Student Council

So inspiring to see students in our school getting passionate about politics. Year 10 were told that they weren't allowed to do speeches - partly because no girls would stand if they had to make a speech to the 300 students in their year!

The video is from a lad in my form who has come up with his flipped classroom. Great way of thinking outside the box and getting his voice heard!

Using the iPads ... For the first time

A really enjoyably lesson today!

I was really pleased to see how well my class were able to get on with the tasks I had given them.

I gave 2 questions of something they had never seen before - area of trapezium - and a depreciation over 2 years.

It was so interesting to see how the students we're able to cope with the challenges I put in front them and deal with a very 21st century way of solving a problem. If there is a word that is not understood - "google it". Go on YouTube - find an expert to help!

I will post some pictures of the questions I gave my class and explain further of what I did.

In terms of a personal lesson critic - I felt that the students didn't respond to recording their research as well as I would have liked!

But as things go - first lesson on the iPads I feel was a success and the students appears to enjoy themselves and appreciate the independence that I showed them to work with!

Students start blogging!

My students have officially started to blog ...

http://jondavies3.blogspot.co.uk/2012/12/ipad-project.html

Exciting times lie ahead I really feel that we as a class are now fully immersing ourself in 21st century technology in the classroom.

Personally I will be fascinated (and possibly bracing myself) by reading a students perspective on how they feel the lessons went!

All feedback welcome ...

Student bloggers

After having page views from the USA and Germany I have been given massive incentive to continue blogging.

I was speaking to some enthusiastic, tech savvy boys in my trial class, and I was pleased to see they were just as fascinated by the stats of who had viewed this blog as myself ...

I recommended that they write a 'student' perspective of this ipad trial - I really think this could be an exciting prospect!

After this initial conversation I attended a TeachMeet #TMCardiff where a teacher (@theheadsoffice) introduced "100 word challenge".

This also focused on students blogging, in the case a 100 word creative writing challenge. It has given me the confidence to really push this idea forward and I really hope that they take up the challenge of blogging about this project! I think the stats of who has read it alone will be incentive for them, and I hope they receive positive feedback to help hold stimulating conversations and bring their own learning ideas as to how we could use the iPads in class.

Ipad trial lift off

My school has recently invested in 30 iPads as an action research task by a selected number of teachers. I am lucky enough to be one of the teachers - which why I have started this blog.

One of my main ideas is that I would like to put up a completed past paper question (like the one attached) with a twist ....

I plan to put up a question of which the students have no prior knowledge.

Their task in the lesson will be to research (and make notes) on everything they can on that topic and as a plenary - mark the question.

If the solution was spot on students can then create their own success criteria on what's the answer prefect. If however, I included a deliberate mistake - students could write a model solution.

I look forward to starting blogging on this exciting project - and I welcome all feedback.