The video option

Image above: The Windows Movie Maker


Related links
Geogsplace
Socialsense
Thebarton Senior College Moodle
Geographical thinking Scoop.it  
Spatial literacy Scoop.it  
History and geography Scoop.it 

Email contact: 
malcolm.mcinerney@thebartonsc.sa.edu


Videos of teaching moments

As demonstrated at a recent staff meeting, the video option when wanting to capture 'teaching moments' is certainly now easy.  We can capture up to 15 minutes of our lesson for students to watch for catch-up or reinforcement purposes. In 2014 there is an expectation that we have a go at using this technology and upload some of our important teaching moments onto Moodle, YouTube or blogs. Here is the process to get started over coming weeks to learn the technology using either a Flipcamera, digital camera or even your IPhone. 

Step 1: Upload Movie Maker onto your computer (unless you want to use one of the many Mac movie production programs i.e. IMovie).  Movie Maker is free and extremely easy to use in terms of format and editing tools. It is not the most elaborate movie program but do we need to make highly sophisticated productions? Personally, I just want a quick and easy program to put my movie into a format to upload to YouTube or onto my Moodle/Blog.

Step 2: Shoot the movie on your Flipcamera, digital camera or IPhone. Just put on a tripod and start recording. 

Step 3: Connect your camera/phone and locate your video on the device. To do so connect your camera or phone to your computer via a USB connection and navigate to the file on your device to see that the video worked OK. 

Step 4: Load your video file on your device  onto your hard drive. 
Save the video file onto your hard drive in a location you can easily access  .

Step 4: Load your video file into Movie Maker. 
Open Movie Maker and click on the right side of the screen where it says, "Click here to browse for videos and photos". 

Navigate to your video file on your hard drive and select.

Your video will now appear in Movie Maker. Use the edit tools as required.

Step 5: Save your movie on your hard drive in a location you can easily access. Click on 'Save Movie'on the right hand of the Home screen to save.

Step 6: Upload your edited video to the storage site as required (YouTube, DropBox or Moodle).

Stage 1 and 2 Society and Culture: a good option for many

Image above: Stage 1 and 2 Socialsense blog

Stage 1 and 2 Society and Culture at Thebarton SC

"A look at ours and other societies with connection in mind."

One Stage 1 Society and Culture class and two Stage 2 classes (one being the SACE ATAR) were conducted in 2013 at TSC. 

The Society and Culture subject is able to be designed to be as relevant and achievable as possible for our students. The flexible content and assignment structure is ideal for our students, with teachers able to provide a wide range of assessment tasks. 
In 2013 twenty three students commenced Stage 2 Society and Culture (non SACE ATAR class), 5 withdrew, 16 gained a passing grade and two left school in Term 3 but were still awarded a grade.
Of the 23, 12 were ESL students with a NAP background (3 of these withdrew), 3 were re-entry students with Anglo background (1 of these left)and the other 8 were re-entry students with an ESL background (2 of these withdrew and 1 left).   
The attached PowerPoint provides details of the course, a link to the classes SocialSense Blog and some work samples.

The Society and Culture courses are a great option for our students and are courses we should promote with the students successfully completing the Stage 1 Humanities courses.

New DECD resources on the Australian Curriculum

Image above: The new DECD resource on the Australian Curriculum.

Certainly worth a look! 

Over recent months the 'Teaching for Effective Learning' section of DECD has posted some useful materials on their "Making the Australian Curriculum work for us' resource to support the teaching and learning of the Australian Curriculum in SA schools. Here is a glimpse of the recently posted materials on the DECD site . They are certainly worth a look! 

As you can see below the resources deal with history  mathematics, English, science and geography and includes creative animations, broadsheets on the curriculum and 'talking heads'. I understand there will be plenty more useful things to come.  

The Story of the learning areas animation. An excellent animation on 'What is ... for'. 

Talking heads on the learning areas 

The curriculum's, year by year, all on one page in the Learning Area Explorer.

Sound bites from the public on their perception of the learning areas

Flowcharts for faculty pathways

Image above: Humanities: about being human!



Related links
Geogsplace
Socialsense
Thebarton Senior College Moodle
Geographical thinking Scoop.it  
Spatial literacy Scoop.it  
History and geography Scoop.it 

Email contact: 
malcolm.mcinerney@thebartonsc.sa.edu.au

Flowcharts to share

For our recent Open Night the following faculty flowcharts were created.  Feel free to promote the Humanities, English and Business pathways at Thebarton Senior College to your students.  Here they are:

Humanities

English

Business

A tool for contestable discussion in the Humanities

Image above: Poll Everywhere website

Related links
Geogsplace
Socialsense
Thebarton Senior College Moodle
Geographical thinking Scoop.it  
Spatial literacy Scoop.it  
History and geography Scoop.it 

Email contact: 
malcolm.mcinerney@thebartonsc.sa.edu.au

Poll Everywhere has a place in the modern humanities classroom to support discussion on contestable topics.  

Much of humanities teaching is not value free. It is almost impossible not to be political in some way when discussing humanities topics.

As Robert Butler was quoted as saying in the Economist in 2010:

“It is getting harder and harder in conversation to raise one or other of the most basic subjects in humanities—agriculture, glaciation, rivers and population—without a flicker of panic crossing the other person’s face. You are no longer talking about a neutral subject.”


Humanities has the potential to be relevant, dynamic and challenging for students in the classroom through providing the opportunity to develop a political frame around what is taught. How can we teach about water, population, migration and climate change for example without challenging students to place the discussion in a political context – that is, what do you believe is right and what are the justice and ethical beliefs that guide ones opinion on an issue. A digital tool that is a wonderful way to get students involved (all students, not just the vocal and uninhibited) in discussion of a contestable nature is Poll Everywhere. The brilliant aspect of this program is that it is easy to use, is anonymous and inclusive of all, can be used and developed in real time in the classroom and provides instant feedback (graphs, word walls etc). The program gives all students a voice so that they can express their opinion without ridicule or embarrassment. The resulting graphs and graphics provide data for class research and discussion and can be archived for comparison over time presentations. As a tool it is a great interactive way to involve the geography class in some high order thinking and discussion.

The brief video on the Poll Everywhere Home page gives an introduction to this free digital tool which can be used not only in the geography classroom but also with teachers in their professional learning in geography. Here is a Poll Everywhere document I recently used with a group of teachers working on the concepts in history and geography. All they had to do was type the URL http://www.pollev.com and start submitting their response to the questions in the document by using the codes (each code is unique and can be used only once specifically for the question - called a poll) generated by the teacher/facilitator of the question. Poll Everywhere is a great way to get discussion started in any gathering.  It is certainly worth the 30 minutes to get acquainted with the tool and make the learning more interactive for participants and create some inclusive and comprehensive data for contestable discussions.

Why we have so few women leaders

Facebook COO Sheryl Sandberg discusses why we have so few women leaders:    http://www.ted.com/talks/sheryl_sandberg_why_we_have_too_few_women_leaders.html 

In Julia Gillard's farewell speech she commented on the impact her gender has had on her success: 

"I've been a little bit bemused by those colleagues in the newspapers who have admitted that I have suffered more pressure as a result of my gender than other prime ministers in the past but then concluded that it had zero effect on my political position or the political position of the Labor Party. It doesn't explain everything, it doesn't explain nothing, it explains some things." http://www.abc.net.au/news/2013-06-26/julia-gillard-speaks-about-defeat/4783950

Sandberg refers to research that shows that "success and likeability are positively correlated for men, and negatively correlated for women."

By the time they graduate from university, more men than women see themselves as leaders. We encourage leadership qualities in men, but not in women. We need to stop calling little girls  bossy when they try to lead!      http://www.youtube.com/channel/UCgjlS2OBBggUw92bqzjAaVw

It seems Australian society has a long way to go in terms of gender equality.

Some technology sites to consider for our teaching

 Image above: Bec's top11 sites for technology in the  classroom

Related links
Geogsplace
Socialsense
Thebarton Senior College Moodle
Geographical thinking Scoop.it  
Spatial literacy Scoop.it  
History and geography Scoop.it 

Email contact:
malcolm.mcinerney@thebartonsc.sa.edu.au


Some technology sites to consider for our teaching

I recently ran a workshop with Bec Nicholas from Brisbane on technology in the geography classroom. Her presentation of her top 11 sites to do technology is something to consider for our teaching - they are not just relevant to geography, so feel free to explore!!. Just ideas to explore!  I am sure any of them you have already used but just in case ...

Two other great sites for technology in the classroom are:

• I recently came across a listing of top sites for humanities educators from a site called GoEd http://www.goedonline.com
• A blog from Larry Ferlazzo, a teacher in the US who continues to post some great teaching resources on his edublog

Please share with the faculty if you have any other technology orientated sites you use.