Note Taking Apps

When it comes to note taking apps on my iPhone there are two that can't be beaten.

The first is the built in Notes app that comes with the phone. I use this app for keeping notes about things I only need to know for a while for example, ordering meals, shopping lists, guests for parties. I only need to access such notes from my iPhone and don't need them to sync with my computer. I can email them to my computer though if I wish. It's perfect for my use.

When it comes to making more detailed notes, however, I prefer Catch. This is a free app and it is fantastic for use in meetings or for anything that you need to access from a PC. I have begun to use it to take notes at staff meetings, Teachmeets and courses. (I just wish I had an iPad so it was quicker to write). I love the fact that notes are synced online and that I can access the notes from anywhere. I can add pictures and links, and I can add hashtags to my notes to make them easier to search. You can record your voice if you wish to make notes that way. Notes can be fully search online and they can be shared by email. It's also handy to be able to set a passcode lock for the app.

Evernote is also an excellent app but I use this primarily for remembering things that were not written by me like blog posts that inspire me and instruction.

Lightshot Screenshot software

After many years using alternative screenshot software I recently learned about Lightshot. It was instantly better than the previous software I had installed.


I use the free PC desktop version but add-ons are available for Chrome, IE and Firefox.


I like it because when I click the PrtSc button the software kicks in. I can immediately select the precise area that I want to copy. I then have a range of choices of what to do with the image. I can upload the image to share online via Twitter and Facebook. I can copy the image to the clipboard. I could print the image. I can also save the picture to my computer. 


It has made the process of taking screenshots so much quicker and easier and I love the way that the program allows me to do several things with the image.

Jumpstart Literacy

Jumpstart Literacy by Pie Corbett is a fabulous book for anyone wanting to spice up their English lessons!


The best way I can describe the book is that it is full of easy to teach mental starters for English. At least that's certainly how I have begun to use it.


Activities described in the book are:

• Jumpstarting spelling - activities for memorising and improving spelling.
• Jumpstarting words - different word classes and playing with words.
• Jumpstarting sentences - developing control, manipulating and inventing sentences.
• Jumpstarting writing - establishing a creative frame of mind for imaginative writing.
• Jumpstarting speaking, listening and drama - activities to develop confidence in verbal and physical expression.
• Jumpstarting learning - strategies to establish a learning mood in any subject

An example is Odd Word = Story:

This is a story-starter game that shows children how stories can spring up from the most extraordinary places!

• Spend a few minutes brainstorming a list of nouns with the children. Write these on the whole-class board, creating a 'word wall; of suggestions. Encourage them to make their list as varied as possible... it will make for more imaginative stories in the long run!
• The children each select two nouns that do not seem to go together, e.g. horse and pumpkin or toothpaste and space, and then have a few minutes to begin a narrative linking the two together. Explain to them that this was precisely what C.S. Lewis did in his classic tale, The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe. A narrative might look something like this:
• One morning, while an astronaut was busy brushing his teeth, he noticed how beautifully white they were looking. He was due to launch off into space that day, so he decided to take a rocket fill of toothpaste with him, so that he could make the stars sparkle even brighter! 

I love the simplicity of the ideas and the ways that they can grab attention and inspire learning. I always felt that one of the strengths of the original National Numeracy Strategy was the mental starter. It started lessons with a bang! The ideas in this book could start your lessons off with a bang too!


I think the ideas are suitable for Year Three and upwards.

Youblisher

I wanted to recommend a tool which offers a great way to share online documents. Youblisher is allows you to upload your pdf document which it then turns it into something like an 'online book'. You can turn the pages and zoom in and out. You can embed the book into a website or blog too.


The site says that "Your website visitors will love it! Make your pdf documents flippable and quickly loading. It is like touching a real document." They're not far wrong!


The first document I have added is a book of myths that the children in my English class wrote over a couple of days before half-term. You can read it here.

PGCE Guide

I will be mentoring a PGCE trainee over the next few months. I will certainly be encouraging her to read Tim Handley's PGCE Survival Guide.

It's a fabulous book which is not just for PGCE trainees, but for anyone training to become a teacher!

SpellQuizzer

SpellQuizzer is spelling software for children that need help learning their spelling and vocabulary words.

I had a go at using the software over the last few weeks and I wanted to write my thoughts.

The welcome screen is really straight forward, and so I will use this to describe how the software works.

Quiz Me On A list
After clicking here you can choose a list of spellings to practice. I liked the simplicity of the quizzes - there's a space to write in the word whilst SpellQuizzer reads the word to you and a phrase or sentence to help put this into context. If the child gets the word right it moves on to the next word. The children commented that they would like a tick or something to show that they'd got it right. If the word is wrong there's no second chance, it will show you what you entered and also the correct spelling. I think it would be better if you could alter the settings so the children can have more than once chance to spell the word. Once the student has been quizzed on all the words on the list the results of the quiz are displayed. If the user spelled every word on the list correctly a "Woo Hoo!" sound is played and they are congratulated on a perfect quiz and are asked if they want to start over to practice the list again. If the user spelled one or more words in the list incorrectly then SpellQuizzer displays the number wrong and offers to let them try again on just the ones they missed. It repeats this cycle until the student has correctly spelled each word in the spelling list.

Create/Edit a spelling list
It's when you come to create a spelling list that the software comes into its own. It is very simple to add a new list and then add words (which can be edited later). You enter the word, add a phrase to help children to understand the word and then record the word and a phrase if you like. It takes a few seconds to add a word. I like the way that you can record your own voice - no American robot voices!! If you enter the word incorrectly then the software lets you know. I didn't get the chance to let the children make their own lists, but this would be very straightforward for them to do.

Import/Export a spelling list
Lists of words can be shared at http://www.spellquizzer.com/community/index.php. I found that the words and word lists tended to be American based (e.g. names of the 50 states). But, to be honest, I preferred making my own lists anyway. It would also be good if a list of words could be imported using Excel, but this option isn't available. 

The help menu menu is very clear and there seems to be good support through the website.

The software is not all that cheap when you consider that there are free alternatives on the web. But the facility to record your own voice is very useful. 

You can purchase the software for the price of $11.95 (for a single licence) on Thursday 7th October which seems like a very reasonable price. Site licences are available from the site by enquiry. You can purchase the software at the special discount price at this link: www.tedcosoftware.com/DailyDeals.htm?page=index.aspx?review=spellquizzer-spelling-software.

Becta shutdown

I read about the timetable for the shutdown of the Becta website at Primary Bits and Bytes at http://shareit.yhgfl.net/kirklees/kcyps/?p=412.

‘This will be a staged process, involving the movement from the full web functionality, through an interim “holding site” stage to the final closure of all online activity in March 2011.  Specifically, I would like to draw your attention that the ordering of publications (not downloads) will cease being available from 22nd October, and this will be flagged on the site from October 1st.’
If you require any  hard-copy versions of Becta publications,  you need to visit the site before October 22nd to order them. Printable downloads will still be available after this date.'

So my question to everyone is - if we only have a limited of time - what publications must schools download/order now before it's too late? What is it important for schools to have?

Teachers Pet

In the process of setting up my brand new Year Three classroom I looked around for some classroom labels that would be good for labelling drawers, pegs and a few other bits and pieces like a visual timetable.

I was delighted to find some fantastic items on the Teachers Pet website (www.tpet.co.uk) which is completely free! I loved the animal labels in particular which I have used to create drawer labels, and the visual timetable will be perfect to use on the wall. It was good to find resources which are editable too!

If you have any labels needed for your classroom, I cannot recommend this site enough.

Pop Maths Questions

I don't know about you but I enjoyed The Chris Moyles Quiz Night which finished its second series a while ago. My favourite part was the Maths Questions - I always thought they would be great to share with my class.

Well, here they are, on the shows producer's website. Perfect for a mental maths warm up!

I recall a few other artists being featured on the programme which aren't featured here. I hope they will eventually be found somewhere on the internet eventually!

iPhone School & Prof Development Apps

I wanted to share a few iPhone apps that I have downloaded which could be used to support work in the classroom and to help with professional development:

• Tweetdeck

Tweetdeck is my preferred Twitter client. However, the new Twitter app is looking very useful...

• MobileRSS

I use this feed reader to keep up-to-date with education blogs. I have only ever used this RSS reader app so I have no frame of reference, but I find it hard to imagine a better app for this purpose.

• Tumblr

I'm using this app to share ideas which feed into a widget in this blog. I love its simplicity.

• ColorSplash

With this app you can take a photo and make it black and white. You can then highlight a feature in colour to make it stand out. It's incredible easy to get started but needs real concentration to master it, but you can produce some great results. You could use it to inspire a piece of writing, or to introduce a historical artefact.

• Teaching UK

The Teaching UK was created by Mark Warner for his Teaching websites. This brilliantly simple app delivers education news and competitions, teaching and ideas and also the latest tweets. Excellent for professional development. You can download the app here.

• Comic Twist

I like the fun of this app. You can add thought bubbles and speech bubbles to a photo. I'm not teaching Science at the moment (this is my management time) but I think this could be used to create concept cartoons with the children - to encourage them to discuss concepts and work through misconceptions.

• Tiltshift

I have used this app to take photos of the school grounds. Again, it is so simple to use and it produces brilliant results. Tiltshift blurs parts of photographs to focus on a particular feaure. The effect makes the picture look a bit like a model village.

• PhotoStamp

When visiting other schools, I frequently use my iPhone to take a quick photo of a display or resource that I like. I use the app to add a watermark to say where the picture was taken.

• Mathemagics

I love maths (I know, I'm sad). For a bit of fun (hmm...) I downloaded this app which teaches you mathematical tricks, like squaring a number ending in 5, multiplying in the 90s and multiplying if the 1s sum is 10. I love the app, and I know my class will too after half-term!

• StoryCubes

Rory's Story Cubes is brilliant! I found this app at the Education Show in March. Rory's Story Cubes are nine dice with pictures on them. You roll them all to reveal nine pictures. You can then use the pictures to create discussion or for story telling. I found that it helps the children to develop their verbal storytelling and also to improve creativity. The iPhone app recreates this on the iPhone. The one problem with this is that I can't display my iPhone screen on the IWB, but I can use my visualiser to display the screen. Alternatively I can save the picture produced by the app and email it and share it on the screen. You can download the app here. You can follow Storycubes on Twitter. Read more about Story Cubes at the website.

• RAG

"The Random Activity Generator is an iPhone application. You give the iPhone a shake, the cards spin and you are given a random activity to do. Hundreds of carefully crafted activities will keep you busy for hours."

I love the idea of this app, but I'm not convinced of its worth in a primary classroom just yet. Put simply, I think some if the 'random activities' are beyond the children. There are many which would work, but when using it with the children, I would be frustrated if the activity was too hard for them. I would love to see a primary version of the app which is based on the knowledge and skills of the primary curriculum. In its current form, I feel the app is more for secondary schools or for staff use. I would use the app with staff to be an icebreaker activity or for team building work on an INSET day. You can find out more here and download the app here.

You can read more about education apps available at Mark Warner's Teaching News website here.

Do you use any iPhone apps in the classroom or for professional development?

Spelling City

I've finally taken the plunge and had a go at using Spelling City. This is a great website which is designed to help children to practise their spellings.

Inspired by http://www.spellingcity.com/mrbarberturnham/ I created an account for our school and uploaded the spellings for the SATs spelling tests from 1996 to 2009.

The process was very easy to do - literally, as easy as typing in the words. The site then creates a sentence which uses the word to put it in context.

The children can go to the site and practice the spellings. Words are read out for them to spell! Simple, yet brilliant!
You can find our SATs Spelling lists at www.spellingcity.com/churchlane.

Education Show 2010

I attended my second ever Education Show yesterday. I really enjoyed it and acquired a tonne of information and ideas. It was great to meet some interesting people too.

When I got back, it took me a while to work through all of the free mugs, free pens, chocolates, flyers and brochures that I collected, but I believe I have various things that I will try to explore when I get the chance over the next few months.

Whilst I'm not endorsing any of these resources, I thought I would mention the ones that I plan to investigate further or those that I purchased at the event.

Software:

• I acquired a copy of 2Simple's 2DIY for evaluation. I have heard such a lot about this on Twitter, finding the 2Simple stand was a priority for me. I will enjoy exploring this and hopefully the school will be able to afford to purchase a site licence at the end of the trial.

Websites:

• www.peplanning.org.uk - this interesting looking planning resource is in its testing phase. It's something I will pass to our PE subject leader.
• www.millionaireforschools.co.uk offers eduational quizzes for the children. I like the look of this, but I'm not sure we can afford it yet.
• www.asthma.org.uk/educate
• www.thepuncs.com
• www.iamlearning.co.uk - whilst I'm not necessarily a fan of revision, I was really impressed by the learning through games at this site.
• I renewed our subscription to Education City.

Learning Platforms:

• After spending nearly three years establishing our Uniservity learning platform in school I am reluctant to move to a different LP provider. Having said that, I was very impressed by the simplicity of the service offered by www.dbeducation.co.uk.

Resources:

• I'm a big fan of Polydron resources. I bumped into a director of the company who asked a while ago if he could include some of the videos from our Polydron work onto their website. I told him that I had quite a few more so he should be expecting an email with details soon! (You can see them at our vimeo channel at www.vimeo.com/churchlane.) The Polydron Engineer sets look really promising.
• Classical Comics: I love their version of Macbeth and Romeo and Juliet and so I was pleased to purchase copies of the teacher booklets for these plays.
• We purchased some PDF ebooks for excellent prices which were produced by www.topical-resources.co.uk
• Filmclub sounds simple fantastic! The school will certainly be looking into this!
• We found some brilliant lino cutting materials which will be great for our William Morris art project in the summer. www.educationalart.co.uk
• I loved Rory's Story Cubes and I will definitely purchase the iPhone app!
• www.GoodMorningChildren.com seems like pretty good value and seems a pretty good way to start each day.
• www.memory4teachers.co.uk - After signing up for a free memory stick last year I was annoyed that I never received it. The salesman explained that there had been supply issues last year. Yesterday the memory sticks were given out at the show!
• www.lightningeducation.com - APP Assessment Angel looks like really good value and a great idea for a manageable solution to recording APP information.
• I'd love to get a Support Your School initiative started at our school.

Money & Careers topic:

• The Primary Enterprise Game produced by Halton Education Business Partnership looks amazing but very expensive. I'm not sure we'll be able to afford this just yet.
• www.credit4life.co.uk is a pfeg approved board game which encourages discussion about credit cards. I would love to buy these, but the cost may prove to be a barrier for a while.
• Raising Aspirations looks like a good resource for promoting higher education to pupils in the primary school.

Residentials:

• We chatted to a salesman from Manor Adventure who gave use some really good ideas for how we could further improve our visit to France next year.

As you can imagine, a lottery win would only just cover the cost of buying all of these resources. But it's great to know what is available, and, if finances allow, what could be bought to help to improve the quality of teaching and learning in schools.

Polydron

Whilst I don't want to sound like a salesman for Polydron, I had to share very briefly how delighted I have been with the apparatus, which the class have used to explore components.

Polydron Revolution is a system which allows children to explore gears and pulleys to make moving models.

We began by spending some time looking at pulleys and gears. We considered the directions of the turns and explored the ratio of the different sizes. Then we moved on to bevel gears which will turn horizontal movement into vertical movement.

Next we explored the use of these in simple models. We added wheels and struts to make our designs more complex.

For the following two weeks we explored the models available. We made the models on the instructions and then we added our own modifications.

The children were then allowed to let their imagination run wild and make their own models!!

As well as being lots of fun, the children were really creative in their work. They learned many of the principles of using components.

Here are some videos of our work:

Gears and Pulleys Polydron Revolution 2010 Part One from Wistaston Church Lane on Vimeo.

Polydron Revolution 2010 Part Two from Wistaston Church Lane on Vimeo.

Polydron Fairground Rides from Wistaston Church Lane on Vimeo.

More Fairground Rides from Wistaston Church Lane on Vimeo.

Fairgrounds 3 from Wistaston Church Lane on Vimeo.

Sharing links with Sqworl

I heard about Linkbunch after reading about BETT on various blogs. Linkbunch allows you to share multiple websites by simple sharing links on just one page. I thought it was a brilliant idea. It would be great for sharing links with children for a research project or for parents when sharing some of the sites we use when studying a particular topic.





I later discovered Sqworl which I think has the potential to be even better.
Sqworl is incredibly easy to use. To create an account you'll need an email address and then create a username and password.

Then you can add links and give a description to each one. A unique page is created which includes the links and a screenshot.

The end result is very friendly-looking. I've created a page to share SATs revision websites at
http://sqworl.com/38hj5n.

The children could design their own pages to share websites that they like, or websites that they have used during topic work.

Tutpup

Since the start of the year I and my pupils have been getting into Tutpup. I read a blog post about it and thought I would give it a try.

Tutpup is a free website where children can play maths games (and a spelling game) against people from around the world. Owned by Mind Candy, the site is advert free and doesn't require any personal information about the children. The only thing asked for is an email address for mum or dad - unless you have set up a class, in which case the children don't even need this!

I asked on Twitter whether Tutpup is suitable for Year Six. The response was a resounding "Yes!" In fact it was recommended that all the children in the school are signed up. I think I'll sort this for the next school year. But in the mean time I set up two classes - one for each class.

The process for setting up a class as a teacher is very easy and quick. In no time at all, all the information was entered and then I just had to wait to use it with my class... In order to join my class, the children had to enter a class code which I had given them. Setting up all the children's accounts took around 10 minutes altogether. This is because it is hard to find a username that hasn't been taken yet. You have to select a colour, an animal and a number. Finding a combination of all three that hasn't been selected already can be frustrated. This one aspect of Tutpup is my only complaint.

Once logged in the children can start playing games! They can join in a game against someone else or create a game to play against another user. One of the things my children love is that you can see which country your competitor is from. "I've just beaten someone from Kenya!" was one of the early shouts from the class.

At the moment, the classes are given around 20 minutes each week in school to use Tutpup (as well as using it as often as they want at home). For the first couple of weeks the children could use it as they wished - try any game at any level. This was just to become familiar with the layout and functions of the site. After that we've been more specific.

Class teachers can print out a report of how the children are doing overall in a particular time table, or in a particular maths game. After two weeks I discovered that the children weren't doing so well at their 6, 7 and 8 times tables. So in week three they could only play these times tables. Later, I discovered that their division results weren't as good as the other operations, so the next week division games were the only ones allowed.

Then we started to push ourselves on to higher difficulty levels.

The children can win awards by using the site regularly and being successful. You can win an award by starting and winning five games, for example. You can also graduate from a level so that they can try games more appropriate to their ability. A win wall displays the names of the users you have beaten.

We have a list of usernames on display so that the children can see the usernames of their friends.

I love the fact that you can print out their results. I love the fact that the site is ad-free. I love the way the children don't need to enter personal details or an email address. I love the way you can freeze the games for five minutes in case you want to talk to the class.

I would highly recommend Tutpup to pupils of all ages.

Some comments from the children:

"I think Tutpup will help me with my 12 times table."

"It is one of the best maths websites in the world."

"It is improving my mental maths speed."

"The compeition elements is a good thing - it gives motivation." (A level 5A writer)

"It is fun going against people from other countries."

"It helps me to build confidence."

"There are loads of different maths games to go on."

"It makes you do better because you want to win."

Polydron 3D Shapes

During the last few weeks, when we have been busy with our Christmas play, I needed an exciting maths project to keep the children focused during lessons. Earlier in the year we purchased Polydron apparatus for exploring 3D shapes.



I decided that I would use this as part of our study of 3D shapes.







We used the prisms and pyramids packs to explore the properties of these shapes. This created lots of discussion about edges, faces and vertices. It was fun to predict this for different prisms and pyramids.



We then used Polydron squares to find the eleven faces of a cube. Only one group found all eleven! In the past, this activity was done using card which the children had to draw their nets on and then test the shape. Using Polydron was so much quicker. We also had time to find the eleven nets of an octahedron in the same way.



We then talked about which 3D shapes could be considered to be 'regular'. These shapes are called 'platonic'. They are tetrahedrons, octahedrons and icosahedrons which all use triangles; cubes (squares) and the dodecahedron (pentagon). Each shape was described with the number of faces which meet at each vertice. Once each one had been designed, we explored the different nets of these shapes.



We also spend some time exploring archimedean solids - solids which are made up of faces of different shapes. Each shape was described using notation like 3.8.8 which meant a triangle, octagon and another octagon meet at each vertice. We had great fun building all sorts of different shapes. We had chance to explore the difference between a dodecahedron, an icosidodecahedron a rhombicosidodecahedron and a truncated dodecahedron. We find out what it means to truncate a shape.



The work was lots of fun and did keep the children focused. They learned about being systematic when it comes to investigating - and the equipment allows them to work more quickly. They learned the properties of the shapes. They considered how to modify the shapes.



The Polydron packs that we used were the Prisms, Pyramids and Archimedean Solids. They aren't very cheap at all, but if you interested, they are available here.

Pictures of our work can be found on our Year Six blog here.

Using Etherpad

I heard about Etherpad via Twitter, and also Mark Warner's blog, http://www.mrwarner.com/. Etherpad is a website where people can work collaboratively on the same document. Brilliant!!

It really is simple to use. Just go to Etherpad and create a new pad. You can then email the link for the pad to other people. Up to 8 can work on the same pad all at once. You can see people editing the document before your very eyes!

The potential for use in school is unlimited. There are many opportunities for using it with staff - all those times where we've put a document together with just one scribe? Well now everyone can get involved! It could also be used for communication!

The classroom possibilities are where the strengths of Etherpad really lie. I have used it with the class this week. Bearing in mind it was the first time using it, it did come with one or two problems, but I'm pleased to just get the ball rolling!

We have been working on balanced report writing for the last few weeks. The trainee teacher that had been teaching the class finished her successful placement on the Friday and so I wanted an exciting project to end the focus on reports. I decided that we could write a balanced report on bedtimes. I presented the children with a biased report explaining why children should go to bed early. The children used Etherpad to plan ideas for the other side of the argument. I used our blog to set up links for each table to find their Etherpad. It went really well and I was pleased with the work produced.

Later in the week we used Etherpad again, this time to prepare a script for a radio talk show. The children had to prepare a radio show where callers would phone to offer their arguments, for or against the issue. The children elected host DJs for each team. They had to write an introduction to the show whilst the others would enter information from the callers. It was really good fun. The DJs did find it a little difficult to keep up with the arguments being presented from all of the callers. With hindsight, perhaps we needed more DJs!

I found that the connections to the Etherpads were a little unreliable, but I think this had more to do with our painfully slow internet connection this week rather than with Etherpad itself. The children became frustrated with the connection continually breaking, so the quality of work was not as good as I'm sure it could have been.

I'm looking forward to finding further opportunities to use Etherpad in the classroom. Have you used Etherpad? How have you used it?

3D Shapes - Polydron

Earlier this week we had fun in Maths making 3D shapes using the Polydron Archimedean Solids set. This can be purchased from here.

The idea of the set is that children can explore the properties of solid shapes by constructing them using framework pieces. Polydron sets are very child friendly and the teacher's guide and instruction sheets are very user friendly.

The children really enjoyed making the shapes and it was interesting to examine the names of shapes to discover their properties, e.g. the cuboctahedron.

After constructing the shapes we experimented with them, adding faces to augment and removing faces to diminish. They enjoyed making snub shapes where solids 'explode' and spaces are filled with triangles.

I'm certain that the children will remember the lessons and the properties of the shapes.

Printable paper

If you ever need a sheet of graph paper in a hurry, why not use Printable Paper.net, a handy website. There are lots of different papers you can download to print.

Topicbox

Topicbox is a fabulous website run by teachers where all the web links have been sorted by topic. You can find online activities and resources for every curriculum subject and every aspect of that subject.