Great short interviews - Grace Kelly on JFK

This PBS series has some excellent interviews presented as animations. They are with famous figures including Louis Armstrong, Tupac Shakur and Janis Joplin.

This one is with Grace Kelly talking about JFK.

Wiki and Blog champions of ISL

Dear colleagues,

WE HAVE A WINNER...
Thanks to all who entered the Wiki and Blog quiz. Several teachers scored ten out of ten, and the winner of the prize (Flow by Mikhail Csikszentmihalyi)was Patricia Andersson. Incidentally, it was a self-grading quiz using Flubaroo. Let me know if you want to try that out yourself.

MET AND GREETED
We had an excellent turn out at the Upper School Library Meet and Greet. Many colleagues enjoyed the refreshments organised by Nancy and the Library and had a look at the new resources which have recently arrived in the Library. Much Winter borrowing ensued.

WIKI and BLOG CHAMPIONS
Our colleagues also shared their Wikis and Blogs which they have each been developing. I am very happy that there is no template; each teacher works in his or her own way and there were many fruitful discussions. I am hopeful, following several conversations I had, that a new wave of ISL teachers will establish their presence online to the benefit of their students and colleagues.

NEW YEARS'S RESOLUTION OR A PD GOAL?
Should you be thinking of joining their ranks, here are some examples of the wikis and blogs our colleagues use in their work at ISL. Some of them are Private to the teacher and invited colleagues and students, but I am sure you will be admitted if you request it (you will need a wikispaces log in for those). The rest of the wikis and blogs are Public to those who have the link (not Googleable, though).

Walking in a Wiki Wonderland

Please join us from 1545 on Friday 13th at the US Library Meet and Greet party for:

To get you in the mood,  complete the quiz below for the chance of winning a great prize donated by the US library: Flow: The Psychology of Optimal Experience by Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi (crazy name, crazy book). The first correct answer out of the virtual hat will win.

Best movies and TV shows for teaching ESL and EFL

I have recently started reading this great blog by Larry Ferlazzo, a teacher in Sacramento, California. Here is a typically interesting and helpful post about movies and TV shows which he uses for teaching his ESL and EFL students.



http://larryferlazzo.edublogs.org/2008/04/26/the-best-popular-moviestv-shows-for-eslefl/

Steve

Five BBC correspondents remember Mandela

There are a lot of programmes about Nelson Mandela in the BBC archives. Here is one they just made featuring five correspondents who knew Nelson Mandela.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b03kp474

Unspeak: Words are Weapons

ToK teachers! (and anyone else interested in how language can be used to manipulate).

Unspeak is a website which calls itself an interactive documentary. It looks at the hidden meanings behind words (especially those used by politicians).

Here is a video introducing one of the topics: Words Are Weapons. The choice of images is fantastic!

Wiki Wonderland trailer

For our memorable (not necessarily in a good way) Wiki Wonderland trailer, please click the picture.

Students' personal pages on your wiki

In case you are still wondering, a wiki is a website. It has the collaborative potential exploited by wikipedia, but many teachers (including me) enjoy the fact that wikis are among the easiest type of webpage to create. Many teachers use blogging platforms to create their websites. This is easy too.

Recently, wikispaces, which most of our ISL Wiki champions use, has introduced a new feature called Project Pages in which each student or group in your class has a page on the wiki to which only they and the teacher have access. It is great for reflection, work submission, projects and more.

You can read about it at the link below, or make an appointment with me to get started.

http://blog.wikispaces.com/2013/11/using-projects-as-personal-student-workspaces.html

And don't forget that the wiki and blog champions will be presenting (with drinks and snacks) at the Wiki Wonderland in the US library on Friday 13 December after school.

Steve

Helping students with imaginative writing

There are many apps and websites which help students to get some ideas for their creative writing. Students also get to see the stories written by others or get feedback on their own. 

I have had a look at Plinky which seems interesting. There's also Boomwriter which looks very professional, but they are wanting to sell you things (though your class' own book of stories might be quite cool).

Teachers, please let me know if you have a go with any of them and what you think.

Steve

Who runs the Internet?

Freakonomics is a great book on 'the hidden side of everything' and the Steves behind it also do a podcast called Freakonomics radio. This is an episode where they talk about the Internet with great contributions from Clay Shirky. For a thoughtful discussion on this topic, you will only need to spare half an hour. Just click on the audio below.

Does Google Drive you crazy?

If you feel like you're on the ground floor when it comes to the Google skyscraper, they have created some helpful free online courses. Maybe you can incorporate one into your PD goals? Here is a link to the course on Google Drive for Educators.

https://educourses.withgoogle.com/drive/preview

You can log in with your islux account. There's an assessment at the end, and knowing Google, a colourful certificate.

If anyone tries this out, please let me know how it goes, good or bad.

Ishmael Beah at ISL

This was a very memorable presentation. Several teachers and students asked if they could have access to the video. Here it is:

The new school website and calendars

If you missed the presentations on the new school website, here are the main points. You can't see it yet, though.

When it is live (by the 5th December), the address will be www.islux.lu (this is still the address of the previous website).

Here are some highlights of the features:

HOMEPAGE
You reach the homepage by clicking the school logo at the top of the page.
Latest News - these are snippets to recent events in the ISL community. If you want to contribute your own recent or upcoming event, email the Communications team.

ABOUT US
Calendar

• different views: day, week, month, year
• Views can be advanced by a day, week etc, but beware of the double arrow (one year)
• There are a number of calendars which you can customise for your own needs. See calendar options icon with a red tick at the right hand side.
• Subscription: you can subscribe to one or more calendars so that data is displayed in Google calendar, Apple calendar or Outlook.

Events

If you want to book an event onto the calendar, you can do it right from the calendar page (having checked that the date is appropriate). The procedure is the same as in the past: your request goes to Carmel who informs you of the outcome.

Quicklinks

ISL Community portal: these are still the pages from the previous site. They will operate in exactly the way you are used to. They will be updated some time in the future.

Teaching Shakespeare (and everything else) with Learnist

Learnist is a website where users create 'boards' of learning materials on a single topic. There are thousands of them on every topic of education, and indeed, life. See the screenshot below for some examples and here is a collection of Learnists for teaching Shakespeare.

Here's one I made earlier: Why 1 to 1 in schools?

Blendspace for your lesson resources.

Blendspace looks like a great way to combine different resources for a lesson. You can put videos, presentations, documents and your own comments and quizzes. You can embed your own Blendspaces in a wiki or website or blog, or just give the students the link. If you have your own resources already, use them, but you can also search for others from within Blendspace. Amongst other uses, it can be a great way for students to demonstrate what they have learned.

Here is a Blendspace on Photosynthesis and below is a short video showing how it works.

If you would like a personal lesson on how to use Blendspace in your classroom, just ask me.

Looking for great Google PD?

If you are looking for some PD to support your use of IT in the classroom, in particular Google apps such as Google Drive and Google Earth, you may be interested in the events organised by Apps Events.

They organise regional 'Summits' which are meetings where teachers attend workshops given by their colleagues from around the region. Last year, I attended one at the International School of Prague which was excellent. They also offer Google Certification Boot-camps which train participants to become Google Certified Trainers. I went to one in Brussels and am in the process of completing the certification. I think that many colleagues would also find this a useful, though challenging, undertaking.

If you would like more information, please click the link or talk to Steve Weatherell. The process of applying will be through the PD Committee, just like any other professional development activity.

http://www.appsevents.com/home

Condensed TED Talks podcast

Many of you enjoy TED Talks, I know. I have found an excellent way to hear a few in a condensed way, which is the NPR TED Radio Hour. What they do is find the best bits from some talks on the same subject and make a collage as well as interviewing the talkers. It's brilliantly edited and really good radio.

TED Radio Hour is an audio broadcast which is available as a podcast (downloadable file) or can be streamed from their website. I feel professionally obliged to recommend the recent one on Predicting the Future, but the programmes on Memory, Story Telling and Making Mistakes (my favourite) were also excellent.

When does one find time to listen to something for AN HOUR? It can be a challenge, but I try to combine it with the daily mindless tasks of commuting or cooking or shopping or exercise. I hope you get to enjoy TED Radio Hour too. Here, though, is a fascinating video talk (if you've got 15 minutes). Did you know that IQs have nearly doubled in the last 100 years? James Flynn explains why.

Why is the screen rotating?

Has this happened to you? The students are working and their screen changes orientation so that it is sideways or upside down. They profess amazement. What has happened is that the student has used one of Windows' shortcuts (link here if you want to know about it). It could have been an accident, but I have noticed that at the moment this knowledge is quite current among our students. My approach is to gently remove the computer from the culprit and the rest of the class decides not to follow suit.

Could you move all your documents to the cloud?

Dear colleagues,

At the TTT today, I described to some colleagues the process of using Google Drive to store ones files rather than on a local disk (your PC, separate drive or H-drive on the school server). I have done it and would like to share the experience with anyone who is interested. Below are the questions we addressed in a slideshow, and below that an embedded document with the answers. They are Google documents (what else?), so will develop as we gain in experience.



Yikes! On an iPad, that document below seems to go on forever. Click the questions to go to the answers on this work-in-progress.

Blogging the Icy Tea News

ICY TEA

Dear all,

Welcome to the Icy Tea News. Many of you will know that I have tried a number of formats for Icy Tea: Google slides and the devicesquad wiki for example. In the spirit of experimentation, here is the latest venue for ICT ideas. You are reading this because you followed a link, but if you want a reliable way to keep up to date, type an email address into the box on the right-hand side and you'll get updates when something is posted (your address won't be seen by anyone and won't be used for any other purpose).

Blogs are an excellent medium for many sorts of online communication. As well as text, you can place pictures, videos and Google forms and documents, for example. Blog posts have dates associated with them, so they are arranged in chronological order. They can also be tagged and can be searched.

Last week, 100 Grade 9 students and 10 teachers spent a week in the valley of the Haute-Sûre. We recorded our experiences and communicated with home on a blog. It also had a gallery of photographs associated with it. A large number of students contributed and several teachers added photos. The link is below:

Grade 9 Adventure Blog

There are about 20 blog posts; just keep scrolling down. We didn't do it this time, but you could also use the blog for communicating with parents beforehand.

If you are going on a school trip and would like advice about setting up a blog, please let me know.

Steve Weatherell

Apps-itizers May 2013

Welcome to the Icy Tea blog with stories from the technology front at ISL.

Did you miss the Apps-itizers? Don't worry, there will be a next time.

On Friday after school, we held our second Apps-itizers session where colleagues showed an iPad app which would be of interest to others.

We're not sure how to spell Apps-itizers yet.

Apps-itizers is part of the Meet and Greet in the Library event at which Upper School teachers are introduced to the latest of the resources which are continually added to the collection. It is also a TGIF occasion: look out for the next one.
During Apps-itizers, volunteer colleagues show and tell about their App discoveries. Since it is a TGIF social event, we do not confine ourselves to educational apps. On Friday, we ranged from Geography through Worldwide Radio to Wine. Below are the apps which we presented. Click on the links for more info, or talk to the presenters.

ShowMe presented by Steve Weatherell. Upload a picture, record your voice describing  and annotating it and then share it with your students or colleagues. It's FREE.

Explain Everything presented by Tanya Irene. This app is very popular in one-to-one iPad schools. Teachers or students can record their presentations of ideas and share them.

TuneIn Radio presented by Nicki Crush. Travel round the world in sound with your iPad. From UK to Luxembourg to South Africa, listen to music and talk radio live. It's FREE.

Magazine iPad apps presented by Marion van Engelen. Many of the library's paper subscriptions are also available online. Read The Week, The Economist, and others on your iPad. See the library wiki for information about how to access them (ISL staff and students only).

Geo Master Plus presented by Zak Lawrence.
The ultimate Geography quiz. Do you know where the world's capitals are? Point to them on a map and earn points. Have fun as you learn.
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Instatube presented by John Ertel. Instatube is a full featured video player that supports YouTube, Vimeo, and Dailymotion videos allowing you to seamlessly stream content to your iOS device. You can create playlists for all your favorite movies giving you instant access to your most watched content.

Vivino presented by John Ertel. With your iPad or smartphone, scan the label of a bottle of wine and get information about it as well as rating it yourself. It's FREE.



MyScript calculator presented by Steve Weatherell. As a Physics teacher, this is the app I've been waiting for. Write the calculation with your finger on the iPad screen and get the instant answer (no more button-pressing). It deals with most of the functions we use, and it even reads my handwriting. If you want to email your calculation to someone, it does that too. It's FREE.


Thanks to Nicki, John, Zak, Tanya, Marion for their bravery and presenting skills; to Barb for lending us her library and Nancy for her great support.

After the Apps-itizers comes the main course.