When a person creates his or her own personal Wiki, be it for personal or for work use (for example, having a classroom wiki so that both students and parents will be able to access their work from anywhere), it is important to start updating it regularly and keep it interesting for the site visitors. A Wiki can be seen as a sort of template which can be filled up collaboratively; it is alive and dynamic and ever-changing. Unlike a Blog, a Wiki can have several pages, and each page can have its own individual layout. Usually the first page is called ‘Home’; that is where you write your introduction - the scope of your Wiki - and then you can have a series of pages linking to that home page.
Continue reading review on Teachers and Computers, by Amanda R. Debattista
Children of all ages love comics - cartoon character strips, which usually tell a story, often humouros, and sometimes with a hidden message or two. Comic strips are often found in newspapers and magazines, and more recently, online. They can be a a way for teachers to convey a message to their students a bit differently, and in turn students can be encouraged to express their thoughts and emotions more freely. Web 2.0 technology offers teachers and students the possiblity to create online, embeddable comic strips and books easily and effectively. One such comic-creation platform is ToonDoo, which can be found on http://www.toondoo.com…
Continue reading @ Teachers and Computers Blog…
The eTwinning National Quality Label is a certificate granted to teachers with excellent eTwinning projects. This certificate indicates that the project has reached a certain national standard. Your project will be marked with the Quality Label logo so that anyone viewing it will know that this is a quality project.
Why should you apply for this label?
- The National Quality Label is a concrete recognition to teachers of high level of eTwinning activities. It also shows that the teacher has a commitment to quality and the ability to work collaboratively.
- This certificate will automatically give you the opportunity in taking part in the Annual eTwinning National Awards competition where the best collaborative projects will be awarded.
- Having this label will entitle you to be invited for the eTwinning National Awards ceremony for the presentation of a printed version of this certificate.
- If both you and your project partner are granted the National Quality Label, then you will also be granted the European Quality Label which entitles you to participate in the European Awards.
What are the criteria to be granted this label?
- Pedagogical Innovation and Creativity: Show how your project displays an innovative approach to teaching and learning and the creative ways you used to carry out the activities related to the project and to create the final product.
- Curricular Integration: Show how the project is integrated into the curriculum and which of its aspects it tackles.
- Collaboration between partner schools: Show how the project was planned between the partner teachers and the role of each partner. Show what kind of collaboration there was between the pupils taking part of the project.
- Creative use of ICT: State which tools and devices were used in the project and how they were significant for the accomplishment of the project results.
- Sustainability and Transferability: Show how the project could be expanded upon and how it could be used as a template for others to reproduce a similar project.
- Results and Benefits: Show what the outcomes of the project were and what the benefits were for the participants and their schools.
How can you apply for this label?
In the section My Projects on your eTwinning profile, you will find a link “Apply for Quality Label” in the middle column of your project. Click on the link and fill in the details requested. Once you submit the form, a copy will be sent to the Malta National Support Service for evaluation. You will be notified once you are granted this label or contacted if any of the criteria mentioned above have not been met.
Project work in the early years often involves children expressing themselves through pictures and drawings rather than through prose. Students may be asked to collaborate together on a particular drawing, and send it to their partners in another school or indeed another country, so that they (their partners) may also be able to work on it. In such cases, conventional paint packages such as TuxPaint and KidPix may not be altogether adequate. Enter Sketchfu, the online collaborative sketch/doodle maker, which makes collaboration not only possible but user friendly and fun, even for the youngest of learners. Sketchfu is an online (cloud) application, and can be found online on http://sketchfu.com.
Continue reading @ teachersandcomputers.blogspot.com…
We have all heard of , seen and read Blogs - you are reading one right now! - and Blogging has become a fast hobby for many. You might have a favourite Blog which you like browsing through regularly, or you might have even tried your hand at Blogging yourself. Now there is a new way in which to express yourself: Glogging, as in Glogster - Poster Yourself!
Glogster is a digital poster creator, and allows expression of opinions, feelings and ideas, in a way that wouldn’t be possible with the use of mere words. Rather like Blogs, it allows users to use an online medium in order to communicate with the outside world - but instead of text, users use graphical representations, photos, audio and videos to reach their audiences.
If you ever felt the need to retouch, edit or manipulate an image in any way, you would probably use Adobe Photoshop. Unfortunately, this excellent, industry standard piece of software does not come in cheap so if you did not have access to it, you would have been left pretty much stranded - unless you knew about Gimp.
Gimp stands for GNU Image Manipulation Program. It is an open-source paint program that can be used to perform complex tasks such as photo retouching and image manipulation or simply as a paint program. GIMP is growing in popularity at a rapid rate as a complete graphics package - it is free and a good substitue of Photoshop.
Continue reading review by Winston Attard
As from this scholastic year (2009-2010), desktop PCs have started to be introduced in the Kindergarten classes in Malta andGozo. Apart from the software which comes pre-installed on the Desktops, the Internet connection in the classrooms mean that the Kindergarten teachers also have a vast array of online educational games available freely to them. There are many excellent sites to choose from, and I will be dedicating some of the articles of this blog to them. The first site that I would like to talk about was recommended to me by a good friend (and experienced Kindergarten teacher from Fgura Primary) Miriam Schembri: Kindersite - Where Children Play and Teachers Learn…by Amanda R. Debattista
Latest Comments
RSS