never too old!

In my Foundation English class a couple of weeks ago I recorded a group of ladies (all in their 70's) talking about their Diwali Shopping expedition to Leicester, which was obviously a fantastic day out! One of the ladies looked at the recorder and said "Oh, its an ipod, I'd love one of those!"

they've been learning past tense since then, so after some present/past matching games and practice I replayed the recording, asking them to listen for wrong (or no!) use of past tense. The looks of revelation were a picture! absolutely no coyness about either being recorded or hearing themselves, just concentrating on the job in hand.

motto: 1. you're never too old 2. give every listening task a sharp focus

Isn't the internet a wonderful resource?

Remember Cassette Tapes?
Originally uploaded by Erica_Marshall

Last week I completed a complicated online form asking permission to transfer an audio tape we have onto CD. Amazingly the suppliers are still selling the tape, not CD, with their workbooks. Very kindly they have agreed we can do this so now the dilemma was - how do I do it? Googling "transfer audio tape to CD" immediately brought up nearly half a million suggestions. How did we find these things out before Google?

Your Number's Up

Wednesday evening, 12th November, a group of Maths tutors (collective noun unknown) congregated at the Archdeacon Centre to share good practice and discover more about the Standards Unit's ideas for improving learning in mathematics; a new approach to teaching which both empowers the learner and is effective in making sure what is learned is retained. This is achieved using 'challenging' rather than 'transmission' techniques, very much in line with the methodology current PGCE students are practising. It's all about collaboration with other learners and trying not to 'compartmentalise' maths so that all areas are 'covered'.

I am still coming to terms with this 'new' teaching method myself, but felt so excited about the possibilities I wanted to share them with other like minded tutors. I feel there can be an over emphasis of showing 'methods' followed by the learners trying related problems - this leads to short retention of information and an abundance of hand outs and worksheets, something that Lesley Wagstaffe mentioned would be frowned upon in an inspection.

Using these techniques, it seems more is less. I am approching my planning and teaching in a more creative way, which makes it much more enjoyable for all concerned. I'm so intrigued by this approach, I am trying them out with some of my literacy groups with some very promising feedback and results.

The pictures show the numeracy tutors in action trying out the Maths4Life challenge called 'The Car Race'. This particular puzzle has several ways in which it can be solved, but the emphasis is on discussion, collaboration and participation. The numeracy tutors used felt pens to solve the answer (the order of the racing cars). It would be great to run another session with a few more tutors. I think those that did attend found it useful to share best practice.

Interactive Whiteboards

069 of 366days
Originally uploaded by LJMoo

Have just linked the AdEd Interest Blog to my Flickr account which means I can now search for photos and put them on the blog easily just by clicking "Share this" and the Blog it. This image is to tell you that we had training on the Interactive Whiteboard yesterday evening. I've asked someone else to post about the training so I'm just posting an image for now. How clever is that - I've noticed that it automatically attributes the photo and includes a link so you can visit the original on Flickr.

Using Images from the Internet

I have just worked through this tutorial about finding free to use images on the internet. I think this is a really useful resource for tutors teaching IT and demonstrating how to download images as we have a duty to make our learners aware of copyright issues, anyone looking for images to use in documents/handouts/advertising, tutors using Flickr - do learners understand how their images could be used - are they making informed choices?

Personally I found this tutorial really useful and I think parts of it (particularly the images on Google activity) could be used with learners to make the point.

(The image above is by Thomas Hawk and was downloaded from Flickr under the Creative Commons BY licence)

Let me know what you think.

Benefits of Flickr

My learners yesterday were talking about looking at their art work on Flickr. Two are particularly pleased because they've read comments from people about their work and have now started looking at other sites and leaving comments themselves. Other learners felt excited about looking at Flickr after hearing the enthusiasm of their colleagues.

Not everyone in the group uses the internet, unfortunately in community centres we have no access. I was remembering what Alistair from NIACE was saying about a government commitment to increase access. I trust we'll be able to enable more of our learners soon to see their photos on the AdEd site, please!!!

Getting the cameras out

Had a great workshop with Leigh Preston this afternoon, where we learned how to take better photographs with our cameras. Leigh was the best kind of tutor - anticipated all our questions and readily shared his experience and one or two particularly valuable tips. One trick in particular was priceless and delighted us all but I'm not going to share it - you need to take a class with Leigh yourself!

Hopefully there will be a further opportunity to work with this very talented photographer - you know where you'll read about it first, don't you?

I've set up a Flickr set on the AdEd Interest group page. Click here to see the photographs as they were taken, no editing! Yes, we really are that photogenic...

Oh, and don't forget the link to the Sony camera manual can be found in the list of links on the sidebar.

English for migrant workers

Cornwall has done a great deal of work in this area. Have a look at their welcome pack which is written in several languages and has lots of useful information.

There is also a pack of related learning resources. Some are general, some customised for Cornwall, but could easily be adapted! I think this should be available from Truro College on request.

esol resources

here's a fantastic site with loads of resources - linked to the curriculum - for esol, literacy and numeracy!

Adding a link

Delighted that the Camel event went so well - so good to have a lot of positive feedback and even better to have new blog contributors.

One query this morning about inserting a link, like this, where the long, http www and all of that is hidden behind the words you want to use. Here's how:

Get the url of the website you want to link to and copy to your clipboard

Highlight the words you want to use as the link

Click on the green circle/chain link icon on the toolbar - it appears in between the font T and the left-align buttons.

Paste the url into the pop up box and save.

Voila!

For a better, illustrated explanation, go here

Hope that helps!