PPt presentation embeded here

After a little bit of research about slideshare I have worked out how to embed a Power Point presentation into my blog. Not that complicated after all, take a look at the link above :)

Here is the embeded presentation I used during my micro teaching session this Monday the 18th of November.http://www.slideshare.net/slideshow/embed_code/28468538

Whilst this presentation was created using the most basic features of Power Point (this was due to time limitations) following our ICT session on Monday I have learnt how to include hyperlinks and sounds to make the presentation more interactive.
If you take a look at my presentation you may see my hyperlinks but I have noticed on slideshare the presentation doesn't run exactly as it would on 'Slide view' in Power Point. This means that sentences on each slide do not 'fly in' and my hyperlink doesn't seem to work. Not in slideshare anyway.
I am welcoming any suggestions if anybody has any ideas on how I can get this to work.
I will also continue to explore further how to make a presentation even more interactive and I am yet to explore how to do this by using a Smart Board.

Thoughts following our ICT session this week

Learning about Interactive Whiteboards (IWB) tonight was very interesting. I have seen this used many times before in Secondary Schools across Swansea and Neath-Port Talbot and it has always been mainly the 'teacher's board'. Only once I have seen students interacting with the board, during a Science lesson for Year 8 pupils.

After our ICT session today I am able to visualise and understand more how an IWB can be a useful aid to learning as well as encourage interaction.
I have learnt the distinction between the SMART board and the Promoethean board and had a chance to practice using both of them. I preferred the SMART board or the 'touch' board mainly because it doesn't require a pen or a stylus to be used as a mouse.

I have noticed Mandy has included a couple of relevant academic readings on Moodle (haven't looked at them properly yet) where we can find out more about IWB and how they can be effective, active and interactive tools for us as teachers and not only. I also really like the box of tricks Mandy posted hence why I have stolen the link and included it here.

Hopefully by next week I will have time to download the SMART Notebook software and explore it a little bit. I would like to use it if not in my micro-teaching session next week then soon in one of my teaching session on placement.

PCET student

It's been a hard week.

Finding out I am not eligible for funding for the PCET course was quite harsh and a shock. It did make me seriously wonder whether I am able to continue the course or not.
Whilst this questions remains I am looking for a placement and hoping to be able to solve it all as I have found such a lovely group of people to learn and develop with :)

I have however had a great time looking for a teaching placement in Swansea with Mark. Amazingly our search was successful, it gave us ideas and I think it ended up with a placement for Mark :)

Hurraaay for student email and Moodle being back on, even if it is for reference only.
My use of Technology this week has mostly been email (Yahoo and MS Outlook) and Internet as well as a secure database I use for work to log various details from local business people and not forgetting mobile technology in the form of my Iphone that has become part of my life.
I have also been thinking about how I can use Technology in the micro teaching session coming up very soon.

So I remain optimistic about being able to continue on the PCET course. If anybody knows anything about student loans, I will very much appreciate your opinions and advice.

See you tomorrow,

Cristina

TED talks - Steve Jobs 'How to live before you die'

I have chosen this inspirational talk from TED because I love it. I have listened to it numerous times and I am never tired of Steve Job's life story.

 

Steve Jobs was the CEO and co-founder of Apple and Pixar and this talk is about amazing success, opportunity, risk, faith and talent. It's also about loss, friendships and loss of friendships, devastation and rejection. When you are down, maybe at the lowest point possible, the only way is up. You may never have the chance to get all the way up if you don't find yourself at the bottom...

 

I think we all need inspiration to be the best we can be and hopefully we will be excellent teachers to all our students now and in the future. I hope you will find this speech as inspirational and encouraging as I have.

Listening to Steve Jobs on TED I have learnt that following our curiosity and intuition is good and that to be truly satisfied in life you must do what you like. Letting go and going with the flow whilst having faith that things will turn out how they are meant to be seems to be a philosophy at the foundation of successful happy people.

 

I will leave you with one of the messages from this video:

 "KEEP LOOKING, DON'T SETTLE"

Mobile technology in the class today

Returning after the half term break was a little bit daunting as always but I really enjoyed today's IT class. Though the lack of Internet was a bit frustrating my first experience learning with a new piece of mobile technology - the ipad- was great.

 

I was handed a device that was sleek, nice to look at that stimulated my curiosity.

The Lenovo ThinkPad featured a lot of things I was familiar with from the volume buttons and built in camera to name a few to the Operating System Windows 8. Finding out about the device by exploration in the task set out by Mandy was a great way to activate and test my prior knowledge and play around with things until I discovered what I wanted. I had a few challenges in finding out how to perform a right click and how to close the device properly but I successfully found all the answers in the end.

 

I must admit I have used a laptop for years and have enjoyed using various smartphones ever since they have appeared. However when the technology boom brought to light ipdas, tablets , Kindle and lots more other devices I decided to avoid it all due to fear of becoming addicted to whatever these new things have to offer. I know everybody wanted a Kindle to read books but I purposely chose the hard copy of the book every time.

Today's IT class enabled me to see several great uses of mobile technology not only in teaching but also in learning, my own learning from now on not just for the PCET course but for any other things I may be interested in.

 

I must also mention the second task of the class because I really enjoyed it even though myself, Jon and Rachel got slightly distracted and focused on content rather than filming/ediditing/ using mobile technology.

I am looking forward to the next session and learning more with and about technology.

Cool Cat Teacher Blog - review of a blog that could be useful

I found this blog by chance whilst exploring the Internet and thought it is quite interesting.
It presents various teaching resources and ideas and even gives tips on how not to be a bad teacher, using real life examples from the blog owner: Vicki Davies.

I found the concept at the foundation of this blog very current and relevant to our world:
 flat classrooms.

This is all about joining students from all over the world virtually to become one large classroom and use social media to improve not only social life but also academic skills. There is a lot of information about Web 2.0 technology which we are using and learning about at the moment.


http://coolcatteacher.blogspot.co.uk/search/label/assessment