TeachMeet The Abbey
It was great to be back at The Abbey, Reading, for another Teachmeet. Over 18 months of organising Teachmeet events, i’m really pleased that the format has developed with someone for everyone – from the biggest technophobe to the cutting-edge ICT teacher.
Here follows a quick summary of the evening for those that missed out and some further links where possible.
Edward Upton (me) – Teachable
A quick reminder that we are still looking for contributors of excellent resources – you can find out more here.
If you missed the discount voucher code we gave out, send me an email or add a comment below and we can forward that on.
Heike Bruton – University of Reading
Heike talked to us about her work organising Professional Development Consortium in Modern Foreign Languages: http://prezi.com/gtwvaherjlkn/pdc-in-mfl/. The Professional Development Consortium is offering FREE workshops to language teachers. The project is run by secondary MFL teachers and researchers from Oxford and Reading Universities. It uses teaching and learning principles based on research evidence to bring about effective language learning in lessons, and thus raise attainment.
You can download and pass on the flyer about this CPD scheme to your MFL department or see more on their website.
Ros Johnson – Head of Science, The Abbey school
Ros showed us how she is building a facts collection about medical school admission on a wiki, updated by the sixth formers as they came back from interview. This means important details, like UCAS cut-off scores and interview procedure, can be passed on to the next year’s entries.
Peter Forest-Biggs, Farnborough Hill
Peter has run the Think Tank programme for Farnborough Hill, aimed at getting interesting speakers and events for G&T pupils. You can see some of the speakers they secured for almost no fees, especially with the House of Lords Peers in Schools scheme and an EU debate with speakers and good EU teaching resources provided by Civitas
Breakout – demonstration of Texas Instruments’ 3D visualisation trial at the Abbey
Impossible to describe unless you’ve seen it, but there’s a few pictures of the action!
Mark Ives – St. Gabriel’s
Classics that works!
Mark introduced himself as a low-tech teacher with a Year 9 classical civilisation set, struggling to keep their interest. Some of these students who got 11% in their year 8 exams – they are the real strugglers! There are two simple lesson ideas to inspire:
Ancient communications – how did a message from Troy reach the Greek mainland that the city had fallen, with no mobiles and no internet? Answer: beacons. Students discover how an equivalent message can be passed by hand signals all around the school in only 6 seconds, and challenges their view of the role of modern communications.
‘Modern Pentathlon’ – paper plane throwing, long-reach (how far can you reach across the floor using only one hand to support), coin flicking, arm wrestling. Teach about the Olympic discipline without it feeling like a chore!
Nisha Kaura, The Abbey
Nisha took us through a range of strategies to faciliate 21st century learning at The Abbey, including theme days, wikis and podcasting.
The full presentation is available to download here.
Katja Sass, Head of RE, Heathfield School
Katja gets her students to live their life by Kant’s philosophy for a week. Real experiential learning for Religious Education ethics module and getting away from the myth that RE is all about colouring and bible verses!
Hopefully we’ll have this guide up on Teachable soon.
Gideon Williams, Perrin’s School
Gideon took us on a whistle-stop tour of fun educational widgets and software:
Class Dojo – rewards based learning, Piktochart – infographics, ScreencastOMatic – create free screen graphs, Quipper – make money from making educational apps, Socrative – revision tool, Three Ring – allows teachers to capture student’s work in an app, Planner Live – free homework tool
You can see it all in more detail on Gideon’s Scoopit page
Angela Long, The Abbey
Last but not least, Angela explained how the highly successful ‘speed dating’ concept was extended to running a fun, fast INSET day.
The full presentation is available to download here.
May 16, 2012 at 12:51 pm | Charity, ICT in education, Teacher Meetup, Teaching Ideas, Training | No comment
Making Contributing Easier
We’ve been working hard this year to make Teachable a more pleasant website to browse around – redesigning every form, button and link to make it more intuitive.
We always like to hear feedback on the new designs, so please do add comments or email us direct.
Upload form
Resources with better titles, descriptions and tags sell more – so we have made it easier to complete and add this data when uploading a file. You can now see at a glance what is left to do before you can publish.
My Uploads
Contributors need to see where their resources are at, and get feedback on which ones are popular and earning them royalties. In the new My Uploads page you can see at a glance how many downloads you are getting, where resources are in the Quality Control process and sort by earnings and views.
Registration
If we know what school our members are teaching in, and in what country, it makes our recommendations more relevant and allows us to match similar teachers together. The new registration form is simplified to make that a 30 second process.
April 26, 2012 at 1:01 pm | Uncategorized | No comment
Quadrilateral quest
This is a fun interactive maths game for two pupils to play in front of the class. Perfect for both KS2 and KS3 classes, this maths resource could be used as either a starter or plenary. Select a quadrilateral given a set of properties, then choose one of the two versions. In the first one pupils have only five seconds to respond, while in the second they have twice the time. Just take your pick!
“A lively activity to open or close a lesson on properties of quadrilaterals.”
Review and buy this 5*-rated resource from only £5.90
Resource contributed by Susan Byrne
April 23, 2012 at 6:24 pm | Maths, Teaching Ideas | No comment
Mrs Byrne saw Australian Pink Floyd with her best lesson
“I love creating new maths resources, finding novel ways of teaching an old topic. The royalties are the icing on the cake.”
Susan Byrne, Maths Contributor
Have you got lessons you’d like to share with other teachers and earn money for? Then why not join over 600 other professionals in showcasing your lessons on Teachable and boosting your income. Susan contributed over 45 resources and bought tickets to see Australian Pink Floyd and The Hollies!
Teachable has over 280 Maths resources from Key Stage 1 to A Level – why not add yours? Uploading takes under 3 minutes. Get started today.
April 23, 2012 at 6:24 pm | Maths, Teaching Ideas | No comment
AS trigonometry
April is the month of revision and here’s a quality resource to help your students out when revising A Level Maths. AS trigonometry is a set of step-by-step trigonometry PowerPoints that fully cover the trig section of the C2 module. This is a brilliant time-saver you shouldn’t miss out on!
“These PowerPoints will save hours of work for any teacher. They have been well thought out and are animated where possible. They could also be used by students to recap.”
Review and buy this 5*-rated resource from just £5.90
Resource contributed by Chartwell Yorke
April 23, 2012 at 6:23 pm | Maths, Teaching Ideas | No comment
All about demographics
We are proud to introduce you to this great geography resource which successfully introduces children to everything they need to know about demographics. Suitable for KS3, KS4 and KS5 students, this animated PowerPoint presentation not only teaches children the UK’s progress through the DTM, but also includes a worksheet that prompts them to examine the factors which influence the fertility and mortality of different countries.
“I used this in A level Biology to unpick the knowledge required for BIOL 1 Human Populations. Students found it clear and easy to follow.”
Review and buy this 5*-rated resource now, for just £8.85
Resource contributed by James Yeoman
April 23, 2012 at 6:18 pm | Humanities, Teaching Ideas | No comment
Mr Yeoman’s going to see Blur with his best lesson
“You don’t have the sense that people are just taking resources without contributing themselves. The option to trade resources through the credit system is great because the more you contribute yourself the more you will get back.”
James Yeoman, Geography Contributor
Have you got lessons you’d like to share with other teachers and earn money for? Then why not join over 600 other professionals in showcasing your lessons on Teachable and boosting your income. James contributed over 55 resources and bought tickets to see Blur this summer!
Teachable has over 600 Humanities resources from Key Stage 1 to A Level and we’re always looking for more – why not add yours? Uploading takes under 3 minutes. Get started today.
April 23, 2012 at 6:17 pm | Humanities, Teaching Ideas | No comment
20 great events
This unique history resource is perfect for introducing KS2 students to the basics. It consists of informative illustrated fact files about various events from across the world, including ancient historical, religious and sporting events and notable inventions. 20 Great Events‘ files are all finished with a couple of questions, while additional maps and timelines provide material for another activity. What’s more, the sheets could easily be used individually to fit neatly into any topic of work.
“This is a very useful resource for teaching the basics and the children enjoyed doing them.”
Review and buy this 5*-rated resource now, from as little as £2.95
Resource contributed by Pearson Publishing
April 23, 2012 at 6:17 pm | Humanities, Teaching Ideas | No comment
Be inspired at TeachMeet Reading, 15 May
After last year’s successful teacher sharing event we are pleased to announce that we are again holding a TeachMeet @ the Abbey School, Reading.
Please join us on Tuesday 15 May 2012, from 5pm, for a twilight teaching and learning session that will see a mix of teachers presenting on what works for their classes to engage and inspire. You won’t disappointed!
If you have not attended a TeachMeet before there’s no pressure on you to present at the meeting (although we would always welcome anyone to give a short 2 or 7 minute presentation), just come along and take the opportunity to network with fellow teaching professionals, listen to people share ideas and have a drink and some nibbles. These are a great free CPD style of event that many people have come to and enjoyed. This is the second time the Abbey School will open its doors to everyone!
Please share this information with your colleagues and spread the word about the event. The more people that attend and present, the more everyone will get from the evening. Email me at allyson@teachable.co.uk if you wish to make a short presentation. Details of some of the other events and a few examples of what has been presented can be found on the Teachable blog.
Share this event on Facebook and Twitter or follow @Ally_Tweets for updates.
Register using the ‘Attend Event’ button. It only takes 2 minutes.
April 23, 2012 at 6:08 pm | Teacher Meetup, Teaching Ideas | No comment
Global Warming marketplace
If you have never tried a marketplace activity in a biology class before, now is the time to start! Consisting of a free lesson plan and a well rounded PowerPoint, this great resource will help all KS3 and KS4 students become experts in an aspect of Greenhouse Effect and Global Warming, then ‘sell’ their knowledge to ‘customers’. Great fun!
“The marketplace seems like an interesting way to organise students. I will try this in the future. Thanks!”
Review and buy this 4*-rated resource now, from just £2.95
Resource contributed by Henry Cordy-McKenna
April 16, 2012 at 7:34 pm | Science, Teaching Ideas | No comment
