Safer Internet Day - Fake News Teaching Resources

Well hello there! Safer Internet 2018 is coming up on Tuesday, 6th February 2018. I thought "fake news" would be a fun theme to work with this year. I've put together these "Real or fake news?" resources to use with our older primary school children. If you want to use them, click here or on the image to the left to download the resources (photo prompts, response sheets and lesson plan) for free from Google Drive.

I've made them so you can print the photo prompts and use the QR codes on tablets to access or, alternatively, you can share the PDF digitally with your children and they can click directly on the links.

Enjoy!

Tech Tip Tuesdays - NCCA Planning Tool

Welcome back to another Tech Tip Tuesday. Click here to view any of the other posts in this series. As always, if there are any technology tutorials that you'd like me to feature, be sure to comment below!

This week's post is dedicated to teachers in Irish primary schools. It's a tool that has saved me HOURS of time I could have wasted scrolling through the curriculum documents. It's the NCCA online planning tool.  If you haven't used it before, be sure to check it out. You can select your class level (or multiple levels if you have a mixed class), subject, strands and strand units in order to find your desired objectives. You can select them to create a bank of resources in the panel on the right of the screen. You can then copy and paste these into your fortnightlies or cuntais míosúla.

Credits for Tech Tip Tuesday logo:

Keyboard lettering  licensed by Dancing Crayon Designs ©www.dancingcrayon.com 

Glittery clip art from Glitter Meets Glue Designs 

Clip art frame from My Cute Graphics

Tech Tip Tuesdays - App for slideshows

Welcome back to another Tech Tip Tuesday. Click here to view any of the other posts in this series. As always, if there are any technology tutorials that you'd like me to feature, be sure to comment below!

This week's post is an app I've recently discovered for making slideshows of pictures and/or video clips. It's called Quik (by GoPro) and it's available for free on iOs and Android. It's so quick and easy to use and the results look really cool. You can select from one of the many templates that already has layouts, filters, music and different text/picture transitions, or you can create your own style. 

So if you've got a school event coming up or you'd like to put it together for the end of the school year, get on it!

Credits for Tech Tip Tuesday logo:

Keyboard lettering  licensed by Dancing Crayon Designs ©www.dancingcrayon.com 

Glittery clip art from Glitter Meets Glue Designs 

Clip art frame from My Cute Graphics

Tech Tip Tuesdays: Worthwhile purchase -a clicker

Welcome back to another Tech Tip Tuesday. Click here to view any of the other posts in this series. As always, if there are any technology tutorials that you'd like me to feature, be sure to comment below!

This week's post is a recommendation for a simple tool and how it can be used in your teaching.










This little thing has proven to be very useful over the years. I got it cheaply on Amazon and it has been worth every cent! Don't worry, this isn't going to be a post about clicking through a PowerPoint full of information text. Here are some practical ways to use it in the classroom.

Student presentations:

In my school, it's not uncommon to see children doing oral presentations making use of a Keynote/PowerPoint presentation. You'd be amazed to see the boost of confidence they get when the clicker is placed in their hands!

Teaching new vocabulary (great for ESL/other second language):

I absolutely love having my students play Kim's game (known to Irish teachers as Cluiche Kim) to teach new vocabulary in another language. It's very simple. Pick 5 new words and put their pictures on slide 1. Then copy and paste that slide several times. On slides 2, 4, 6, etc. delete one of the pictures (moving the position of the other pictures or deleting more than one picture at a time if you want to create an extra challenge). Simply use the clicker to make the board blank, have your students close their eyes and then click to the next slide. They then need to name which picture is missing. 

Student selection:

Many of these pointers have a laser on the top. Children LOVE using these! It could be used for phonics. Put a sentence / several words on the board and ask a child to use the pointer to show the "ch" sound. Similarly, it could be used to point at the photograph representing a new word in another language. They could use it to show where they found a word on a Boggle board (with letters or numbers - if you don't know what I'm on about, Google "Math Boggle"). 

Behaviour management aid:

If you happen to use PowerPoint/Keynote for any of the above ideas, this clicker allows you to use the classroom management strategy of proximity, ie. standing close to the children who are likely to misbehave (or have already begun misbehaving!). You can still play the games or go to the next slide of a text from any corner of your classroom. This gives you endless freedom to keep a close eye on those who need it!

Credits for Tech Tip Tuesday logo:

Keyboard lettering  licensed by Dancing Crayon Designs ©www.dancingcrayon.com 

Glittery clip art from Glitter Meets Glue Designs 

Clip art frame from My Cute Graphics

Tech Tip Tuesdays: PowerPoint Tutorial for Beginners

New to making resources using PowerPoint? Here's a simple tutorial to get you started!

This post is part of my weekly Tech Tip Tuesdays series. If there are any other technology tutorials you would like to see, please be sure to comment below.

I've laid out every step in this tutorial to make it accessible even for people who do not feel very confident using Microsoft PowerPoint. Follow the steps to make your own teacher sign. It's very easy to adapt these skills to make other posters, classroom labels, worksheets, etc.

How to make a teacher sign - a PowerPoint tutorial for beginners.

1. Page setup:
When I begin making any resource on PowerPoint, I always set the page size to A4 or A3 so I can picture how big it will be when I print it. To do this, click on the "Design" tab and then on "Page Setup." Select your chosen size in the dropdown menu and choose whether you want the slide portrait or landscape.

2. Choose a background. 
I got this one from TPT. You can always to a Google image search for any type of digital paper or background. Copy and paste this onto your slide. Then crop it (in the "Format" tab) to make a rectangle. I also added a thick black border by changing the colour and weight in the "Picture border" dropdown menu (still in the "Format" tab).

3. Make a frame.
For this one I did the simplest type of frame. You could also download a clip art frame and paste it in. For mine, I added in a rectangle from the "Shapes" menu in the "Insert" tab. I clicked on the "Format" tab and changed the "Shape fill" to white and "Shape border" to black. In order to have it perfectly centred in the coloured background, select both the background and the frame (CTRL and click on both), then go to the "Format" tab and in the dropdown "Align" menu, select "Align centre." Repeat this and select "Align middle" too.

4. Add the text.
Simply click on "Text box" in the "Insert" tab and draw it where you like. If you want to see how I install pretty fonts, check out last week's tutorial. Again, you might want to select both your text box and the frame in order to align your name how you wish.

5. Add an image.
There are tonnes of avatar creator websites to make a personalised version of you. I used the South Park Avatar Creator. I particularly liked this site because it allowed to me to add an iPad in my hands. Simply follow the instructions, download the image and paste it on to your slide.

And you're done! 

I hope you found this tutorial useful! Please let me know how you got on in the comments below!

Credits for Tech Tip Tuesday logo:

Keyboard lettering  licensed by Dancing Crayon Designs ©www.dancingcrayon.com 

Glittery clip art from Glitter Meets Glue Designs 

Clip art frame from My Cute Graphics

Tech Tip Tuesdays: Pretty Fonts

Welcome to a new series here at A Crucial Week - Tech Tip Tuesday. For the next few Tuesdays I'll be sharing some tips and tricks of how to use technology in your planning, preparation and teaching. If you have any particular requests for technology tutorials, please comment below!

Have you seen pretty fonts on resources shared online? Have you always wondered how to get these? Well, it's really easy to do. Here are the three steps you need to follow.

1. Get inspiration!

I suggest going to Pinterest and searching "favourite fonts classroom." There you'll find lots of ideas, written in the name of the font. Alternatively, you might want something that fits a theme so just Google, "Free Star Wars font" or "Free superhero font" etc. Or scroll down to see my favourites!

2. Download the font

I always get free fonts. Almost every font I use is from Kevin and Amanda's "Fonts for Peas" or "Free Scrapbook Fonts" collections.

3. Install the font

On a Mac: 

Go to your "downloads" folder. Double click on the font and it tells you what to do!

On a PC:

1. Go to your "downloads" folder. If the font is in a zipped folder, extract the files. Double click on the font and then click "install".

*If that doesn't work - try the following:

2. Open the control panel (Start menu --> "Control panel" or click on the folder icon on the toolbar at the bottom of the screen, click the arrow in the address bar and select "Control Panel).

3. In the control panel, use the search box to search "font"

4. Click "Fonts"

5. Drag the extracted font file (probably a ".ttf" file) into the "Fonts" folder.

NOTE: If you have any programs in which you use different fonts open, close them and reopen them to view the new fonts.

Here are my current favourites! (Just Google their names followed by "font" if you would like to download them for free.)

Credits for Tech Tip Tuesday logo:

Keyboard lettering  licensed by Dancing Crayon Designs ©www.dancingcrayon.com 

Glittery clip art from Glitter Meets Glue Designs 

Clip art frame from My Cute Graphics

10 Christmas Activities Using ICT

Hi all,

Below are some ways to use ICT to keep your children busy in the run up to the Christmas holidays!

Ho! Ho! Ho!

1. Create an augmented reality Christmas card.

I'm very excited to try this out this year. This is done by using the app, Aurasma. Follow Paul Hamilton's simple tutorial below. Note: The children will need a mobile device and will need to create a free account using Aurasma.

2. Make an interactive Christmas card using Scratch.

Follow the simple instructions in this PDF. You only need to follow two steps so even absolute beginners could try this one!

3. Whole class interactive wordsearch:

Does exactly what it says on the tin - from reviseict.co.uk

4. Play Christmas carols...

by squeezing the noses in this reindeer orchestra. This is dangerously addictive!

5. Have a Christmas Carol video conference:

I love this idea from anseo.net - link up with another school and sing some Christmas carols to one another. 

6. Do an interactive spot the difference:

Thanks to primarygames.com

7. Explore Christmas around the world

Join in with Mr. Parkinson's project (He's may be better known to you as the teacher from "ICT with Mr. P.") - add your Christmas traditions to his padlet (you can access from a computer or the app on a tablet device) or sign up for a Skype call.

8. Have a Christmas karaoke session:

Feel free to use my Christmas karaoke playlist!

9. Have the children create a Christmas table quiz:

Divide the children into groups. Each group needs to create a round of questions and present them on a suitable application - e.g. Keynote/Powerpoint. Then the whole quiz can be put together to be answered by all.

10. Let me virtually teach your class!

Sit back, relax and let your class join in to my video tutorial of Jingle Bell Rock. Then put on a karaoke version and let them perform it to the music. The dance is done on the spot so the children can stand in the classroom to do it.

*Credits for cover graphic - background and clipart (www.mycutegraphics.com), fonts (www.kevinandamanda.com)

First class Twitter experience

Hi all,

Last May I posted about ways to use a class / school Twitter account to connect classrooms across the world. So it was time to put my money where my mouth is and get my class Tweeting. I teach Grade 3 (7 year olds) in Italy. I'm hoping the children can interact with other English-speaking children through Twitter.

Here was our first venture. We tweeted a photograph of our resources before doing an investigation.

Unfortunately we didn't get any responses during our school hours so I mentioned a few of our followers and asked if they would like to join in. Then we got these responses.

I'll show these to the children on Monday and we'll Tweet a photograph of our results and some of the children's reactions. Here's the photo we'll be sharing:

On a side note. If any of you were curious to see how our bulletin board outside the classroom turned out with the children's first day work on it, here you go! Each badge has the children's name, favourite animal, favourite colour and the superpower they would like.

How to use a class/school Twitter account in primary school

Hello there! 

I've been thinking of starting a school / class Twitter account in the next school year. Many schools have them and it has so many benefits. Children can interact with other classes, all over the world. They can share what they are learning to keep their parents in the loop. They can share work that they are proud of with the whole world. Obviously, you need to be very careful to seek permission from your principal and all parents. You may be allowed to share images/videos of the children. However, if you are not, it's still possible to share photos of their work or their reactions to something they are learning about.

I want to share some fantastic examples of Twitter accounts from Irish schools and how they have used this medium in a variety of ways. Firstly, I can't start off without asking you to follow @mrsbellsclass and their teacher (and edtech guru herself) Mary Jo Bell @7MJB. Her senior infants class is very well connected. They often share what they are learning and I particularly like how they interact with other schools. Here's an example of how they are learning a little more about a school in Texas. Also, you have to check out the adorable nuacht recordings they have shared using Voki. Here's a lovely example of Jamie's nuacht. It's such a great way to improve confidence and work on oral language skills. This would also be fantastic in English and particularly useful for children who have English as a second language.

 

Twitter is also a great way for classes, nationally and internationally, to tweet about the same topic. Two examples of this are schools sharing #tablestips or taking Spring pictures using the hashtag #antearrach

          

...and here you can see how Mr O'Callaghan's 6th class @MrOCallaghanWNS shared these lovely posters about the universal topic of internet safety on Safer Internet Day.


Initiatives like #MathsEyes @Maths_Eyes are great to get children thinking outside the box and looking out for practical applications of their learning in everyday contexts.
            

Mr. Moynihan's class @mrmoysclassglns and Ms Sullivan 4th @msmcormack4th have good examples of how they share what's going on day to day. The children in Mr. Moynihan's class often tweet about something they've enjoyed learning or share pictures of their work.

                     

And, of course, in the midst of following these blogs, you're bound to stumble upon teaching ideas that interest you. As I'm very interested in using ICT in education, I loved stumbling across this video of these junior infants @naionainGUF15 using Bee Bots to code and seeing how Miss Ward's class @misswardsclass were doing an assessment using Kahoot!

           

If you know of any other great class / school Twitter accounts, please comment below or tweet @ACrucialWeek and let us know why you like them.

Do you Kahoot?

Hi there,

Do any of you out there use Kahoot? It's a great FREE site for creating multiple choice quizzes, polls and discussions. One of my friends, a secondary school language teacher, finds it very useful in her classroom for reinforcing new vocabulary.

Your students can then access your quiz using a computer/mobile device (no sign in required - they just create a temporary username and put in a code that you generate just before playing). You can then display the questions on your interactive whiteboard/smart TV and the children respond on their device. The teacher's (and shared) display shows (anonymously) how many people got it right. Afterwards, a teacher can download the results and have a record of this assessment, be it formative or summative.

You can access the (millions) of readily created Kahoot!s or you can invent your own. A great assessment tool could be to ask your students to create their own Kahoot!s.

Here are some examples of ready-made Kahoot!s:
Gaeilge (Torthaí)
Multiplication facts (x9s)
Brian teasers
Famous landmarks
Food groups

BETT 2016

Greetings from my couch! I'm in recovery mode after a very busy two days in London at the BETT 2016 Show. For those of you who haven't heard of it before, it's a showcase for ICT in education, formerly called the British Educational Training and Technology Show. It's free to enter (You just need to register) and there's plenty of accommodation nearby in London's Docklands.

This was my first time going to an educational showcase of this size. I was blown away by how big it was. All exhibitors, guest speakers and visitors wear ID badges and you could spend hours just people(and badge)-watching alone. There were so many people from different sectors of technology and education.

It's easy to get overwhelmed when you first walk in. There's so much going on and so many people wandering around and handing you free stuff. Just look at this haul! (And that's after I did a cull and got rid of loads!) 

Once you get into the swing of it, there's so much to see and do. There are seminars to attend, stands to look at with interesting demos. And you'd never know, somebody might even grab you to film you talking about your reaction to it! 




Anyway, moving on to my (less superficial and more educationally-minded) discoveries and experiences from the event. As you know if you're a regular follower of this blog, we've really made a push to get our children coding at our school. One of the first exhibitors that stood out with this in mind was SAS apps. They provide a (paid!) service, App Camp, in which children can create their own apps and share them within a school's own web app.

We also came across these friendly, blue robots, Dash and Dot. These allow for simple programming with young children. They reminded me of BeeBots and BlueBots (more about those later!). However, the same exhibitors gave us a quick demo of Makey Makey.  This allows children to experiment with programming, engineering and art. They can turn everyday objects into touchpads. 
















I particularly like this Makey Makey banana piano from their website!

Image source: MakeyMakey.com

One of our stops was at the Lego Education stand where we signed up for a workshop on the new Lego WeDo version 2.0. We already have the original WeDo kits at school but it was great to see that this one has a wireless bluetooth smart device and can be programmed using iPads. This is a massive advantage for schools/clubs who have more iPads than desktops available for coding!

The curriculum pack comes with easy-to-follow lessons with open-ended tasks. We tried out the first task and had great fun learning through inquiry!






Another point of focus I had in mind was looking for ways to get our youngest children using technology in different ways (including coding). The TTS stand provided lots of inspiration for how to build up a bank of supplies to share within the school. Here are some of the resources I found interesting. The Blue-Bot is a great way to teach the really little children how to do simple coding and they now have a TacTile reader (see the picture below!).

I really enjoyed the demo of the Zu3D software for making stop motion animations. It's very child-friendly and has lots of different features. You can even film the model with a green screen and put it on a photographic or hand-drawn background. It would be fantastic for integrating writing, oral language, visual arts and even music. Again, this is not free, so I'm definitely going to look into what options would be available for doing stop motion animation within the classroom.

So there you have it, a brief look at just some of the things we saw this weekend. I would highly recommend the BETT to anyone with an interest in ICT. The dates are already set for BETT 2017 so do have a think about it!

The Foos - coding from 5 years old

Hello folks!

I'm really excited to share my latest discovery with you. We've been making a big effort to get the children in our school coding. The classes with children aged 8 onwards are currently using Scratch to code. This is going down a treat! They absolutely love it! The teachers are using the free lesson plans developed by LERO as a guideline. You can log in and download them for free from here. The great thing about these plans is that they give open-ended challenges so children can work on the same concept in their own way.

However, we felt the younger classes weren't quite ready for Scratch just yet. We wanted something a bit easier to introduce the basics first. I went hunting and stumbled upon The Foos (developed by CodeSpark). It was exactly what I wanted for my 7 year olds and it's also suitable for younger children too. It is a fantastic way to work on developing logical sequences and problem-solving (If you're in a PYP school, it perfectly fits the definition of learning through inquiry!).

Here's a quick video intro where you'll see how different blocks can be put together and you can use loop functions and "if" commands.

Before I continue, I'll mention the best part - there is a 147 page curriculum available for free from The Foos website. Each lesson in the curriculum has a particular focus. They recommend which levels of The Foos to play to reinforce this learning and they provide resources to do "unplugged activities." Don't worry if you, as a teacher, don't feel confident about coding. The curriculum guide lays out all the required coding language simply. By working through the lessons yourself, before doing so with the children, you should feel fully confident!

I'm going to introduce The Foos to my class after the Christmas holidays. I am certain that they'll love it. I tried out the lesson plans myself, playing each of the associated levels and I got completely hooked. I even brought the iPad home one weekend to continue doing it! If a teacher can get sucked into it so easily, I'm sure the children are going to love learning in this way! In fact, I'm pretty sure they won't even know they're learning because they'll be too busy having fun. 

In my school, each child has an iPad so we're going to use the free Foos app. It's also available for free in the Google Play Store for those of you who are android users. The Foos is available to use online for those of you with computer rooms. Please note that they recommend using Internet Explorer, Firefox or Opera (I was using Chrome and it's not supported) and you'll need to download the Unity3D browser plugin.

Please comment below if you've been using The Foos and want to share your experiences!

IT room makeover part 2

Hi all,

I've been up the walls busy lately (literally!). One of the things ticked off my "to do" list is finishing the IT room displays. Here's what I've been up to since I last wrote about it.

I really enjoyed putting up this timeline. I decided to do it as a wavy line rather than a straight one to make it a bit more interesting. This is part of an IT room decor set I made during the summer. In case you're wondering, the bird templates are to preserve the lives of the birds who mistakenly fly towards their own reflection and meet their end!



 And here are close-ups of the start and the end!

These other posters like the welcome sign, "Caution: Coders at Work" and reminders to save, click undo or think before you post are also part of the IT room decor kit that I made.

I got these internet safety tips from Teacher's Pet.  The banner is from Twinkl.

And here are the keyboard shortcuts, coding (Scratch) and robotics displays that I posted about the last time. Click here to view that post.