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My Scoop it page

I have now created my own Scoop.it page and have put RSS feed to my Google Reader.
This could be a great tool for students to create pages about their inquiry topic.

Followed a tweet from Jacqui Sharp to get this collection of articles about i-pads in education from a variety of sources.
My grand daughter uses my i-pad to play the piano, create art works, write stories and play educational games, she listens to music and stories and this is all on my i-pad first version so when I update she will have a lot more functions and apps to use.
I think it would be fab to have a set in any classroom - there is so much you can do! 

Found this on pininterest, I like it and might use it in a classroom for plenary discussion time.

Source: bbc.co.uk via Rebecca on Pinterest

Recording and sharing info and ideas

This is a great tool for students to make quick recordings to share. Download the app and use on class trips or sports events.

New but old ideas

I remember years ago using Alice to introduce chn to programming animations - the newer and revised Alice is still a great tool for chn to problem solve and create. It is a great tool to get them thinking - could be a maths tumble activity.

I can't believe it's already 10pm and I've been on Facebook for so long! What a time waster! Had my last day at the Herald Office on Friday so this is my first real day off, apart from edit my book I have done nothing and it was very easy to do.

Social Media Core-Ed workshop

Becky and I went to this workshop with DK from Core-Ed last week. It was a bit of fun, DK was really interesting and it was refreshing to hear from someone who was from a different background to teaching. I liked his sense of humour and laid back style. The school was amazing - all collaborative spaces and unlike any other school layout I have seen. I loved the way students lay back on bean bags while listening to the teacher. I bet the kids love it.

Looking through my old slideshare presentations and thought this may be useful for some people.

Online Learning Resources2

View more PowerPoint from anjistar

At Social Media workshop with DK from Core Ed at Hingaia School. An amazing school with collaborative learning spaces all new Look forward trying out some of the social media sites I haven't used such as ISSUU and like the idea of using booktrack app with my kindle books I wonder if that works together.

ICT PD journey

An ictpd cluster journey

View more presentations from Angie Simmons.

Facebook idea

Hi great day today in Whanga - I saw an interesting idea when I was reading Interface  mag - there was a secondary teacher who was using Facebook as a discussion board and learning tool for studying Shakespeare. All the students in the class were friends, the settings were private so just the class used it. It sounded a great way to utilise the students' love of social media!

Great to be back at Marist School

I spent a day at Marist School in Herne Bay last week as I will be working with the teachers in an ICTPD role again after three years out teaching. It was great to be back in this role and work with teachers again. It made me aware that I need to update my resource web site for teachers so there will be new things happening on that site.

Sad news

On Monday we were given the news that the NiE programme which has been published in NZ for the last 25 years is to close. What a shame as so many schools and students from all over NZ have enjoyed all the learning activities and it has been a valuable resource for teachers. I have only been there a short time and just lately I was working on an Olympic Games resource kit which will not be printed. We will be working till the end of term 2 so will publish the pages and web activities till then - all the work I put into the Olympic resource kit will be put into the published activity pages.
A beautiful crisp autumn day here on the coast and the sea is sparkling so not all bad in my world!

New look to blog!

Now I am no longer an ICT facilitator and also have no classroom of my own I have decided to change the ICT emphasis of my blog. I am still interested in latest happenings in the world of technology and will post any new ideas I come across but it will not be the focus of this blog as it was in the past.
I have just completed a page about local government and the consultation process for council draft plans for the NiE page and still working on more books for Essential Resources. Am working one day a week at the local school teaching dyslexic children, it is a great programme (Steps programme) and it is 1-1 teaching so better results and something the children do not get in their classroom.
Check out this site about local government in NZ - hover over the map and select your area to find out more and link to council in your area. Good for looking at in classroom now as all councils reviewing the 10 year community plan and up for consultation - young people have a voice too.

Online Interactive Curriculum Planner

A wonderful new online interactive curriculum planning tool has just been released. i had the opportunity of seeing it in action today and was really impressed with the ease of use and practicality of it. You can set up your class and groups for planning, all of the AO's are there to link to and you can add your own learning intentions and experiences. It really is very comprehensive and too much to tell about here. Have a look at it and use the videos to show how it works. I particularly liked the way you can set up lessons for groups and the fact that plans can be stored and used by other teachers too. As it is all in the cloud you can't lose it and can access anywhere.
It will be shown at the Learning at School Conference later this week and if you are lucky enough to be there ask Jo at the Essential Resources stand to show it to you. She is taking a workshop there but it may be full already. While you are there check out my latest book - Assessment for Learning!

2012

Well back to the real world - holidays over and my days as full time teacher are over for now too. I said farewell to my lovely class at Sherwood and all the great teachers there. I have now started back at APN and go into the NZ Herald office 2 days a week and work from home writing for a day. I am working on a literacy resource for teachers until end Feb when we start the activity pages and web site again. The resource is free and is called Dive in and Read. Unfortunately only the regional papers around NZ publish it but we are working on having a more comprehensive and interactive web site which teachers in Auckland will be able to utilize. At the moment anyone can register and use the resources on the site but the resource pages are only included in the regional papers.
The Spotlight on Sport resource will of course be the Olympics this year.

Resources link

Here is a link to a great online resource page!

i-pads in the classroom?

A lot of schools are considering i-pads for the classroom. Our school purchased six and they were distributed around but no one used them as they were unable to load any decent programs as the IT person was the only one with a password and had uploaded what she thought we would use. Not a good idea, they have been in the school a year now and sit on shelves. I would love to have a set in my room as they could be used in so many ways - using the apps I know would be of use. I wonder how many times this sort of thing happens in school. There are downsides though - small and portable means easily lost or stolen, especially as they are a very popular item.
Here is a link to a wiki made by a school using i-pads.

Pics from my classroom

I thought I would try a different slideshow generator for showing photos - this one - Photopeach seemed very easy and quick to upload photos. I tried Onetruemedia but that was very limited and photos took far too long to upload. These are some images of a couple of walls in my classroom
Pics from my classroom on PhotoPeach

Maths site

We are learning about lines and angles this week, I found this great maths site activity - a lot more on maths topics too.

Ambleside also has some great interactives too! Scroll down the page to check out the numeracy interactives.

My new job

I am starting as a writer for the Newspapers in Education programme at the NZ Herald in a couple of weeks. It is a part time job so I will also be working at Sherwood Primary for one day a week which is great as I have such a fantastic class and would miss them. Check out the web site for NIE, it is a great way for teachers to link current affairs to the curriculum.

Flags of the world

With the rugby world cup representing many different countries you may be interested in sharing this site with your class. Roll the mouse over different countries in the world and the flag and a blurb about the country appears.

Want to make a wiki web site?

I have made a web site which shows you how to create your own wiki web site for yourself or your classroom. There are step by step instructions and ideas about how to use this tool effectively in your classroom.
Check it out here.

Wordlings

Create a montage of words inside a shape. I have made one for our biodiversity PYP theme. Sign in for kids and take a screenshot when it is ready - it takes a little while to load the words into the shape but result is great - put on the web site or blow up into a poster for display in the class!

school report helper!

Prada loves to eat newly written school reports, especially after she has chased them around the room and caught them!

Latest published book!

Just got the latest book in post today - it looks great. Tanya has made a great job of editing, I am really pleased with the way it has turned out.
Still working on the Assessment for Learning book but with taking a holiday break and school reports to write it has taken a back seat.

Myths and Legends Generator

This looks like a really fun tool for creating a story - there are images, sound effects and word tools to choose from. I will try this out in our class!

New National Geographic web site for education

The new National Geographic site for teachers and students looks great - I like the cartoon slideshows explaining about geography.

Colder mornings!

Is approaching fast and with it the school holidays in a week! Hard to believe the eleven week term is nearly over. Our class has been creating interactive mihimihi using Keynote and hot spots to link pages from their cover page which has been created using the Kid pix art tools. They loved learning how to make hot spots and are telling me other ways they could use this process. That's one of the reasons I love teaching. Kids are so creative!

Art on your computer with Mac (playing around with Voice Thread)

Trying out Image Chef blender

ImageChef.com Poetry Blender

Evian Roller Babies | Kideos

Ok, this is not very educational, but how did they do it??? Power of computer animation!

Evian Roller Babies | Kideos

Our new Mimio Interactive Whiteboard

This week we received our new Mimio and the children used the capture feature to present their group findings in the jig saw activity about the rights of the child (from the UN Convention list of children's rights. Each group had a page in the Mimio Notebook. We will review the notebook and make changes as the children find our more in their inquiry.

Back to School!

This has been the first week back at school and I am so glad it's Friday! I have a wonderful class, they are all so keen to learn which makes me feel quite inspired. They all made Comic Life posters yesterday to show their class essential agreement rules. They had to brainstorm rules relating to each learner profile (there are 10 learner profiles in our IB PYP programme) and take a photo of themselves in role demonstrating the agreement.

Tizmos Home - SEE and Access your Favorite Websites in One Place

Tizmos Home - SEE and Access your Favorite Websites in One Place

We site resources

I have been really busy creating a cache of relevant web sites for school on a Tizmos page. I have tried to categorize but it is hard sometimes as they could fit in anywhere so I have made a general one size fits all called educational resources. I make digital learning centre pages for each inquiry topic and for maths and reading/writing groups so these sites are very handy when I am creating these pages - usually a one page in Pages as our students only have access to Pages on their Macs. I make a colourful background and use images with all links to make it more exciting. I make each link open in a new window.
My tizmos page is here!

Holiday time is for lazing around!

Who shows this more than our latest family member - Smoky!

Best of the Web

Best of the web 2010

View more presentations from Richard Byrne.

Report writing??????

In the midst of testing, report writing and national standards meetings (no I am not spelling that with a capital letter!) I found this little satirical view of school meetings today quite a hoot!

My latest books have just been published. Magic Mac for the Classroom and the two School Journal reading comprehension books have just been delivered and will be out for sale to schools in NZ, Australia and the UK now. Emma (student in my class) took this photo for our school newsletter!

Apple bus tour

Students from our class demonstrated their skills in i-movie, Keynote, Garageband and Comic Life to the visitors on the Apple bus tour recently!

Digital Numeracy diaries

Students have been creating digital numeracy diaries to show their understanding of maths strategies. When they have finished making their diary presentations (in Keynote) they present them and talk about the strategies with the class.

Green screening using the alpha tool in Keynote

We have been learning about biodiversity as it is our PYP topic in term three. We visited the zoo and made a collection of images "close up with the animals" using the alpha tool and green screen background. The students made some interesting images!

Sherwood Primary at The Zoo Slideshow: Angie Simmons’s trip to Auckland, New Zealand was created by TripAdvisor. See another Auckland slideshow. Create a free slideshow with music from your travel photos.

Cheesemaking weekend

We learned how to make cheese at Claire's Coast Walks Lodge in Whangarei Heads. We made Feta, Haloumi and fresh herb cheeses. The walk was fun but cold and we didn't get far!

New Album 15/05/10 6:26 PM

Blogging in the classroom

I have set up blogs for all the children in the classroom now. I set it all up with an account in my name so the settings are all controlled by me and the sites are safe. The children each have their own blog and have made some interesting banners and learned all about creating code to make their blogs reflect their individuality. They are using these blogs for personal recount stories each Monday. So each Monday we have blogging day!

Twitter for the classroom

I am trying out the new twitter for the classroom, it sounds quite interesting. I have set up accounts for all the students under my account and we are going to use it for communicating and sharing ideas. I showed the class on Tuesday and they are all keen.
Watch this space and I will tell you how it works out!

New books about to be published!

Over the holidays I managed to finish the two books I started in the previous holiday. Magic of the Mac for the Classroom is one of the books. I wrote this specifically for teachers who are encountering Mac computers for the first time and need to find out more tips and tricks for using a Mac. I have also explained how to use the I-Life and I-Works programmes and provided ideas for use in the classroom.
The other book is a reading comprehension book with questions and activities for 2009 part one and two journals. I have included inference, evaluative, re-organistation and retelling questions and the activities have some e-learning suggestions as well as practical activities which are based on current best practice thinking skills. I am working on the part three and four books so there will be a set of two for 2009 and in the future will create a set for 2008 and 2010. I use these myself in the classroom and have found them very useful.

Term one over!

The first term was so busy I have not had a chance to keep up with this blog. I felt that there was so much testing it didn't leave much time for actual teaching!

I have enjoyed teaching in the digital classroom with so many of the latest I-Macs. The students have all completed a Keynote about their PYP inquiry topic, used Numbers and Pages for creating graphs and tables as our strand for maths, created a wiki web site for their next PYP inquiry topic, used Pages for publishing poems and stories and this term each student has a journal for personal recounts. The students also created movies acting out a role play to show a learner profile. We used our flip video camera to film and i-movie for editing.
I have made good use of the resources I created last year such as the literacy safari, the resources web sites and netvibes pages. I create a web site resource for each inquiry so that students can be directed to their central idea, lines of inquiry and key questions and have web resources to follow the inquiry.
Here is our class web site!

Back to School!

Well it's back to school and I am at my new school, Sherwood Primary School in Browns Bay. This is the first time since 2004 that I have had my own class so I am looking forward to working with children again. I have been really busy setting up my room and planning for the term.
As my class is a digital class this site will be very useful!

http://cooltoolsforschools.wikispaces.com/

Free extra templates, themes and backgrounds for Keynote

I often have to make my own backgrounds for Keynote slideshows but having found this site where there is a great supply of cool themes and backgrounds I don't have to waste my time. Have a look here!
There are also I-Web backgrounds and themes too.

Christmas advent calendar

Try this activity with students - each day they open a box in the advent calendar and have to solve a clue to find out about a particular country in the world. When they click on the flag it opens up to show them how Christmas is celebrated in that country. Look at the side menu for other great Christmas activities!

Using Newsmaker

At Mt Albert Primary the children are using Newsmaker to share their learning!

Untitled from Angie Simmons on Vimeo.

Safety video - a culmination of our safety inquiry (Marist experts group)

Fathom Software for data analysis

I had the opportunity some time ago of looking at Fathom  which is a great tool for organising and interpreting data. You can download it free for 60 days to try it out. Watch this movie to find out more!

Ideas for using Wordles

Click on the small square at the bottom to play this in a full screen!

Holiday Trip to Lyttleton and Akaroa with daughter Chantal

Christmas ideas

(Blast from the past Ricky and Nicola!)

This site has all the Christmas ideas you need - thanks to Suzie Vesper from Core-Ed!

Clicker 5

For the teachers at Sunnydene and Carlson using Clicker 5 here is a link to a good online tutorial to supplement my workshop - remember that right click and Properties is a good way to do everything though. I have put a new tutorial in PDF form on my web site.

Copyright free music source

A new library of free music downloads - classical pieces which may suit as background music for your movies or for children to learn more about classical music.
This is what they have to say: Musopen is an online music library of copyright free (public domain) music. We want to give the world access to music without the legal hassles so common today. There is a great deal of music that has expired copyrights, but almost no recordings of this music is in the public domain. We aim to record or obtain recordings that have no copyrights so that our visitors may listen, re-use, or in any way enjoy music. Put simply, our mission is to set music free.

Online project for junior classes

Where the Wild Things Went Looks really good - need to register this month - all free with resources and quite timely as the movie is coming out soon.

Google Wave

This promises to be a great tool for the classroom. You need to request an invitation at this stage to try it out. I wonder! See here what others have to say about it.

Highlights from ULearn

The ULearn Conference in Christchurch was really great as usual. Not so many sellers, so a reflection of the economy I suppose. There were some great presenters from Oz and one workshop I went to on 'Real Maths' was great. One of the teachers had a wonderful example of a classroom blog, she has incorporated many web2 tools very successfully and the blog reflects a very exciting and positive classroom. Derek Wenmoth delivered a really interesting spotlight presentation. His blog is on my google reader and worth a read. As a Mac person I always attend a session with Stuart Hale, he always delivers a good workshop.
Had a great time at the dinner. Amanda (ICT leader from Birdwood School) and I sat with a large group (24 teachers) from Sutton Park School in South Auckland. They were a fun crowd.
Christchurch was freezing cold! After the conference my daughter and I went to Lyttleton and stayed at a cool little B & B overlooking the bay - called The Rookery. Went to the farmers market and bought stuff and this fantastic shop called Himalaya. We drove to Akaroa over the hills in the snow and went to this amazing place called The Giant's House.


A great end to the holidays but now back to all the schools and the millstone reports!

Students create learning centres

Students from St Josephs School were shown how to create learning centres last term. They have been working hard to create learning centres to help other students learn French, this is also helping to consolidate their own language learning too. They have created links to pages and language activities.

E Learning Center Siobhan

View more presentations from anjistar1.

Paint and Photostory show

One of the schools I work with as an ICTPD facilitator is Mt Albert Primary. The children from Angela's class (not me - another Angela!) created this show to share with other classes - they had a literacy focus on Myths and Legends. They loved recording their voices too. I just love their art work - aren't children just special!(Be patient - takes ages to buffer)

Retelling legends from Angie Simmons on Vimeo.

Cool tools for schools - Lenva Shearing

Lenva Shearing, Deputy Principal from Bucklands Beach Intermediate has put together a couple of fantastic wiki web sites. The first one I use a lot is called 'Getting Tricky with Wikis' and the other showcases most of the wonderful web2 tools and is called 'Cool Tools for Schools' I am sure you will find these resources a great help!

Interactive Periodic Table

I thought this was pretty good - passing on to you Sian!

I wonder how long this will be free?

Brightstorms is a one stop maths tutoring site mainly for Intermediate/Secondary students. I will be passing this on to friends who have children studying hard for their maths NCEA levels - it has real maths tutors explaining all those tricky problems (I was not good at maths so I am really impressed with this) Check it out.

Create your own newspaper story

This is a great little tool for literacy in the classroom. Students put their own text into the generator and it converts it to a look alike newspaper article!

Innovative new entrant class

I have worked with Marist School in Herne Bay for nearly four years and I am so impressed with the way the teachers there embrace ICT tools as part of their classroom practice. Here are some pics of the new entrant class - these children use ICT tools as a natural part of their learning.

Yarping!

I just got invited to a social occasion via a yarp! What a cool idea - have a look - really easy - invitations and surveys here

New NZ Citizenship web site for educators

Have a look at this new site - great for discussion about what it means to be a citizen in NZ - roles and responsibilities.

Online publishing blogs

There are some issues with online student publishing in the classroom. There is a great student blogging site which is set up to alleviate a lot of the privacy problems. It is specifically set up for classroom teachers to set up safe blogging environments. Check out 21classes

Maori Language week

This is Maori language week - have a look at this site - I use it quite a bit.