the iPad will probably be too expensive for a school to justify purchasing. Steve announced the entry price was $499 for the 16GB model (with no 3G) but the Apple exchange rate will probably give us a price of £400 (at least) IMHO. International pricing will be announced later.
With a £12000 budget would you buy 30 iPads or spend it in a different way? I think that schools will struggle to see the educational value in a class set. Of course it does run the 140,000 apps on the App Store so it is a truly multifunctional device, but will the multitude of brain training apps and mini-games justify this spend?
For an additional $30 you can run the iWork suite but could the class type an essay on Pages, or will they have the patience to work with graphs on Numbers?
It could change the eBook in the classroom and make reading cool again for students but unless you give the class their own iPad to take home and curl up in bed with the latest eBook will it make a difference?
As I write, I am left with many questions but not many answers! Of course, I think the school should purchase one for me to ‘try out’ as part of our ongoing research and development into ICT in education but I can’t see it making it in the classroom yet.
So, given £12000 … how would you spend it?
Today we had a collapsed curriculum day; we call it a hall day. This is a day where the timetable is abandoned (!) and students work in a subject all day. Today in ICT we had half of our Year 9 classes working with us (that’s about 210 students) on a project to write stories for younger children.
We were using Storybird for the stories and Moodle for the delivery. The fictional scenario was about a once great book company called Winkleberry books who had falled on hard times since they published “Killer Toddler Zombies”. Their role was to restore this company with the next big thing!
We set up a course with tutorial videos, helpsheets, and web pages. All passages of text were available with sound so they could listen along if the text was not accessible to them. This was available via Moodle and you can view it by clicking here and using the password typeface
They had the whole school day on it and the outcomes were fantastic! Here are a few of the books produced. These are from mixed ability classes and groups.
Of course we also got some students to review them on their blogs. Here are some of the comments (and links to the blogs).
“Today at school we had our ICT hall day!!! That meant all day we did ICT. We had to create a childs story book in groups using story bird!!! It’s really cool, other artists upload their images for you to use for free!!!”
Charlie S’s Blog
“Today at school we had hall day. Our hall day was a whole day of ICT:) I enjoyed today because it was a change from the other hall days that we have had”
Dani’s Blog
“everything has to be just right and its really difficult just to make up your own story because you have to make sure you have all the right punctuation amd i find that really difficult, But Hall Day today was the best one yet!”
Becca’s Blog
“I have enjoyed making my story today it has been helpful for the future incase i need to do something that involves making a book.”
Chantelle’s Blog
We have been using netbooks with two classes for over three months now. This is part of a pilot to test the effects of 1:1 computing. We investing in three sets of netbooks …
- two class sets that are assigned to students as their personal equipment. They are allowed to take the netbooks home and they are encouraged to treat it as if it were their own
- a class set that is assigned to a teacher. They are his netbooks to use as he pleases with his classes. He is completely responsible for their charging, storage and care. These are stored in a laptop trolley to charge all netbooks overnight
The class sets were issued at the end of October 2009 to a Year 8 class and a Year 9 class. They won the netbooks as part of a whole school competition to decide which classes would form the pilot groups.
The Year 9 students maintain blogs to record their thoughts and experiences as the project goes on. All of this group were specifically asked to write a blog post reviewing everything so far. The Year 8 group will be doing this and we’ll then collate it into a single report.
They certainly seem to have made a difference to their learning in a short space of time and I’m really excited to see what will happen as the skills of the teachers and students increases over the course of the year!
Here are notable quotes from the reviews so far with links to their full blog posts.
“Since I have got the Netbook I have been able to make my work more understandable because I can type up my work and email the teacher rather than write it with my scribbly handwriting.”
Charlie B’s Blog
” It helps me to have more confidence in class and i answer more questions now cuz have learnt alot from the netbooks.”
Chantelle’s Blog
“I think it does improve our learning, its a different way of learing too. Technology’s changing and people can find out stuff that they didnt know.”
Charlie S’s Blog
“I think my Netbook has made the most difference at home. I don’t have my own computer, so usually it’s a fight to the death between me and my sister to see who gets the only other computer available to us. So, in many ways, the Netbook has made a difference to my life, too.”
Emma’s Blog
“At home my mum uses it, with my help she has done online banking on it and my uncle has used it for e-mailing. At home i have gone on Facebook to interact with friends and family in india and germany.”
Iran’s Blog
“I do think it has improved my learning because I been taking it in more and not like the old saying in one ear and out the other.”
Maryellen’s Blog
“I think it has helped us become more independent because we have to remember to take in our netbooks every day and it has made us think for ourselves.”
Sarah’s Blog