Inspirational books that have changed the way I think...

My wife always gets annoyed with the amount of books I buy. When I started teaching about eight years ago my reading quickly diminished as guilt came upon me every time I picked up a good piece of fiction - 'I could be doing some work!'. Eventually I realised that reading non-fiction both stimulated my curiosity and creativity whilst easing the pang of guilt associated with 'wasting time'. However, this has led to me buying a lot of books...but hey, reading keeps you thinking!

I have read and re-read all of these books more than once (well not the last one as that's a blatant plug..)

• A Whole New Mind
• Presentation Zen
• Made to Stick
• Ten Faces of Innovation
• Innovate with ICT

21 Good links from Twitter

Here follows 21 useful links I posted on Twitter :

1. 21st Century Skills website, very comprehensive with great links and discussions http://snipr.com/kg3p5
2. Love this T-shirt website,such an innovative idea to use things from within films rather than just the cover poster: http://short.to/gi5i
3. Looks like this could be an interesting book on teaching History: Constructing History 11-19, http://is.gd/16lQz
4. Create tension with exam groups using video clips http://short.to/gi54
5. Book: 100 Ideas for Essential Teaching Skills http://is.gd/16lu8
6. Book: Innovate with ICT http://short.to/gitf
7. Download resources for Assessment for Learning http://is.gd/16lzK
8. New Fronter tutorial: How to Embed Video or Learning Games, http://is.gd/16jnt
9. Handheld Learning conference 5-7th October London: http://snipr.com/kg2c7 . Ok, I'm there.
10. New Fronter tutorial: How to upload resources and link them to text http://snipr.com/kg1nl
11. Very comprehensive list of tools to boost your Twitter following indeed (via @TheAffiliateGuy) http://ow.ly/aaXj
12. Open Source Schools 2009 Unconference (BECTA supported). Looks very interesting. http://snipr.com/kg1ts
13. Futurelab conference, 8 October 2009, Seen and Heard: Young people creating digital media http://is.gd/16l0V . Penciled into calendar : ) .
14. The 16th International Conference of the Association for Learning Technology, Manchester September 2009: http://snipr.com/kg22d
15. Really looking forward to SHP 2009 #education #shp.We have uploaded our past workshops here http://short.to/ghpi
16. How to embed Flash in ActiveStudio 3: http://short.to/ghpg
17. Mobile learning technology #education . Create quizzes for for mobile phones: http://snipr.com/kfq98
18. MFL resource for french grammar: http://is.gd/16aVR
19. The evolution of WEB 1.0 and WEB 2.0. Very cool: http://is.gd/16aSd
20. Create a Welcome Page in Fronter: http://www.innovativeict.net/fronter-learning-platform
21. Interesting. 10 Ways to increase your Twitter followers http://tinyurl.com/cs6nkv

ToonDoo example for A-Level History

Thank you Meera for this website:

Who made the greatest contribution to the Russian economy: Witte v Stolypin by innovativeict | Create your own Cartoon at www.toondoo.com

How to create a website in Adobe Flash

Just uploaded a series of tutorials on how to create your own website using Adobe Flash, see InnovativeICT.net

Mobile Study works well

Ok I just tried to create a quiz on the Mobile Study website and it worked very well. You can take a look at one of the 'test' quizzes I made in less than 10 minutes. Students simply go online and click this link (please note that it will not work in your browser)and then it will ask them to install the file. After installation just run it from the main mobile menu - cool! The potential for learning is immense as you could set up revision notes in the 'explanation' box (see my mini quiz) and get students to comment on a particular question on your website.

I am going to play around with Mobile Study a bit further...

Visual Assessment

Using Active Learning techniques benefit students greatly as discussed in the introduction to this chapter, and creating opportunities for using this method with assessment really does produce excellent results.Students who work with assessments on this level eventually gain a concrete understanding about:

• the various components of an answer;
• how to build an ideal solution to a problem/question;
• how/where they 'hit' each Level;
• different versions of an answer to the same question;
• exploring links/categorisations, themes and trends.

Read the about the whole activity about how to make assessment more exciting by using Active Learning techniques.