'In the Zone' homepage review

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Examine the 7 homepage options for the soon to launch 'In The Zone' website.

The Welcome Trust will send a free 'In the Zone' kit to every UK school in early 2012. The kits, along with the supporting website, aims to encourage young people to explore the physiology and psychology of exercise, movement, performance and rest through practical investigation.

The free kits and website will provide experimental equipment, teaching materials and resources to ensure you have everything you need to bring the science of the human body to life in your classroom. Each activity has been tailored to meet curriculum requirements for Science and PE for ages 4-19.

Please review and choose your favourite homepage. A comment with reasons why would be appreciated as well.

Thank you.

BBC radio interviews with me from the F1 at Silverstone

My radio interviews on the BBC yesterday from the Formula 1.

my_interview_but_not_quite.m4a Listen on Posterous

my_radio_interview.m4a Listen on Posterous

Field visit Arkengarthdale river study

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Arkle Beck is a tributary to the River Swale. It starts at 627m above sea level on the moors above the valley of Arkengarthdale and flows for 20km before joining the River Swale just below Reeth where it is 176 m above sea level.
The following photos are from 3 sites along Arkle beck.
1. William Gill G.R 93207
2. Eskeleth G.R 998036
3. Reeth G.R 044987

We expected to observe the following changes:
The size of the river channel increases
The volume of the discharge increases
The velocity of the river water increases
The size of the bed load decreases and becomes more rounded
The shape of the valley changes from a V shape to a valley with a floodplain so more U in shape

What do you think we found from the following photos?

A range of ways I've used geocaching in (outside) the classroom

Does your school have a high percentage of students who are not engaged and stood bored at break time, lunch time and before school waiting for the day to begin? 
Geocaching projects might be an option for your students!

Here is a simple guide as to how to set up a geocache geocaching introduction I will then go through a range of strategies I have used it in conjunction with.

• Change on a weekly basis.
• Competition between form classes/houses.
• Have mascots with trackable so students get to use GPS. Students can take other groups mascots hostage and produce clues using learning during the week.
• students with geocaching tasks have to communicate with each other and so they find out about each others learning and so it assists students skills at collaboration, teamwork and inter and intra personal skills.
• Students in house can nominate who will go on mission try to link in with different years.
• Link to marking so a teacher can give a few students a message. A way of getting students to check written comments more thoroughly. Students write a comment back about work and the geocache message.
• Students get given missions with geocache get agents in all the continents by the end of 48 hours. 
• iPhone 4 secret mission with text message students find via find my iphone application, to open link to learning. Further clue linked to QR code and teacher students work a riddle out. Link to Iamlearning and a place name in a certain task. Give students outdoor fun tasks from the mission:explore range. 
• Students have created tour guide to local sites and attractions in area @Kenny73
• Make class geocache made one about coursework about local river.
• About local geography in that area
• Students with project with parents for doomsday reloaded add a geocache at picture site with how site looked and how it does now add stories for how students use that area in their lives and how parents use to live. This project has been very successful.

This whole project and Kinect in class have been used to engage students to move about and be excited and intrigued to participate as linked to school reward system.

Now over to you to track down the #tmthink geocache you will get a clue to find an agent in the room who will give you the final clue to hunt down the hidden geocache. Be quick before someone else finds it!

Doomsday Reloaded Parent child peer collaboration and geocache

Over the last month couple of months I have taken geocaching into (and more importantly outside of) the classroom, embeding it into the learning.

In the last week I have been on a year 9 controlled assessment field visit. On the visit the class placed a geocache which had an information booklet and a QR code of the guide to a blog site of the geographical history and landscape characteristics that people were looking at at that specific part of their walk / cycle ride. So if you are near William Gill near Tan Hill Grid Reference 932071 Or Reeth Grid Reference 044987 you can hunt for a geocache (to get confirmation from Geocache) about Arkle Beck.

I first started off by getting students to create their own geocache (click on the link here to visit the geocache website and watch the video on the home page on how to geocache geocaching introduction. Click on the 2nd link for a guide on how to set up your own geocache geocaching guides) and writing about the learning that they have done in school over the last term. Students then created a QR code which would take them to the work that they had produced on a blog.

Over the last week I have developed this to incorporate the BBC doomsday project. This was a nationwide project launched in 1986 to record a snapshot of everyday life across the UK for future generations. Now 25 years later you can explore the archive online, see the pictures, update the information and make your mark on this record of our history.

My interpretation of the project has been for students to fill out a booklet with their parents of their everyday lives for the students NOW and for their parents / carers / guardians / aunts / uncles / grand parents to write down what their everyday life was like 25 years ago. I've found this has worked best with photographs. Students have been really interested in seeing old photos of their parents with their fashion sense, hair cuts (perms), dogey facial hair and glasses. I've tried to request that parents find photos of what Darlington looked like 25 years (or so) ago and then the students go to the same spot and take a photo today This gets them familiar with their surroundings and looking at a scene in a different manor.

This is where the geocache comes in. Parents and students include photos of the same site and they compare the similarities and the differences and their comparison stories of life 25 years ago and now. The students and parents then go and make a geocache and hide it for the next generation to find and update.

The final element of the project is to get parents and students to present their doomsday reloaded projects to the rest of the class.

Data analysis spreadsheet with automatic graph generation

Tracking Analysis Trial year 7.xls Download this file

 The following spreadsheet is what I made as an element of my data analysis of my classes to check progress and for the head teacher and deputy head to quickly analyse the data and check to see if any trends appear around school for groups whio are above or below target and to see if whole school or simply a teacher needs to adjust their planning to improve achievement.

J Sayers

T:
M:
E: sayers@branksome.org.uk

 

Controlled Assessment Booklet for Water on the Land 2012 submission

Coursework_Booklet_2011.doc Download this file

Controlled Assessment guidance booklet for Water on the Land

Coursework Booklet 2011.doc Download this file

Controlled Assessment guidance booklet for Water on the Land with the key question hypothesis of: Investigate ‘EROSION AND DEPOSITION IN THE RIVER CHANNEL.’

Coastal worknotes

lesson booklet for pupils to complete at home for each lesson coasts.doc Download this file

 An internet find.

J Sayers

T:
M:
E: sayers@branksome.org.uk

 

Whitby Fieldtrip booklet

Whitby field trip.doc Download this file

A field trip booklet for a day trip to Whitby with various tasks for geography students to do.

An Introduction to TNCs

Transnational Corporations – (TNC).ppt Download this file

Deltas introduction

Deltas.ppt Download this file

 Introduction to Deltas

J Sayers

T:
M:
E: sayers@branksome.org.uk

 

global warming

Global Warming milankovitch.ppt Download this file

 A powerpoint to introduce global warming

J Sayers

T:
M:
E: sayers@branksome.org.uk

 

Favela Creation and Indian Case study videos

 The following powerpoint has 2 Channel 4 case study videos of life in a Shanty Town dwelling. Also a model is provided from unit into Africa.

favela creation.ppt Download this file

Lesson9-Activity12.pdf Download this file

I AM LEARNING a new ICT question tool

My school signed up to I AM lEARNING a couple of months ago and it seems to be a successful learning tool with many features that keep students engaged and coming back. Mainly the GAMES FEATURES Students take part in exercises provided by I am learning or exercise questions that have ben created by their teacher. These can be multiple choice questions or they can be written questions where the use of key terms and phrases are incorporated into the I am learning answer box and so these have to be incorporated for students to get the question correct. The concept is simple. If a student gets a question right they get an allotted time to play a game. This might be 10-20 seconds. They then have to attempt another question in order to continue the game. If they get a question incorrect they still get to play a game but for half the time. 

Unlike other online revision question programs like SAM LEARNING students can click back on the browser to go back or find the right answers out and then know the sequence and what to press to get the answers right and so not take any learning in as I am learning mixes the questions up and the play element makes the students try. Also it will log that students are trying to do this and so a teacher can see how many questions a student has attempted what they got wrong etc and can then work on individual learning plans for students to inform their planning to see if a certain question is a class issue or whether it is an isolated incident that needs independent action.

Pupils sign in and they see the following screen:

This is their homepage when they log in. From this you can see many roll over with a mouse features.

A paint can - Decorate their study homepage

An ipod - student podcasts

A photo frame - allows students to edit their personal details and edit their avatar

A head statue - where students work on their skills and add details where they have demonstrated certain PLTs they can even upload work to prove this.

Bar graph blocks - were students check their progress and performances through the exercises.

A snow globe - to input targets and check them to see how the student is working towards it.

Exam Paper - try real exam papers to see how the student is progressing.

Books - Guides on how to get most out of I AM LEARNING and revision.

Phone - To contact their teacher if they have a query or to get messages from teacher that work has been set.

Computer Screen - Take an exercise 

Clock - How long the student has spent on I AM lEARNING revising.

Champions League - Compare how they are doing to other I AM LEARNING students around the country.

Picture with finger pointing - A teacher survey that students have to complete.

VAK vacuum - Complete a how they learn survey to find out what type of learning they are strongest at and what areas need learning help / persistence.

Calendar - What homeworks / tasks have been set by a teacher?

What the I AM lEARNING screen looks like to a teacher with twitter feed (note my twitter feed at the top:)

This allows you to check who has taken the exercises that you have set, how they have done, progress of that classes, year groups, individual students, how the student is getting on in other subjects, allows you to check the students PLTs progress to the student, Who has completed the homeworks, if you have a message from a student who may be having trouble, allows you to create a survey, create an exercise, allocate homework - For this you can use the I AM lEARNING created exercises, your own or exercises that other teachers have created and you can search for subject and key areas of study for specific examples if any have been created that you can set your students.

This is what the questions look like from a Rivers Management exercise I have created. SEARCH FOR IT AND HAVE A GO!

I AM lEARNING is on twitter and they have begun creating iphone apps for specific subjects for questions to be attempted. 

Overall a good engaging tool that can be used as an ICT exercise for questioning and for some good fun for the students to keep them revising. 

My Mission Explore Task

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If you haven't got the mission explore books see picture then you really should!

My mission with the books is to make global links with schools around the world and to share blogging pictures and webchats / Skype chats with students from other countries to find there findings for certain missions.

My aim is to actively engage my students to make links with foreign students and more importantly using the books to find out about the world around us and what different places are like with a common theme the books to aid and gave a continuity running through the project so that students have a certain theme they can discuss / see the similarities and the differences. Students can then come up with their own missions and continue to find out new things of the people and place of the world around us.

So this is a plea to visitors to my blog to get in touch and let's make a global blog of people and place and bring the world closer to hand for our students.

Sugata Mitra: The child-driven education | Video on TED.com

Sugata Mitra: The child-driven education | Video on TED.com
This is a great advert for letting students research for themselves. Provide a key term, question, idea and let them research and be CREATIVE with it and then begins the key question for a teacher/educator 'how can we make them THINK with this acquired knowledge? And what are they going to do with it that will get their minds and bodies working?'

Trekking the planet

Follow the link for an outline of this fantastic project that will start January 2012 http://www.trekkingtheplanet.net/ the project trek is a geography educational bonanza and true spread of the fabulous place geography has in the world around us. Follow and use in lessons. I know I will!

Geocaching from your iPhone

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This is a fantastic co-ordinates game using a GPS, mapping skills treasure hunt. A geocaching is a great addition to any dog walk, cycle ride, walk or even outdoor learning adventures. The principle is simple. Go to the website or download the app for geocaching. £4.99 on iTunes app store (a free introduction app is available it limits a search to the 3 nearest placed geocaches to you). The app will place your phone GPS to your current location and you can search to see if there are any geocaches in your area. Then simply using the co-ordinates and using a map you can hunt them down or more simply you can let the GPS on your phone close in to the co-ordinates. You can change the setting to show you a compass to try and match your co-ordinates with that of the location of the geocache. Then it is down to you to hunt out the box / casing. You should see a container with the geocaching official symbol and it should have paper and a pencil for you to write your name and date you found it. Some have an object in them. You can add something to the container of equal value. Overall great fun:)